Little Italy Has Actual Villa

Morris Park in the Bronx has something other Little Italys in New York don't: a villa and a piazza.

Get off the 180th Street stop on the 2 or 5 line for the first time and you're in for a shock. The subway station isn't some kiosk or hole in the ground; it's a cream-colored, three-story Italianate structure with columns and arched windows, fronted by a circular, brick-lined piazza complete with benchs and a central flagpole.

Why would the MTA lavish such fabulousness on some stop in the Bronx? Because, of course, they didn't build it. They only bought it from the bankrupt New York, Westchester and Boston Railroad , a railway in its own right which a century ago starting expanding in the Bronx. The owner build the 180th Street stop with the idea of rivaling Grand Central in grandeur. It built several other stations as well. Of course, it didn't work and the company went out of business in 1937. The city bought the NYWB in 1940. They kept the stations as is. Read here for more info.

Anyway, it certainly fits in with what is modern day Morris Park. The little old Italian ladies hanging out outside the station look like they're sitting in a piazza back in the old country.

I Brake for Booth

Are Manhattan motorists attempting to drive through Gramercy Park?
Passing the southern side of the private park the other day, I noticed the iron gate facing Irving Place was adorned (if that's the word) with two orange traffic arrows pointing to the right and a string of red reflector lights. This could only mean that, sometime in the recent past, some dope driving north on Irving Place didn't realized a gated park stood between him and Murray Hill, and almost moved down the park's statue of Edwin Booth as Hamlet.
For added protection, a huge, bulbous SUV was parked in front of the gate, though I don't know if this was expressly to guard the gate, or if some driver was just flouted parking rules.

Kurowycky Meats in East Village to Close

This is a bad one.

Kurowycky Meat Products, the 52-year-old Ukrainian East Village butcher that made peerless sausage and ham, and one of the last working elements of the once robust Ukranian population in that neighborhood, will close today. Owner Jerry Kurowyckyj said in a statement:

It is with great sadness that I am announcing the closing of Kurowycky Meat products after 52 years. Today’s economic climate just does not support a small business on the scale that ours endeavors to survive in. Thank you all for all your years of support. We are closing as of this Saturday, June 2nd [2007]. It was a great ride and again, we thank you all.

An article in the Times revealed that a rent hike didn't do them in. The family owns the building. Profit margins have just steadily declined over the years, what with the changing nabe and changing eating habits. Slavic laborers eat ham. Artsy hipsters do not.

Every piece of meat I've bought from the timeless Kurowycky has been tasty and flawless. I had a friend once who lived around the corner. He said the butcher was the only reason he hadn't become a vegetarian. "The meat is just too good," he explained.

The business was founded in 1955 by Erast Kurowycky, who arrived in New York in 1949, having evaded the Nazis and Communists. His first store was located on Avenue B between 10th and 11th streets in New York City’s East Village. When Erast retired, his son Jaroslaw took over, and they moved to their present location. The shop is currently run by the third generation. Their website states that they "continue to operate one of the last existing smokehouses in New York City and still manufacture our sausages using the same methods that were used in Eastern Europe before the Second World War." Oh, and it's pronounced KOO-duh-vit-sky

Not any more. Enjoy your Boar's Head, everyone.

Astroland Rides for Sale

Apart from being sad—which it is—this news that Astroland has put its rides up for sale, in preparation of the park closing down come Labor Day—news which first appeared yesterday on Gowanus Lounge—is eye-opening in how affordable an amusement park ride can be. Quite a few of the rides are going for under $30,000, which means any reasonably affluent person could buy one and put it in his or her backyard (if whatever municipal laws would allow such a thing).

The most expensive items are the Haunted House, Water Flume, the Bumper Car house, the Himalaya and Musik rides, and the Breakdance. As for the Astrotower, which the City curlishly refused to accept as a gift, you have to call about the price.

Boots for Breakfast

Take a close look at the awning on this coffee shop on Morris Park Boulevard in the Bronx. "Sandwiches. Donuts. Newspaper. Cigarettes. Workboots."

Workboots?

Yes, workboots. Enter the narrow shop and the boots line the left hand wall, inhabiting rows of cubbyholes the reach up to the ceiling. The tiny coffee shop counter is in the back, and seems like an afterthought.

"I've never seen a coffee shop that sold workboots," I told the woman at the counter, using a line she probably here's everyday. "Works for me," she said. "Been here 28 years." All those years, she's sold boots, she said. Who buys them? "Depends on the clientele." I'll bet.

A Good Sign: Fortune House and Fascati Pizza

Well, two good signs, actually. I put these storefronts together because they sit side by side on Henry Street in Brooklyn Heights, near Clark. I love the signs, because they make the street appear as if it's stuck in 1952. If either sign has been touched since it was first thrown up, I'd be surprised. Despite their dowdy appearance, both much do great business. How else could they survive in this real estate market?

Katz's Survives Bruni Test

What? Does Katz's have a sign on its back that says "Kick me?" Why does fate seem to have it in for the venerable Lower East Side deli. First, that putz who got in a drunken fight with a security guard threatens to sue the place. Then the rumors that a condo tower would wipe it out. And now, just when it's weak and vulernable, the New York Times sends its egomanical pitbull restaurant critic Frank Bruni after it. Katz's needs a Bruni assessment right now about as much as a hole in the head.

I've frankly had enough of Bruni. The man's all about his own power and reputation, as far as I can see. That said, his review is fairly respectful. His keeps the wiseass remarks to a minimum. He leaves the "Ah, but is it really that good? Is it Bruni good?" devil's advocate stance at the door. One star he gives the place. But he correctly praised many of the deli's offerings, and emphasized the special quality of the service set-up:

To revel in its pastrami sandwich, one of the best in the land, with an eye-popping stack of brined beef that’s juicy, smoky, rapturous. To glory in the intricate ritual of the place: the taking of a ticket at the door; the lining-up in front of one of the servers who carves that beef by hand; the tasting of the thick, ridged slices the server gives us as the sandwich is being built; the nodding when we’re asked if we want pickles, because of course we want pickles.

It’s a ritual unique to Katz’s, an argument, along with Katz’s age, to consider it the king of New York delis, reigning above the Carnegie, above the Second Avenue Deli, which closed a year and a half ago. It may reopen, but not on Second Avenue, a reminder that nothing can be taken for granted.

Katz’s shouldn’t be. At few other restaurants can you feel that you’ve stepped this surely into a living museum, a patch of urban mythology.

Bruni the reporter, however, strikes out. Trying to discover if the owner Fred Austin plans to sell the place, he finds out about as much as any of us have. Though he does reveal Austin as a bit of a merciless sadist, toying with New Yorkers' hearts and minds:

When I asked Mr. Austin about the latest rumors that Katz’s was being sold, he said it was entirely possible that somebody could come along and “offer me an amount I can’t walk away from,” but that none of the many offers made so far were sufficiently tempting.

I remarked that his response seemed to leave him plenty of wiggle room.

“How about that?” he said mischievously.

Fucker.

(Very) Little Germany

I must admit, it had been a while since I last wandered around in Yorkville. Nonetheless, I was shocked by what I took in during a recent stroll along Third Avenues from 96th to 86th streets. The chains have completely consumed the area. The street's a soulless mall. I grew physically sick with each successive block.

Needing some solace I hung a left at 86th and headed toward Second. There, I found a bright, albeit thin sliver of individuality and the last beachhead of what was formerly the main German enclave in Manhattan. Standing nearly side by side, divided only by a bakery, are Schaller & Weber, the German sausage emporium and grocery store, and the Heidelberg Restaurant, one of the few eateries in Manhattan to service straight-ahead German cuisine. Residents of the lower reaches of Manhattan know Schaller & Weber from the packaged links they see in the meat department of Gourmet Garage. This is where they come from. (I discovered a new item—cocktail bratwurst—which may become my new passion.)

Heidelberg, meanwhile, is known only to diners who don't follow restaurant trends. This place could be in Illinois, so few are its nods to the swankery of modern-day dining. However, the swells who hang out at the Gowanus Yacht Club would find a lot to like in its miniature outdoor beer garden.

I was sad to see the Elk Candy Company, which was right around the corner, on 86th, has closed. Their marzipan window displays were something to see. Also long gone are Cafe Geiger and the Ideal Restaurant. I did find a Hungarian bakery and a kosher meat market stubbornly hanging on. Watch out, boys. You're surrounded.

One Church, One Graveyard

There are always good stories in the New York Times' Sunday City Section, but the May 27 issue had two particularly good ones.

One is an account of the last Sunday service at the Mary Help of Christians Roman Catholic Church on East 12th Street in the East Village, which lets you know what's being lost with the Archdiocese of New York's recent rash of church closings. I never went inside Mary Help of Christians. Now I wish I had.

The second story is about Woodlawn Cemetary, New York's other famous cemetery, after the more celebrated Green-Wood in Brooklyn. It's about the recent transfer of the the cemetery's huge archives to Columbia University's Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library, stuff most scholars have never seen before. The prose by reporter Laura Shaine Cunningham ("The love shimmers off the cream-colored stationery." "I can almost hear the faint sounds of `When the Saints Go Marching In.' So many will want to be in that number.") is much too flowery (you didn't need to tart up this tale, Laura), and that headline "Romancing the Stones" really needs to be retired for good, but the story's still a engrossing one.

W.F. Mangels Work Still on View at Coney

I was watching my kid go round and round on this old horse-and-buggy kiddie ride at Deno's Wonder Wheel Amusement Park in Coney Island when I noticed a small iron plaque at the bottom of every buggy. "W.F. Mangels Co. Coney Island New York" it read.

I found the idea of a manufacturing company that identified itself as being based in Coney Island (not Brooklyn, not New York City, but Coney Island) fascinating, so I looked into Mr. Mangels and this is what I found out (some of which I'm sure you smarties out there already know): He was William Fredrick Mangels, a German immigrant. He came to the United States in 1883 and founded his company in 1890. He quickly became a big wheel in the carousel biz, making most of the carousels found at Coney, including the recently shuttered B&B Carousel.

He is thought to be among the first in his line to create kiddie rides, which would explain the Deno attraction.

Mangels is most famous, however, for invented The Whip, which was introduced in 1914. The world went wild for The Whip; the rides were everywhere; some still exist. He died in 1958. His son Albert took over for a while until the company finally folded in the late '70s.

The horse and buggy ride still works fine. My son clanged the hell out of his bell.