This has got to be the flashiest key-maker-shoe-shop-jewelry-watch-repair store in the City. Every single little nitzy thing this tiny Flatbush business does is emblazoned in light. Either the owner really likes neon, or he's crazy.

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Willie Had a Liquor Store

The bold, rather unpleasant sign above this Church Avenue business tells you its it's Willie's Liquors. But look further up and you'll receive the same information in a much more enjoyable package. The old neon sign would seem to indicate that this Flatbush business has been around since the 1930s or '40s. I love that it's called Willie's Liquors—not William's, or Bill's. And I'd love to know who Willie was. But I don't.

Despite the signs, this liquor store apparently officially goes by the name of 77 B&C. Utterly charmless. Long live Willie.

Lost City Asks "Who Goes to Lee's Tavern?"

My first "Who Goes There?" column in Staten Island, and ain't I but proud?

Who Goes There? Lee's Tavern

Yeah, it's called Lee's Tavern, not Lee's Restaurant. And it is a tavern. An old one. It's got an old wooden bar, tin ceilings, tile floors, TVs showing sports matches, serves Bud and Coors, the whole nine yards. So what's it doing in this column? Because Lee's also serves what some think is the best bar pizza in the five boroughs, and has been doing so for decades. And because there are plenty of tables. People find this place and sit down for dinner every night of the week—despite the fact that the blonde-brick building, in this lonely corner of Staten Island known as Dongan Hills, has no signifying features, least of all a sign.

Lee's has been around since 1940, when it was founded by Leroy Moresco, known to all as "Mr. Lee." Diego "Dickie" Palemine (everyone has a nickname) bought the place in 1969. After Diego was killed in a hotel fire while vacationing in San Juan in 1986, his family continued to run the bar. Today, his strapping son, also called Diego, does double duty, manning the bar, and walking out to the floor when someone makes a food order.

The Lee's menu includes salad, garlic bread and scungilli—all of it cheap—but pizza is the thing here. Bar pies are an odd subset of the American pizza world that typically connote a smaller size, a thin crust and sub-standard ingredients. All of that is true here, except the last one. The ingredients here are good and the skill with which they're put together is considerable. Lee's cheese pie is sweet, subtle and tasty. And the clam pie is as good as anything I've had in New Haven. If you think you're gonna get better at $5.75 and $8 a pie, respectively, you're a putz.

I suppose Lee's gets a questing foodie like me every now and again, but mainly this is a Staten Island-sustained joint. If any of the patrons were from outside the immediate area, my social antennae didn't detect them. All the customers strolled in like they had just come from around the corner. Lotsa back-slapping going on here. Fat hands on sweatshirted backs again and again. Everyone knows each other. Everyone knows each other's sister or mother, and they all ask how that sister or mother is doing. Ninety percent of the drinkers and diners were dressed in athletic gear: track suits, warm-up jackets, sweat pants, basketball jerseys, athletic shoes. That not a single one of them had just come from doing anything athletic was a dead certainty. Staten Island folk don't seem to know that they dress like extras from "The Sopranos" and "Working Girl." Or they do know it, and don't care. Or they do, and are proud of it. I don't know. If I could call Lee's my local pizzeria, I'd be kinda proud too.

—Brooks of Sheffield

An Italian Butcher in Caribbean Flatbush

I stumbled upon one of New York's oldest butchers the other day during a long rainy walk through Flatbush. Sitting anomalously in the middle of the various Caribbean and Spanish shops on Nostrand Avenue was Michael's Prime Meats, a remnant of the neighborhood's Italian past.

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A Good Sign: Bigzee's Tavern

I include this Staten Island bar for several reasons. One, Bigzee's is such a great name for a tavern. Two, you can still see that the place used to be called Donovan's, as nobody has bothered to paint over the sign above the awing sufficiently. And third, because of the odd, oval signs to the left in which Bigzee's proclaims its many attractions.

Flatbush's Merry Oldsmobile Sign

This is surely the only extant neon Oldsmobile sign in New York City. I almost passed it by without noticing, so seamlessly has it facing into the background of visually hectic Flatbush Avenue, near Avenue D.

It's a beaut of a sign, two-sided and three stories tall. Also, the block at the bottom, by some miracle, works. Most certainly, this was an Oldsmobile dealership once upon a time. The sign also used to be red, based on old photos.

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Rat-Squirrel House Gets New Cornice

Last we checked in on the slowly improving, former horror show know as the Rat-Squirrel House, it had lost its cornice and gains a new roof. Now the long-delapidated Cobble Hill residence has a new cornice. It's a crappy one, of course, because cheap is the way to go in these dark days of Gotham development. Looks to be fiberglass. But it's the same shape as the old one. And maybe they will paint it brown or something.

Hey, Windows: Why So Round?

Walking down E. 85th Street between Second and Third Avenue, I was struck by the unusual roundness of these ground floor buildings. They're not only arches, which is fairly common in older building, but they bulge out at the sides and are abnormally side. The same is true of the doorways at 222 and 220 E. 85th.

The AIA Guide noticed the windows, too: "Bold, sensuous arches and their batterned bases form, seemingly, keyholes that ground these unusual tenements." The buildings were built in the 1890s, not 1910, as City records erroneously state.

Bill's Gay Nineties Dilemma Grows Murkier

Alarmed by the rumors swirling around the classic Manhattan bar Bill's Gay Nineties, I paid a call on the former speakeasy to raise a glass, stare at the old boxing posters and theatrical bills and see what I could learn. The blue-blazered swells around me were swilling their Cutty and waters and dirty Martinis as if nothing were amiss. Very likely, they had not read the reports in the New York Post and Crain's that Bill's had declared bankruptcy and was being courted by the oily downtown scene-meister John DeLucie (The Lion, Waverly Inn, etc.)

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A Good Sign: Grande Monuments

It's the rare New York business that has both great old standard signage and great old neon signage. But Grande Monuments on Graham Avenue in Williamsburg hits that trick. The business was begun in the late '40s and is still family owned. (Grande is not an adjective in this case; it was the name of the founder). It's a weird mash-up place. They sell headstones and bread. The bread comes from Fornaretto Bakery in Brooklyn, where owner Jerry Ragusa's daughter Angela works. It's his way of having her in the business.