A Final Visit to Joe's Dairy

Joe's Dairy closed on Saturday, May 11, after 60 years of doing simple and honest business in SoHo. The closure was the owner's decision. He's decided to continue on doing only wholesale business, not retail. So there's a chance you may still get to eat Joe's peerless cheese at a local restaurant, or buy it at a local store. But where? That remains to be determined.

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Joe's Superette's Prosciutto Balls Found

I'd heard scuttlebutt and seen Internet reports that the famous prosciutto balls of the shuttered Joe's Superette were being made at a Soho pizzeria called Prince Street Pizza. I've been in deep mourning ever since that low profile Carroll Gardens institution closed last year. So I was curious.

I didn't manage to get to the pizzeria until a few weeks ago. I saw prosciutto balls on the menu on the wall. And when I saw a laminated New York Times article about Joe's (below) on the counter, I was hopeful. But it wasn't until I saw Louie—looking straight-jacketed in an official Prince Street Pizza polo and baseball cap—that I knew it was all true. Louie was the guy who made the balls at Joe's, taking over the duties after his boss Leo Coldonato—the inventor of the delectable treats—got sick.

I had a true Brooklyn encounter with Louie. I greeted him, told him I used to go to Joe's a lot, and had heard the balls had migrated there. He didn't betray a glimmer of recognition or gratitude; just shrugged his shoulders and said, "I don't remember you," and walked away.

I ordered a batch of prosciutto balls. They were as I remember. Yet, somehow different. Bigger, and richer with ricotta. I recall eating six very easily at Joe's. Here, four of the balls nearly overwhelmed my senses. Still, very good. Though not exactly the same.

I also learned a bit of Joe's history from Louis. I always assumed that Joe's closed because Leo died. That's not exactly true. Louie said he closed because the landlord hiked the rent, indicating he would have continued on if the rent had stayed the same. He also said a Greek restaurant was going into the space.

Lost City Asks "Who Goes to Lupe's?"

I don't know why it never occurred to me before to spotlight old standby Mexican joints like Lupe's, The Hat and Maryann's in my "Who Goes There?" column. I guess it's because I just take them for granted and never think of them disappearing. Also, all three were newish when I moved to New York. So I don't think of them as old, because to do so would me that I am, uh, old. Oh well. Time to face up to it: Lupe's has been around for 25 years. Here's my column:

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Mystery of "Mary" Solved

Years ago—back in April 2008—I wrote about a little SoHo building from the 1860s that fell to the wrecking ball to make way for the swank Crosby Street Hotel. It was a sweet little thing. At the time I described it as "just the sort of small, understated, graceful, ancient, irreplaceable building New York is losing by the dozens." 

I also asked "how can we possibly allow the structure to be flattened until we discover the story behind the word 'Mary.' Cornices, when they bear a message, typically proclaim the year of construction, or the builder's last name. No one puts a first name on the cornice. Surely, this was a romantic gesture of some sort. The architect or developer meant to honor his wife or sweetheart, or perhaps a cherished daughter." (The photo is courtesy of Curbed. It's the only one I've ever seen.)

My supposition proved correct. The building was owned by one Charles J. Ursitti, a billiards historian who lives in Florida. Yes, a billiards historian. Today, I received a message from Charles' cousin. He saw my post, and asked Charles about "Mary." "He said it was the builder's wife from the 1800's," reported the cousin.

How unspeakably sweet. I miss the cornice even more now.

A Final Visit to Savoy

My wife is an art critic. So, when we first started dating in the early '90s, we spent a lot of time in SoHo, which was then the heart of the New York art world. A lot of the galleries and bars and restaurants we frequented back then are long gone. But Savoy was there then, and it's there now. But it's days are numbered. Savoy will close for good June 18. Chef Peter Hoffman, who founded it as one of the first farm-to-table restaurants in the city, has decided to renovate and reopen as a more casual eatery.

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Good Things Go, Bad Things Stay

You have to sort of wonder how the scrappy SoHo flea market lasted this long in a hostile environment. A remnant of the nabe's artistic, scruffy past, it's now finally headed for the gallows.  Curbed points out "there's a fresh real estate listing out there for the lot at Spring and Wooster." Gosh. I hope they put up a glassy condo or something.

Meanwhile, the Greenpoint Food Market, which everyone loves, and the Times said was wonderful, needs to be shut down, the DOH decided. Well, of course it does! Who wants a wholesome gathering of locally made, delicious foodstuffs? Not me. I want all those happy creative cooks to go through official channels until their expenses skyrockets and they can pass the cost on to me!

Lost City's getting tired. Lost City's city is lost.

Building Trumps View

I've pretty much been ignoring Trump SoHo, because I always ignore that tackless vulgarian and his horrendous, taste-free, ego-trip construction projects. But I was walking across Sixth Avenue, look south and saw this. Kind of insists itself upon you, doesn't it? How did a building that tall ever get approved in such a low-lying neighborhood?

Comment of the Day

Regarding the odd-looking renovation of 143 Spring Street (the Crocs building), the knowledgeable-sounding Amalgam writes:

The face bricks on the Spring Street façade demonstrate the many alterations the building has endured incorporating salvaged bricks originally sourced from the Walter A. Underhill Brickyard, Croton Point, NY, and the Hutton Brick Company, East Kingston, NY. More than half of the restored façade uses the original face bricks, which were recycled as they were in several previous reconstructions occurring between the Civil War and the mid twentieth century.

The Spring Street Façade having been found unstable by the Department of Buildings during repairs was carefully dismantled and many of the original bricks retained for reuse. 

The contrast of the new and old bricks tells the story of the neighborhood and of how buildings endure – reassembled and restored.

Crocs Store Looking a Little Over-Scrubbed

For a long time there, 143 Spring Street, a wooden Federal-era building in SoHo, was looking pretty forlorn, which nobody taking care of the beauty. Then, recently, the Crocs corporation, which has leased it, announced an ambitious plan to spruce it up and bring it back to form.  

I checked it out this week. It certainly is seeming better. But it's looking a bit antiseptic, a tad too scrubbed clean. Is it me, or does that brick wall look like it could be on the side of a brand new condo in Queens? Maybe that's the original brickface, after all the coats of paint were stripped from the facade. I don't know. But it doesn't look two centuries old, that's for sure. 

And then there's the Crocs sign. Nothing to be done about that.

Shave and a Monkfish

The other day, passing by Savoy, the fine SoHo restaurant at the corner of Prince and Crosby, I noticed, encased in plexiglass at the eatery's corner, an old metal column painted to look like a barber's pole.

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The Most Untouched Block in SoHo?

I was walking through SoHo yesterday and feeling pretty well alienated. Chain store after luxury store after chain-luxury store. Unless you're on a shopping mission and have a credit card in your pocket with a high limit, there's little reason for a New Yorker to hang out in this neighborhood.

Then I turned the corner at Prince and West Broadway, and I breathed a little easier. Could the short block of Prince between West Broadway and Thompson be the most untouched in this very-changed area? At the corner of Thompson and Prince, you have the old standby bar Milady's, that hangs on year after year, despite a lack of glitz and glam. Across the street is the old M & O Market ("Imported and Domestic Products"), one of the few sizable groceries in the neighborhood.

A couple doors down is the frowsy Cafe Borgia, pretending since 1975 that its still 1963. And across the street is Vesuvio Bakery, which, though it's now a branch of City Bakery, still retains its classic facade and uses its basement ovens. The stretch has a so much more relaxed atmosphere that the surrounding blocks.

Crocs Seeing After 192-Year Old 143 Spring Street

For some time, I've bemoaned the sad state of 143 Spring Street, a wooden Federal-era building in SoHo, and wondered why the hell the Crocs corporation, which has leased it, wasn't taking care of it.

Curbed brings encouraging news that the shoe people are finally doing their duty with the nearly two-century old gem.

143 Spring has had its south face re-bricked (salvaging some of the old stuff) and replacement wooden clapboards have gone up on the west and north facades. In place of a one-story 1925 garage on Wooster Street is a new addition fitted in finned glass and zinc-coated panels, whose height and massing will, in the words of the Landmarks Preservation Commission, "subordinate to the Federal style building while reinforcing the street wall along Wooster Street."

The design for the Croc-ateria is from architect William J. Rockwell and is "part restoration, part renovation" that "maintains the classic proportions of Wooster Street and the rest of the SoHo Cast Iron District." Interiors will be handled by the classic Croc crew from L & M Associates out of Eden Prairie, Minnesota.

Sounds good. Or, at least, not too bad. I was worried whether they were going save the wonderful wood-frame bay window on the south side. However, based on a great tax photo of the building Curbed published (below), it does not seem that window was original and, who knows, might have been put in by Tennessee Mountain, the bbq joint that used to be there.


Below is the building in sadder days, a couple years ago.

Spring Street, Canyon of Lost Signs

My Lord, there is a heavy concentration of faded signs on the block of Spring Street between Sixth Avenue and Varick. Here's a view, looking east, in which you can see two of them at once, a huge vertical advertisement for what looks to be Garvin Machine Co., and a bigger, but much younger sign for Baldwin Belting, a Goodyear carrier. The latter sign dates from the 1940s.



Looking west from mid-block, meanwhile, you are entreated to patronize Thurston and Braidich. It doesn't say, but they were gum importers. That's right. Gum importers. The sign dates from 1902, according to Frank Jump.

The End Comes for 74 Grand Street

It had to come someday.

The Landmarks Commission decreed today that 74 Grand Street, which is only still upright due to some huge metal girders propping it up on one side, will have to come down.

That's what the owners have wanted to do all along. The cast iron building has been leaning as much as 30 inches since 2004. That's when heavy rains washed out enough of the dirt from the lot next to this building that it shifted. The people who lived there had to leave. It's been empty ever since.

The LPC dictated that the owners would have save and store the cast-iron façade. (Where do you store a thing that size?) Yeah, I bet the owners are really into that chore. They'll take great care in saving the facade.

And Some Good News As Well

I guess it can't all be bad news on this hot and gloomy Monday.

New York, via Eater, reports that, while SoHo's classic Vesuvio Bakery will never again greet another sunrise as itself, it will as least not lose its identity as an honest-to-goodness bakery.

Birdbath, City Bakery's line of small eco-conscious offshoots, will open its third location (not counting the High Line) in the old Vesuvio Bakery space, saving it from tear down or major conversion. The 90 year-old neighborhood staple closed early last summer, professing to reopen after a routine oven cleaning... It was a sad loss, but in a day and age where it could have easily be turned into a Qdoba or a Baoguette, it's a relief that Birdbath's Maury Rubin is taking it: "It’s an heirloom, it’s a treasure, it means the world...That I have a chance to have my bakery be in it is a gift.” This will be the first Birdbath with a made-to-order menu.

I like Rubin's sentiments. Perhaps he is the man to carry on the torch. Here's to him and his fine instincts.

Sign of Our Times

Grub Street uncovered that the late, great SoHo bakery, Vesuvio, is now living a spectral life as part of a Morgan Stanley Smith Barney ad:

The scene you see here (of a fictional employee walking in with a bundle of baguettes that he then puts in the window) is part of a montage accompanied by a voice-over saying, “Where will you find the stability and resources to keep you ahead in this rapidly evolving world?” Ironic.

To say the least.

I can't think of a more bitterly pointed illustration of wronged priorities of the New York we now live in. Independent businesses of long standing—businesses which truly contribute to their neighborhoods, and the cultural fabric of the City—tumble one after another, and no one in power lifts a finger or sounds the alarm. Meanwhile large, rapacious economy-despoiling money machines like Morgan Stanley prop up the corpses of the same indy shops to push forward further confidence schemes, trading on the integrity and purity of stores like Vesuvio—an integrity a Wall Street brokerage couldn't begin to approach.

Cynical. Hypocritical. Ugly.

Some Stuff That's Interesting

Is this the oldest photo ever taken of New York City? Anyway, it sold for $62,500. [City Room]

Life is a Bagel Buffet, old pal. Come to the Bagel Buffet. [Greenwich Village Daily Photo]

To mark a decade of Forgotten New York, the blog takes a long ride down a dark tunnel. [Forgotten New York]

People won't stop posting fliers. And that's a good thing. [EV Grieve]

Old sign revealed on Houston. [Bowery Boogie]

Some nice pictures of the Queensboro Bridge, now celebrating its 100th Anniversary. [Musings of an Irate Communter]

And more on the Queensboro Bridge. [Bowery Boys]

New, But Not Good, News About Vesuvio

The New York Times digs into the Vesuvio Bakery mystery in tomorrow's paper, trying to figure out what's been going on with the iconic Soho storefront in the several months since its closed last year (and nicely linking to some Lost City coverage in the process).

Here's what they found out, and none of it's very encouraging:

Finally, near the end of last month, a “for rent” sign appeared in the window, and earlier last week, a real estate broker could be seen examining the space for clients who, he said, were interested in opening an epicurean deli.

One issue underlying these seemingly mysterious twists and turns is a dispute involving the bakery’s owners and the landlord of the six-story building whose ground floor the business occupied.

“My first choice would be to have continued on and have a historic bakery in a historic building,” said William Korn, a part owner of the building who lives in Colorado. “That’s not how it worked out.”

On Wednesday, under a court- ordered eviction, the bakery’s lock was changed, the landlords’ lawyer said.

So, Vesuvio won't be coming back after all. All we can hope is that the new tenant keeps the great storefront in tact, and does something in the line of food service.

Lost City's Guide to SoHo

The very idea of a history-minded walk around SoHo is depressing. The buildings are there, certainly. Cast-iron masterpieces are in surplus. But nothing of great value lives inside (great cost, yes). No ancient merchants. No artists. No tradition. Just commercial chain-store mundanity. Rough and tumble SoHo once teemed with industry. In the 1970s and 1980s it found a new pulse as a haven for art and artists. Shopping and restaurants followed, which was fine, as long as the culture remained. But the artists decamped for Chelsea in the 1990s, leaving only Pottery Barn and J. Crew to bask in the reflected glory of the Belgian Blocks. There's very little living history to choose from here, but what there is I list below.

JOE'S DAIRY: For whatever reason, the greatest density of old (mostly Italian) SoHo institutions lies on Sullivan Street, beginning with Joe's Dairy, an ancient cheese shop near Houston Street. They make sandwiches, too. The Catholic church ST. ANTHONY OF PADUA is across the street. It was built in 1888 and remains the center of Italian life in this neighborhood.

PINO'S PRIME MEAT: Just across the street and down the block is Pino's, a small butcher that does things the old way. There's been a butcher here for a century. Pino Cinquemani began his occupation of the address in 1990. He obviously didn't change much about the look of the place.

PORTO RICO IMPORTING COMPANY: Turn left at Prince Street and then right on Thompson for half a block. The 101-year-old, family-owned Porto Rico has four shops in Manhattan, but this odd, narrow, aging storefront is the charmer for me.

FAMOUS BEN'S PIZZA: Continue south. Ben's has been at the corner of Spring and Thompson for, well, not forever, but what seems like forever. It's a good source of an inexpensive snack in ritzy Soho, and there's something about the fresh tomato and onion Sicilian slice. Without it, SoHo doesn't really have a neighborhood pizzeria, which would be a crime. No neighborhood should suffer that.

MILADY'S: Head back north to Prince and cross Thompson. On the corner is a rare bar and restaurant in Soho that won't piss you off with its shallow trendiness. Cheap, too.


VESUVIO BAKERY: Next door to Milady's, painted as bright green as a spring leaf, is Vesuvio. Who knows what's going with this classic bakery, one of the ten best-preserved in the city (on the outside, anyway). It's been shuttered for months, after a brief life as a cafe. In its glory days, it was owned by community activist Tony Dapolito, the unofficial "Mayor of Greenwich Village," who died in July 2003. It had a spartan glory, bread in the windows, bread inside. No decor. The business was bread and Vesuvio was all business. Still nice to look at, though.

FANELLI'S CAFE: Walk west to the corner of Mercer. As far as I'm concerned, this 1847 tavern is the heart and soul of SoHo. It had a phase as a speakeasy during Prohibition. The Fanelli family owned it from 1922 to 1982, and the dark-wood bar, which serves food and is always crowded, retains the name. Everything about the place, from the neon sign, to the diagonally framed entrance, to the bathrooms, is special. A place to while the day away in.

DEAN & DELUCA: OK, you can hate me for it, but I'm going to include the ultimate Yuppie and tourist hangout on this list, only because, as far as culinary history in America is concerned, the shop truly is historic. Nobody was doing the fancy-schmancy-artisan-made-cheese-oil-and-everything jazz before Joel Dean, Giorgio DeLuca, and Jack Ceglic the idea hatched the back in 1977. And everyone thought they were crazy to hang out a shingle in nasty old SoHo. Sure, D&D was sort of like Patient Zero when it came to the malling of SoHo. They deserve the rap for that. But that doesn't discount what they accomplished. The building dates from 1883.

THE PUCK BUILDING: Continue on to Lafayette and turn right to Houston, crossing cool little JERSEY STREET. The Puck, to me, is one of the grand architectural paperweights that keeps the changing canvas of SoHo in place. A wonderfully beautiful Romanesque Revival landmark, it was built between 1885-1893. Puck magazine gave it its name. Spy magazine carried on Puck's tradition here in the late '80s. The gold statue of the mocking Puck is just the right antidote to the hoards of clueless consumers forever milling below.

THE BROADWAY AND BROOMS PANTHEON: Walk back to Broadway and head south to Broome. At the corner is a grand cast-iron building. This was built as the E.V. Haughwout Building. Many critics consider it the crown jewel of cast-iron architecture. But I mainly point it out because it was here that Elisha Otis—who gets my vote for one of the most human-life-changing individuals of all time— installed his first passenger safety elevator in New York City. Think of it.

THE PERFORMING GARAGE: Walk west on Broome to Wooster and jog left for a bit. The faceless, undistinguished brick structure at No. 33 is The Performing Garage, long home of American's greatest avant garde theatre company, The Wooster Group. Surely, Spalding Gray haunts it now.

KENN'S BROOME STREET BAR: Back to Broome and left to West Broadway. Kenn's was a pioneer in wild SoHo back in the 1970s, setting up shop in this 19th-century building, a former hotel when SoHo was the northern edge of the city. It remains what it was then: cozy, relaxed, a nice neighborhood bar. Next door is the CUPPING ROOM CAFE, which also dates from the 1970s, but is a little more upscale.

EAR INN: After passing all those twee boutiques and chain outlets and pricey restaurants, and fighting your way through the tourists, you'll want a drink. So get to Spring Street and head as far west as you can go (almost). The weirdly named Ear Inn is old, old, old. There's been a bar here forever. It's blue collar and they don't like cell phones. There's food, too, but mainly there's enough old-world atmosphere to choke a salty sea captain. Thank God.

Good News for Lithuanians—For Now

When the Archdiocese of New York started swinging the wrecking ball at various churches a couple years back, one of the most vociferous and prolonged protests came from the tiny congregation of Soho's Our Lady of Vilnius Church, a historic house of worship that once served a thriving Lithuanian community.

That community has some small reason to smile today. An appellate court has temporarily blocked the Archdiocese's effort to demolish the building at 568-570 Broome Street, near the entrance to the Holland Tunnel.

The church's journey to this momentary victory has been a long and tortured one. Per City Room:

The archdiocese announced on Jan. 19, 2007, that the church would close, saying that average weekly Mass attendance was fewer than 100 people and that no weddings and baptisms had been celebrated there in years. It padlocked the church on Feb. 26, 2007. But 15 or so protesters continued to gather every Sunday for a prayer vigil, at which they held signs, ate Lithuanian rye bread, propped up white crosses in the front of the church and prayed for its reopening.

In April 2007, the Lithuanian president, Valdas Adamkus, visited the Vatican and asked Pope Benedict XVI to intercede to save the parish.

In May 2007, a state judge, Shirley Werner Kornreich, rejected a lawsuit by parishioners who argued that the archdiocese had no right to close the church. Then the parishioners filed another lawsuit, arguing that under state law, the archdiocese could not demolish the church without meeting with the church’s trustees.

Similar lawsuits, raising related legal issues, were brought by parishioners at St. Brigid’s Roman Catholic Church, at 119 Avenue B in the East Village, facing Tompkins Square Park. That church, built by Irish immigrants who fled the potato famine in the 1840s, closed in 2001 because of structural problems, and the final Mass, in the basement of the Catholic school next door, was in 2004.

In May 2008, an anonymous donor came forward with $20 million to save St. Brigid’s. In August, the archdiocese withdrew its application for a demolition permit. The litigation is now expected to be settled.

On Nov. 18, 2008, Justice Louis B. York ruled against the parishioners at Our Lady of Vilnius, citing, in part, the earlier decision by Justice Kornreich. Under state law, courts in general defer to church hierarchy in making decisions about real property.

On Dec. 23, 2008, the archdiocese’s demolition company, A. Russo Wrecking, sent letters to landowners stating that demolition was to take place “in the near future.” But now, the Appellate Division of State Supreme Court has issued a stay, indicating it would hear the appeal of Justice York’s decision.

Do I think the plaintiffs will prevail? No, I do not, sad to say. Governments do not like to mess with religious authorities. It's bad politics, even if it turns ecclesiastical leader into virtual dictators, above every law, petition and protest. The Archdiocese of New York has always been a big bully, and they will not back down in this instance, any more than they would in any other.