The Tale of the OTHER Max Garfunkel

Yesterday, as I was searching for information of the crooked banker of yesteryear, Max Garfunkel, of the firm of Garfunkel and Tauster, I kept turning up information about another Max Garfunkel. This Garfunkel was quite the opposite type. He was a classic, hard-working, honest, immigrant entrepreneur.

For some years in the early part of the 20th century, this Max Garfunkel was a well-known figure. He was the owner of the Busy Bee Restaurants, an early local chain of lunch counters around New York. The chain was well known enough in the 1910s for the New York Times to refer to it in articles without explanation. 

Max Garfunkel sailed from Kishivev, Moldova, to New York in 1888, with fifty cents in his pocket. He was 13 at the time. According to his son Louis, who later wrote a book about running diners, Max simply announced to his family one day that he was going to America—alone—and that was that. He spent his first night in this country sleeping in an empty open wagon on the New York waterfront not far from where he had been put ashore from Ellis Island. The next day, he roamed the lower part of Manhattan seeking work, and before nightfall had a job in a saloon and a home with the old German owner. 

He saved his money ($7,000 in all, a massive sum at the time) and, in 1893, started his first restaurant at 3 Ann Street, at the corner of Broadway, just yards from City Hall and all the Park Row newspapers. (That's the basic intersection, above.) Sandwiches, coffee and pie were all two cents. Max held to those prices for 20 years. 

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Manganaro Grosseria Italiana Closes for Good

Damn.

I passed by Manganaro Grosseria Italiana just last week, and almost went in for a sandwich. But didn't.

And now it's gone forever.

It's been on the books for a year now that it was on its way out. But it lingered. Not anymore. According to JVNY, the tables have been removed, the shelves emptied, and a note on the website reads, "As of February 27, 2012, Manganaro Foods will no longer be open in New York City. We will let you know when we re-open." (Looks like J. made the same mistake of not visiting when he got a chance.)

Thus ends a 121-year run.
Here's an account of a visit I paid last year about this time.

The Felonious Tale of Garfunkel and Tauster

I was walking down the lower stretch of Clinton Street on the Lower East Side when I gave 67 Clinton a once over and noticed its interesting cornice pronouncement: Garfunkel & Tauster Building. Who they?

They were private bankers, and Garfunkel & Tauster—not the most euphonious business name on record—was a banking firm. Max Garfunkel and Marcus Tauster were their principals. They went into business in 1919. By 1924, they were bankrupts, criminals and fugitives.

Garfunkel and Tauster were indicted for making false statements to the State Superintendent of banks before the failure of their bank. Garfunkel pleaded guilty and took a term of six months to three years. Tauster, however, fled with his wife and kids. He was found in October 1924 in North Bay, Ontario, posing as drygoods salesman Max Bauman. He was extradited and sentenced to two to four years in Sing Sing.

The real estate company that now owns 67 Clinton has cheekily taken on the building's name, calling itself the Garfunkel & Tauster Corp. I wonder if they are aware of their predecessors' business legacy.

Reflections on Steak Row

This blog has occasionally reminisced about Steak Row, the gone-forever strip of utterly male, red-meat-and-strong-booze eateries that once lined East 45th Street between Lexington and First Avenue in Manhattan. They had names like the Pen and Pencil, The Editorial, and Danny's Hideaway. They were—it would seem obvious—favored by journalists and magazine people, as well as a smattering of celebrities.

Because of my posts, I occasionally get an odd e-mail from some odd Steak Row habitue taking a tour down memory lane. (I have made contact with the son of the owner of the Pen and Pencil this way.) Recently, a former customer of The Press Box contracted me, looking for information on the year and reason why the restaurant closed. 

The Press Box, at 139 E. 45th, was run by Henry Castello and Harry Storm, both former Pen and Pencil bartenders, along with former Voisin waiter captain Fred O. Manfredi. By 1973, it was owned by Michael Wayne. Max Klimavicius, one of the current owners of Sardi's, began his restaurant career at a dishwasher at The Press Box. Unlike many of former mainstays that once help the Steak Row chow houses, the Press Box building still exists. It's a Chinese restaurant today.

I had little help to offer this reader, but he shared a number of scintillating details with me.

The place seems to have been rather rakish, in a "Mad Men" sort of way. This eye-witness said the staff used to hand out "press cards," which permitted ladies to visit the men's room. What the women did when they went there is left up to our imagination.

More unbelievable is what the women would see when they got there. According to the source, the urinals were affixed with magnifying shaving mirrors which hung at about waist level. This, I guess, ensured that every booze-soaked newshound left the loo feeling like a big man.

The Green Mystery of Onderdonk Avenue, Slightly Less Mysterious, And Perhaps More Sudsy

Two years ago, I blogged about this intriguing Ridgewood building at the corner of Onderdonk and Stockholm. I noted the odd color, the odd structure, and the presence, up top, of a number of Jewish stars and four-leaf clovers. I speculated that it was a religious building in the past, but find no evidence of such a past. At the time, there was garment work going on inside.

Recently, a reader wrote in, saying: "Green Mystery; Renovated our home (200 feet away). Found in ceiling on 2nd floor a green bottle with the Star of David. Could the building have been a brewery? Still have the bottle but can't make out all the initals; small b, large N over an A followed by Co."

Interesting. Anybody out there have a clue. I still can't find out anything about this building.

UPDATE: Commenter "Mingusal" sheds some light on the mystery below by reminded us of the six-pointed star's other symbolic past. Do we have a former German beer hall here?

The Brooklyn Bear Attack of 1932

I originally thought this New York Times story took place in the East Village. As several sharp-eyed readers informed me, it actually took place in Brooklyn. Still, it's a great story. So here it is in the right context.

It was April 26, 1932, when a big, brown bear invaded 84 Second Avenue in Brooklyn. Reported the NY Times:

A small boy with very red hair ran up to Patrolman Arthur Engh at 4 o'clock yesterday afternoon at Second Avenue and Eighth Street in Brooklyn. His eyes were wide with fright and his red hair stood on end.

"There's a bear in a house up the street," he gasped. "He's eating everybody up."

"Tut, tut," said Patrolman Engh. "You're twenty-five days late. Roll your hoop."

But he suddenly cocked his head. From up the street came frenzied shouts; first a man's voice, then a woman's, then both together:

"Bear! Bear!"

Patrolman Engh raced for a telephone.

In due time, with clatter and shriek, Emergency Squad 13, headed by Sergeant Hugh McGuire, rolled up in front of a tiny, two-story frame dwelling at 84 Second Avenue where Emil Shubert Jr. was leaning out the window, shouting for help.

"There's a bear in the hall," he bellowed. "A great brown bear big as a buffalo. Help!"

It was all true. The invader was a real, 500-pound bear that had broken out of its pen in the backyard of the home of Richard Herrold, pet-shop man at 121 Ninth Street, which is just back of the Shubert's back yard.

The bear ate up the Shubert's butter, milk and chicken, and resisted all attempted to be lassoed and captured. The cops tried to lead him out with a trail of "sweet crackers," which finally worked, the bear led out of the house and back into its cage. The animal "belonged to a Coney Island show and was left with [Herrold] to board."

None of the houses where this took place exist today. The area is all low-lying warehouses.

That Haunted Looking Building

This is 84 Second Avenue in the East Village. I've always liked this building, mainly because it's one of those old-fashioned, two-story, glass storefronts that were once so common and are now increasingly rare. But also because it's never been renovated or gentrified (indeed, it hasn't been occupied by a going business in some time), and is thus very redolent of the area's workaday, immigrant, un-hip past.

I was curious was sort of businesses had inhabited the old place. I became curiouser when I spotted this incomplete name in riles just outside the left-hand door.

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A Good Sign: Timbuktu Hair Care

The wacky tropical font on this hair salon sign makes me think it used to be a tiki bar name Timbuktu.

Lost City Asks "Who Goes to El Sitio?"

I was frustrated in trying to learn the backstory of El Sitio, a longstanding Cuban restaurant in Woodside. I could not discover the name of the founder, or if the place was still in the same family, or had changed hands. Hey, it's hard detective work when everyone speaks Spanish and you don't. I suspect many writers before me had the same experience, because whenever a reporter writes up this place, all they basically do is say "great Cuban sandwich" and leave it at that. No mention of the joint's history. No quote from the owner. Anyone out there have more solid information on El Sitio? Anyone ever go there in the 1960s or 1970s?

Who Goes There? El Sitio

There aren't many Cuban food choices in New York. So whenever one of the dailies decides to do a piece on the state of Cuban food in the city, you can sure a reporter will take ride on the 7 train to this Woodside outpost under the subway tracks on dirty, dusty Roosevelt Avenue. El Sitio has been here about a half a century. It's founding dates to the 1960s, when there was a great influx of Cubans to America.

It doesn't look like the joint has changed much in that half century. The restaurant is divided into two parts. As you enter, there's a short, six-stool luncheonette counter of orange formica. Regulars tend to stop here, either to order, chat or just linger. Somewhat hilariously, there's a small, sparsely stocked bar behind the counter, in case you want a Johnnie Walker Black with your ropa vieja. If you're interested in a more formal experience, there's a no-frills, dimly lit dining room with small tables and tablecloths under plastic. The expected pictures of Havana are on the walls. And unexpected terrariums filled with sad-looking plants are fitted like windows into the wall dividing the two rooms.

The clientele here is primarily local and largely Latino. The menu is in Spanish and English, but the Spanish comes first. The version of the menu posted above the counter is only in Spanish. Most people come here for the Cubano sandwich, and it is justly famous, made with care and with wonderfully crispy bread. The flavors are fulsome, yet delicate. But I found the ham croquettes and red beans also excellent. The prices are ridiculously cheap. Those sandwiches are under five dollars.

El Sitio does a decent trade in take out. But if a customer is under the impression that he'll be in and out quickly, he's soon put straight. Making the sandwiches is a 10-15-minute process, and the woman monitoring the sandwich press, lovingly basting the bread and meats in butter, isn't going to rush it. That seems to be fine with most of the lunchers, few of whom seem to be in a hurry to get anywhere.

—Brooks of Sheffield

An Overlooked Survivor of Coney Island

Ravaged Coney Island doesn't have many landmark businesses left standing. You can count them on a couple hands. I thought I knew them all. Then I walked by Friscia Pharmacy on Mermaid Avenue.

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