Lost City: Providence Edition: Haven Bros. Rolling Diner

One of the strangest, and best, culinary traditions in Providence, Rhode Island, is the Haven Bros. diner, which, every night at 5 PM, rolls to the corner of Dorrance and Fulton, right outside City Hall, and parks there until 5 AM. A door opens on the metal truck, a set of stairs come out, and the public is invited to climb in and chow down on chili dogs, french fries, coffee milk and "Murder Burgers." The kitchen fills up half the interior, the other side taken up by a few stools and a counter. They even have an ATM in there. Prices are cheap, the food is acceptable and you leave full. (I wonder who eats here at 4 AM? Besides drunken Brown U. students, I mean.)

It's a weird thing, this truck. They call themselves one of the oldest rolling diners in the U.S., having been founded as a horse-drawn cart in 1888 by the widow Anne Philomena Haven. The Havens went through two more generations before selling in 1953 to the Mollicone family. Currently, the Giusti family owns the truck.

Some years ago, a Providence mayor tries to kick the diner to the curb, saying it didn't fit in with the rest of "modern Providence." The population protested, and the Haven Bros. diner was allowed to stay. That mayor is gone now.

During my sole visit, I had a chili dog and a coffee milk. The grizzled old fry cook implored that I could "handle" two dogs. I declined. He seemed quite disgusted with my timidity. Which made me like the place even more.

Bigelow's Second Floor

Call me ignorant. Until now, I had no idea that Bigelow Chemists, the eternal pharmacy in the Village, had a second floor. Anyway, it's not much to see, that second floor. But it has a nice view of Sixth Avenue and Jefferson Market. And the stairwell leading to it is pleasantly of another era.

I Hate Capital One, But...

I hate Capital One, but I have to admit that this branch in Williamsburg has a certain neato-speedo Modernist appeal. If we were told it had been built 50 years ago, we'd consider it a modern landmark worth saving. Reminds me somehow of pictures of the old White Castles back in the 1960s. The logo still sucks, however.

Lost City Asks "Who Goes to Stage Deli?"

A trip to the Carnegie Deli—the Stage's longtime rival—might have been more appropriate at the moment, given the rumors of that place's possible closing. But the Stage is where I went, mainly because, well, the photos had already been shot. I'll get to the Carnegie soon.

Who Goes There? Stage Deli

It was not quite fair of me, I thought, to visit Midtown's Stage Deli on a Tuesday night at 8 PM during a snow-rain storm, when the joint was certain to not be at its vibrant, pulsating best. But, then, it was a good time to see what the 74-year-old sandwich palace is when it's not its usual self—that it, a tourist-clogged cliche.

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Goodbye, Shoe Row

When I was a more youthful man, just arrived in New York, and I found I needed to clothe my feet, I headed down to 8th Street in the Village. There, I recall, were at least a dozen show stores, some obviously of many years standing. Literally one shoe shop after another. It was very easy to shop and compare goods and prices. And I always went home with shoes.

In recent years, however, you see less shoe stores and move of the above: vacant storefronts. Also various crappy eateries and assorted oddball businesses. The street is a lane of economic depression. Da'Vinci, seen up top, is one of the footwear survivors. (Great sign, by the way.) I remember it being there in the late '80s, though I'm sure it's older than that. I found two others left, including Kinway, below. Otherwise, this is no longer a shoe street.

Why did it change? Well, streets evolve. After all, in the first half of the 20th century, 8th Street was known for its many new and used book stores. Then it was shoes. Now the lane is on its way to something else. But it's also the same old story: rising rents. They began to go up in the first decade of the 21st century and the shoe merchants left, including the Village Cobbler, at 60 W. 8th Street, which sort of anchored the block. (No one ever got rich selling shoes.) Like so many landlords around the city, those of 8th Street hoped to attract high-paying restaurants. But that hasn't happened.

Carmine's Will Not Return

I will be keeping Carmine's Italian Seafood in my Recently Lost Landmarks list, sad to say.

The South Street Seaport eatery closed last summer after 107 years. Soon after, the owner, Greg Molini, made some rumblings about reopening in a new space. I doubted this, knowing landlords and the real estate market. Sure enough, this week he revealed that plans had fallen through with the proposed new space, 29 Peck Slip. The "financials didn't work." In other words, the landlord wanted the moon.

Some Things Never Change

I've always been curious about this old, old, but rather nondescript building at the northeast corner of Court and Douglass in Cobble Hill. It dates from the 1880s, and I always imagined it had a mercantile history, even though it's long been made up solely of apartments.

I haven't been able to find out much, but I was right about the shop. There was a grocery here in the 19th century. And here's what happened in 1886: "Jacob Berlage, a grocer, or 283 Court Street, was charged before Justice Massey this morning with having exposed for sale some canned tomatoes which born no label to show when they were put up. This is a violation of the Laws of 1885."

Grocers still pull that stuff.

Donohue's Steak House Felled by DOH

I was just talking last night with a Upper East Side-dwelling friend of mine about the wonderful unchanging character of upper Lexington Avenue, mentioning such stalwarts as the Lexington Candy Shop and Donohue's Steak House.

And today I wake up to the awful news that Donohue's has been shut down by the DOH. Hopefully, they will clean up and reopen soon. Love that place. Here's my "Who Goes There?" column from two years back.

Old Erasmus Hall May Be Saved

Two years ago, reports were all about how the original Erasmus Hall building, a 1786 structure which sits in the courtyard of the larger, more familiar Flatbush building called Erasmus Hall High School, was in danger of falling down. The Department of Education was apparently uninteresting in this tragedy.

Today, comes good news that the abandoned, 225-year-old building may be saved. The Wall Street Journal states that "a new, $300,000 matching grant from the state Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation is likely to jump-start restoration of the building, which once housed the oldest chartered high school in New York and counts Founding Fathers John Jay and Alexander Hamilton among its early benefactors."

Why does it always have to be a matching grant? Just give them the damn money. There's no time to waste.

A Good Sign: Bloomingdale's

It's obvious, I know. But, for some reason (probably because it's obvious), I've never set it aside for distinction. So here it is. Hard to deny the Art Deco triumph of these awnings.