The new restaurant in the former Soju space on Atlantic in Brooklyn—which was once the original space of La Bouillabaisse, looks set to open in its latest form: La Pizzetta, a brick oven pizzeria. A new red awning is in place, some decal doohickeys showing the boot profile of Italy are in the windows, and a sign says the place is looking for staff. Thus, the pizza-saturated area's pizza-to-people ratio goes even higher.
As with Trader Joe's below, here is another Atlantic Avenue mercantile promise kept. The 12th Street Books folks, who have moved to Brooklyn, will open their new store on Atlantic near Henry Street tomorrow, Sunday, Sept. 21. They appear to be calling themselves the Atlantic Bookshop.
I post way too much about Trader Joe's.
Anyway, there's a sign on the door of the Brooklyn location now saying the outlet will finally open on Friday, Sept. 26. Late September, just like they promised.
Astro-turf, the nifty little Smith Street antique shop that specializes in kitschy '50s and early '60s stuff, has been closed for half a year with no sign of reopening. The shop shut down to execute some brick-work repair, to judge by the DOB records. I assumed the owners ran into trouble with the authorities somewhere and that's why the door remained shut.
I learned otherwise recently. A local shopkeeper who does business across the street told me the elderly lady who owns Astro-turf finished work on the place long ago, but has chosen to let it lay dormant. That the hipster shop was owned by an older woman came as a surprise in itself. I always thought the young women who worked inside owned it. Turns out they were only employees and have been allowed to go their own way in the months Astro-turf has been shuttered.
At least this is the story that I was handed, and the guy seemed to know his stuff. In the meantime, where am I supposed to get my retro cocktail shakers?
Ladies and gentlemen, the antique wooden escalators at Macy's Herald Square.
For a couple years now, I've pointed out that the facade and sign of Moishe's Bake Shop—one of the last true vestiges of old Second Avenue—has been in sad shape. In particular, I've warned that the small part of the sign that read "Second Avenue," just under "Moishe's," was hanging by a thread and was destined to fall to the ground. (See photo far below.)
No one heeded those calls. (It's a pretty safe bet that the owners of Moishe's don't read many blogs.) And sure enough—the "Second Avenue" has now fallen off. Who knows where it is. Let's hope the owners caught it and have it stored somewhere. But the storefront is still spattered with graffiti, and the awning is one of the most tattered I've ever seen. It's never extended. I doubt it works anymore. I love Moishe's. But for the love of Mike, have a little self-respect.
On E. 58th Street. Giddily incongruous or horrifyingly discordant? I'm willing to go either way.
I don't usually devote space to full items from other blogs, but Mr. Kurt Strahm, disconsolate blogger from Williamsburg, and author of Restless, matches my feelings about the crash of Wall Street so well, and with such trenchant humor, that I can't help but reprint his words here. Enjoy. (The picture is also his.)
Wall Street crash is great news!
The crash may be bad news for the High Stakes 3-Card Monte players, and the people who serve them, like chauffeurs, sex workers, artists, etc.
But it's great news for me. All the Wall Street workers will cancel their luxury condo plans and retreat to the hills of Connecticut, where they will break into the wine cellar and start guzzling investment grade vintage like it's Mad Dog 20/20, then break out their "survival gear" -- bulletproof vests with car alarms attached to the shoulders, chrome shotguns, barrels of pharmaceuticals, and a virtual U.N. of blow up sex dolls -- and wait till their testosterone level has climbed back into the red, then go outside and skeet shoot their investment grade Franklin Mint plate collection.
Once they and their money have left the city, it will be left to the rest of us, the sullen zombies who lurk in the shadows fighting pigeons for scraps.
All the new luxury hotels and condos in the Bowery will turn into fetid flophouses for down & out condo brokers, ranting dementedly about the amenities they used to offer: "Live chinchilla shoe buffer in the lobby! Squawk!! Fresh virgin's milk spa on the deck! Eeep! Creative Artists Agency screening room just off the lobby, which is not a reproduction, but the actual Palace of the Swiss Guards' Fighting Eunuchs XXV-Corps, purchased from the Vatican in 1942! Squawk!!"
Meanwhile all the luxury condos going up in Williamsburg will be turned into chicken farms, recycling centers, and solar powered hydroponic farms.
This means people like me, whose hands are untainted by money and not afraid of real work (like typing this post) will finally be able to live like royalty.
I plan to move into Karl Fischer's Ikon, pictured on top, where the bottom floor of the ant farm will be my bowling alley and driving range. I also plan to move into his NV building, pictured just above. There's something about its "plastic castle" look that appeals to me; not only does it afford an easily defensible, crenelated roof line, but it's close to the East River, and "tap water" will soon be a memory, like "FDIC insurance" and "government."
How will I pay for food? That's easy -- pretty soon employers in China, Russia and India will be outsourcing their jobs, and that $3 an hour will make me a king compared to envious neighbors outside my NV castle. All I have to do is figure out how to stay alive till those jobs show up.
You know, I bet there's a ton of food in the basement of that 20 Bayard condo, above right, where all those well fed Top Chef contestants are holed up...
Many of the shops and restaurants I write about on this blog have been around so long that I and everyone else take them for granted. The Old Town Bar, for instance, has always been there, has always looked like that, etc. But each one of these icons was once a humble, unassuming place not unlike many another business. When Old Town Bar opened, there were a lot of bars that looked like it, served similar food and drink, and attracted a similar clientele. Only its longevity and the disappearance of those competitors have made it special. (Well, that, and the fact that it's just damned great.)
Because things move much more rapidly in New York these days, and businesses stay around for only 20 years at best, it's hard to find contemporary examples of this phenomenon. But they exist. Once such restaurant that, in my opinion, slowly and quietly made the transition from mundane to mainstay is Cucina di Pesce, the basement-level Italian joint on W. 4th Street in the East Village.
I don't know how old Cucica di Pesce is, but it's been there at last two decades, because it was packing them in in 1988, when I lived in the East Village. I assume it opened a few years prior to that. Back then, there were plenty of poor, struggling young folks who lived in the area, and they flocked for the cheap prices and free pre-dinner mussels. (Those mussels often constituted my dinner.) In the years since, I've gone less often, but I regularly have occasion to walk past the eatery and it is always buzzing. It's trade has never fallen off, as far as I can see—maybe because the prices are still good and the mussels are still free.
Every now and then, they slap a new coat of paint on the walls, but the restaurant has nonetheless developed a faded charm. It feels old. The walk-down basement set-up is a classic, very Villagey set-up. The dining space feels, looks and smells like a million candles have been burned over the years. One expects there's an old lady stirring a pot of sauce in the back. The dishes they serve are somewhat old hat. As Italian food has become innovative and trendy, Cucina has stuck by it's somewhat staid, but still very good bill of fare.
Cucina found a formula that worked, stayed with it, didn't draw a lot of attention to itself, never asked to the the Next Big Thing, and kept on keepin' on. It never committed suicide by trying to expand too quickly and become a mini-chain with branches across Manhattan. And that's how you become a neighborhood landmark. I'd say that in ten years, it would be one of the places I review in my Eater column "Who Goes There?" except that I know who goes there. I always have.
I have no love for Wall Street firms. And I have no doubt that the blue-shirted, shiny-tied, steak-wolfing, Cristal-swilling, unscrupulous, book-cooking, condo-buying, debt-incurring, don't-regulate-me-I'm-fine, masters-of-the-universe, greedhead, asshole economy-screwer-uppers at Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch got exactly what was coming to them when their age-old companies went poof in the night. And I have even less doubt that their fast-and-loose, bonus-getting shell games will result in a horrific economic chain reaction that will result in either me, my wife, my friends or someone I know losing their job or pension or 401-K or home due to no fault of their/our own.
But this blog is about old New York, and the parts of it that are going, albeit not quietly, into that good night. And Wall Street investment firms, whatever else they may be, are old business in New York. Many are historic. And they deserve their due when they die. Sort of. And when you think of, they disappeared for the same reasons small old companies like Gertel's Bakery, McHale's and Gotham Book Mart did: unchecked, unexamined, fuck-everyone-but-me greed.
Henry Lehman, the founder of Lehman Brothers, died of yellow fever in 1855, only five years after he created the famous firm—in Montgomery, Alabama, of all places. Fortunately, he had his two Bavarian immigrant brothers, Emanuel and Mayer, to carry on. Carry on they did, doing a lot of cotton trading, which was big stuff at the time. Lehman Brothers moved to New York in 1958, and helped to found the New York Cotton Exchange in 1870. Emanuel's son Philip took over from 1901 to 1925, and collected a lot of art in his spare time. Philip's son Robert succeeded him, guiding the firm through The Depression, inheriting his father's art, and adding to the collection. He had a solo exhibition at the Louvre in 1957, and donated 3,000 works to the Met when he died in 1969. After that, no Lehman ran the company, and things were never the same. Lots of infighting and nastiness.
Compared to Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch was a mere baby. The firm was founded in 1914 by Charles E. Merrill, who was joined a little while later by his friend (awww, friends!) Edmund C. Lynch. In 1916, Winthrop H. Smith, who had a much less interesting last name, joined the firm. The firm bought Pathé Exchange, which became RKO Pictures. They later sold it to Joseph P. Kennedy and Cecil B. DeMille.
Lynch died in 1938. He was only 52. After that the firm bore no common or additional names. It was only Merrill Lynch & Co., out of respect to the late founder. Merrill survived until 1956. According to sources, he was one of the few who predicted the Stock market crash of 1929, and had tried to convince President Coolidge (good luck!) that trouble was a-comin'. In preparation, he divested many of the firm's holdings before the Depression hit. The company also became the first on Wall Street to publish an annual fiscal report in 1941, in an attempt to demonstrate to the public that it was above board. Merrill also published a "Declaration of Policy," which included the nine precepts. Among them: "The interests of our customers must come first" and "Investigate—then Invest." Hmmm. Guess the recent execs misplaced those precepts.
In his personal life, Merrill was known as "Good Time Charlie Merrill," a man-about-town who married three times. One thing for certain that he did right: he gave birth to poet James Ingram Merrill (1926-1995).
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