And So Roseland Ballroom Closes....

Roseland Ballrom, the iconic dancing and concert hall set in what was once the cultural center of the Universe (i.e. Times Square), is set to close April 7.

Roseland did not play a large part in my New York experience, not directly anyway. I have been, in fact, to Roseland a grand total of once. The occasion was an opening night party for a Broadway show opening. I danced. I can say I actually danced at Roseland.

Still, like so many New York landmarks that we take for granted, it did play a kind of contextual role. I often walked by it and thought to myself, yes, I live in a city that contains Roseland, a legendary dance hall and music venue, and has contained it for decades. Thoughts like that, however fleeting, are often what keep you going in New York. As E.B. White repeated often in his famous essay "This Is New York," I "did not attend." But I could have.

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Faded Times Square Ad Endangered Now That Astor's Porn Palace Gone for Good

Walking up Eighth Avenue in Hell's Kitchen the other night I noticed that the building I once referred to as William Waldorf Astor's Porn Palace was gone.

This was the building on the northwest corner of Eighth Avenue and 46th Street. One of the oldest structures left in the now-almost-completely-gentrified neighborhood, it had been girdled with a sidewalk shed for years, its windows all punched out and half-covered with plywood. For a time, I wondered if it would ever been taken down. Of course, it finally was.

The people who took it down probably only saw an eyesore. I doubt they had an inkling as to its history as a possession of the Astor family. From 1853 to 1921, the Astors owned this corner, as well as a number of properties on W. 46th. (The Astors once owned the building that now houses Barbetta.) They divested themselves of the area when it got a little too raffish for their tastes.

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Statues at Times Square's "Show Folks Shoe Shop" to Be Restored!

Last week, I posted an item about how the four statues that adorned Times Square's century-old I. Miller shoe store building had disappeared. The address is to be occupied by the Express clothing chain in the future, and there was some question as to whether the corporation would restore the two-story stone building's unique facade to its former glory—including the figures depicting Ethel Barrymore, Mary Pickford, Marilyn Miller and Rosa Ponselle in their most famous roles.

A women in the preservation community contacted me and said she would look into the matter. She wrote back with this good news:

I did find out that the building is being restored - by a VERY good firm. And that the sculptures have been taken down to be cleaned, repaired and re-installed - once restoration is completed. So...and I can't believe I am going to say this...but it appears that EXPRESS is doing the right thing. And doing the great building the honor it deserves.

Following Sandy, and the closure of Stage Deli, and the imminent closing of the Lenox Lounge, this is the best news I've heard in weeks.

Barrymore's, As It Was

One of the first closures I wrote about on this blog, back in 2006, was of Barrymore's, the Theatre District eatery. It was one of four longstanding, affordable bars on W. 45th Street and W. 46th Street that were needlessly and heartlessly torn down to make way for a luxury hotel plan that never happened. (Frankie & Johnnie's Steakhouse was the only survivor of that massacre.)

A reader recently sent me these photos of the lost theatre hangout. They're from 2000. Only 12 years ago, but seems like an age away.

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The Little Theatre, As It Was

Broadway's Little Theatre—known for the past 30 years as the Helen Hayes Theatre, and Broadway's smallest house—recently commemorated its 100 years (on and off) as a working theatre. I went to the ceremony, and to the luncheon afterwards at Sardi's. On the walls at Sardi's were various old photos taken at the time of the Little Theatre's birth.

Above is the engagingly simple box office area. The below photo gives a taste of the elegant downstairs sitting room.

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The Story of the China Bowl

Virgil's, the huge Times Square BBQ joint, recently got a big new sign and bright red awnings to go with it, I noticed. They also exchanged the stationary bowl-shaped sign at the top of the restaurant for a rotating oval one. That last renovation was a shame, because the bowl-shaped sign was all that remained of the address' former tenant. It was bowl-shape, you see, because it used to say China Bowl. That was the name of the Chop Suey palace that occupied this spot on W. 44th Street for decades until 1993, when the owners of family-style joints Ollie's and Carmine's bought it and converted it to Virgil's.

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Three Survivors

Here are a set of old triplets on W. 46th Street east of Broadway in Times Square. Aren't too many left in this area with this level of age on them. The trio is more remarkable in that they're obviously a set, all the same height and width, built at the same time. They may look different now in terms of facade, but take a close look at the window frames on the third and fourth floors (below). They're identical.

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Dining Choices in Times Square

Found this page of ads in an old theatre magazine from the late 1940s. My choice? As much as I like me some frogs legs Provencal, I want to go "where the cast and audience meet and act like gourmets."

FYI, the location of the Normandie Restaurant is now a parking lot. The China Clipper was supplanted by a shiny skyscraper. And Melody Lane is now the site of Fox News.

The Show Folks Shoe Shop in Better Times

I was browsing through an old magazine when I found this 1919 ad for the I. Miller shoe store in Times Square. The Miller building, which still exists, is familiar to all New York history buffs, owing to its one-of-a-kind statues along the south face, depicting Ethel Barrymore, Marilyn Miller, Mary Pickford and Rosa Ponselle, representing the arts of theatre, song, film and opera; and for its timeless motto, "The Show Folks Shoe Shop Dedicated to Beauty in Footwear."

It's been laboring as a garish TGI Friday's for some time, and the south facade has long been grimy and in need of a refurbishment. But this ad shows how clean and beautiful it once was: the statues white and free of bird dropping' and the windows—not cut in half by a TGIF floor plan—allowed to soar. We can also see that the wire cages on the second floor windows once held hedges.

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A Strip of Old Broadway

Is this patch of ugly old buildings, on W. 46th Street east of Broadway, the last ungentrified section of squeaky clean Times Square? It's certainly one of the last. And its surrounding by shiny new towers on either side.

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Salad Bar of the Damned

On second thought, I'm not that hungry.

On a side street just off Times Square.

Great New Neon Sign in Times Square

The Bowlmor Lanes sign on W. 44th is just the sort of wonderful neon placard that you want and expect  to see in Times Square. Must have cost them a fortune to make. Kudos to Bowlmor for going the extra mile. The bowler's arm, by the way, moves backwards and forwards.

Worst Marquee on Broadway

Not only is "Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark" the most beleaguered and probably worst show on Broadway, it has the poorest marquee.

Right before "Spider-Man" moved into the former Ford Center for the Arts/Hilton Theatre, the house's ownership changed and it became the Foxwoods Theatre. Here's the marquee Foxwoods came up with. What bulbs there are are small, and a good number of them are burnt out. And "Foxwoods" doesn't even light up! The sign barely registers on the retina, so dim a glow does it cast in the Times Square night. The marquee on the 42nd Street side of the theatre is even smaller and more pathetic.

Ray, the King of Beauty

I don't look for authenticity in Times Square much anymore. Maybe that's why I've never gone inside Ray's Beauty Supply on Eighth Avenue, despite it's enticing claim to be "The King of Beauty." My mistake. Turns out it's not a run-of-the-mill drug store, but equipped with one of the most eccentrically complete stocks of beauty and bathrooms supplies in town—more than 10,000 different items—most at good prices. They have your regular shampoos, creams, combs, curling irons and hair dryers, but also the fancy schmancy, serious stuff you see at hair salons. They seem to be fairly renowned for their hairdryer selection, and also do a fair trade in wigs.  They even repair hairdryers, which is odd in this day and age.

The shop itself is a curious in the way old New York shops are. (Ray has been around for 55 years.) There's an old barber chair just inside the door. There's a flashy neon sign inside. The staff are obviously lifers and have that kind of take-it-or-leave-it attitude. And then there's this sign:

A New Low For Times Square

In an area already populated with obscene "stores" dedicated to merchandising the most horrifying junk food known to man, the Pop-Tarts Cafe (only just noticed by this person) represents a new low. I thought there was no place one Earth where I could feel more nauseated than I do at the M&M store. I was wrong.

The people employed in this cafe seem awfully embarrassed. I suspect they know they are participants in a terribly disgusting enterprise. I can sort of imagine the kind of person who buys an M&M t-shirt, or a Hershey's hat. But who in their right mind wants the wear Pop-Tarts apparel?

There's a cafe with a menu that out to be against the law, such a nuisance to public health it is. Pop-Tart kebob? Pop-Tart pizza? They're all just excuses to eat more than one Pop-Tart at a time.

But, if you've always wanted to see bathroom instructions on the proper disposal of sanitary napkins printed on the image of a Pop-Tart, well, look no further.

Times Square's Rum House to Close

Scratch one more of the few affordable old bars left in Times Square.

The Rum House, long embedded inside the Edison Hotel, on W. 47th Street, will close by the end of the years. They lost their lease.

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Applebee's Sign Kicking It Old School

I may be utterly skewered for saying this, but there's something about this Times Square Applebee's sign I like.

I know Applebee's is the very embodiment of the homogenization/deculturalization devil this blog rails against on a daily basis—is there a more un-New York restaurant that anodyne, unctuous Applebee's—but the structure and style of this sign is very much in keeping with the kind of vertical neon sign one would have been common in Times Square in the 1940s and 1950s, right down to the arrow pointing you in the right direction. The restaurant it points you to is awful. But the sign that does the pointing isn't.

Frankie & Johnnie's New Ground Floor Bar Is Open

The new ground floor bar at the old Times Square steakhouse Frankie & Johnnie's is officially open. It opened last Thursday.

My hopes that the bar—which replaced the classic, hidden, upstairs bar—would be kinda cool have been dashed. The decor is as run of the mill as possible. Brick wall, small wooden bar with the usual liquors, usual stools, TV always on, even a friggin' metal coatrack in the bar. And it doesn't greet the street the way I thought it could. The doors are half open, and the staff of three bored young slavic women just watch Beyonce on the TV all the time. There's no buzz, no life.

Also, people now pass through the bar to get up to the restaurant, as the small bar space is connected to the skinny old stairwell that leads to the second floor. So the neat, secret, speakeasy feeling of entering through that narrow doorway is gone.

One additional note: you might want to watch your money here. I was told that all the drafts (except one) were all $6. Then I was charged $7. And when I gave the woman a $20, she gave me change back for a $10. Call me cynical, but I think she knew what she was doing. (Just having no luck in bars this week.)

New Frankie & Johnnie's Ground-Floor Bar Still Work in Progress

I thought, based on a recent visit to Times Square, that the old steakhouse Frankie & Johnnie's new ground-floor bar would be open for business by now. But no. Workman are still touching up the outside. The doors are in now, though, one of them bearing the joint's name.

Meanwhile, Down at Street Level

Here's the big old ugly, flashy, kinetic American Eagle building on 46th and Seventh, where the old Howard Johnson's used to be.

But cast your eyes down, down, down to the sidewalk and you find this—a wonderful, grungy old newsstand from the Times Square of days gone by. Cemusa hasn't gotten this one yet.