Historic Laundromat?

One never thinks as laundromats as historic businesses. They come and go, providing their service for a number of years and leaving little trace of their existence when they close up. They're not distinctive operations, one looking much like another, employing the same equipment, the same utter lack of decor, the same elemental services of drop-off, pick-up, detergent dispersal, and making change.

The Launder Center on Seventh Avenue in Park Slope, which I believe was begun in 1947, is the only laundromat I've run into that seems to have a sense of its past. In the front window is an old, black and white photograph, badly faded by the sun, of three women and a man dressed very nicely sitting on chairs in the middle of the laundromat. A note next to the photo describes who the people, all members of the store's founding family, are. The note is very sun-bleached, but I believe it identifies the quartet as "Dad, Dorothy, Joan, Dad," and mentions Jean as the current owner of Lauder Center. The note also makes tender mention of the octagonal clock on the back wall of the photo as being the same one that hangs in the center today. Indeed, this is true.

One should mention, also, the place's antiquated name. No one speak of laundering anymore, only laundry. It's sweet.

Hey Tough Tony: They're Boarding Up Your Home!

There's been a lot of talk lately about the potential future of 340 Court Street, the large property and largish building which sits near Union Street. It was recently sold by Long Island College Hospital to the Clarett Group, which paid $24 mil and could, with all legality, erect a 21-story building on the site if it wanted to (and don't developers always want to?). Last we heard—and this from the mouth of Assemblywoman Joan Millman back in August—Clarett hadn’t even hired an architect for 340 Court, and didn't intend to construct a building out of context with surrounding buildings.

There was some activity at the address today, with a couple workman armed with a whole mess of plywood boarding up the ground level of the modernist building, window by window. On the front doors were two notices saying the interior had been baited with rat poison. Maybe the workers are just making sure some eager passersby don't enter the building and help themselves to a fistful of tasty rat bait. Don't know.

I also noticed, with a jolt, the sign above the door that reads "The Anthony Anastasio Memorial Wing—Brooklyn Longshoremen's Medical Center." Now, if memory serves, this sign was covered up for some years by a LICH placard. Sorry if I'm slow on this, and the old sign was uncovered some weeks ago, but this is the first I noticed it. Staring at it was a chilling reminder of the nabe's vicious past and how much South Brooklyn was once in thrall of the Mob. Anthony "Tough Tony" Anastasio was a union boss who ruled the Brooklyn docks with an iron hand and the threat of reprisal by his mad brother, Albert Anastasio, head of Murder, Inc. He was no sweetheart and I can just imagine that, back in the day, that sign served as a reminder to locals to stay in line.

Brooklyn Cover-Up Job Exposed

There's was a nifty reveal this week on the building at the corner of Degraw and Henry in Cobble Hill that's getting a thorough (and I mean thorough—it's like an archeological excavation, that building) renovation.

The steady removal of the awful, awful siding of white bricks that has marred the house's walls for decades has uncovered not only the original red brickwork but one of those lovely stone signs that used to adorn many corner structures in Brooklyn. A bit chipped, but still in fine condition, it reads "Henry" on one side and "DeGraw" on the other. It's a beauty. Can you imagine being such a dunderhead that you've cover up something like that? Makes me wonder how many other such signs are hiding behind awnings, signage, aluminum siding and various other "improvements."

That's One Solution

The Raccuglia Funeral Home on Court Street, Carroll Gardens, has been encumbered by a bit of scaffolding for the past couple months. Not sure what the problem with the building is exactly, but the owners have apparently been concerned that the name of their business was so obscured it might hurt traffic (if traffic is the right term for the kind of business Raccuglia does). And so they extracted the sign from its longtime resting place and affixed it to the scaffolding. The effect is singularly odd, particularly since the other part of the sign, saying "Funeral Home" remains behind. It's like you're wearing 3-D glasses.

Development Drive of 2007 Does What Great Fire of 1835 Couldn't

A five-story, 176-year-old warehouse between John and Platt Streets in lower Manhattan is being demolished as we speak, reports City Room. John Lam, a New York developer, is going to build high-rise hotel on the site because, as we all know, people love to stay in the Financial District, which is hopping and vital and on the rise. (Ahem.)

Now, people have noted that the building is not landmarked, and that it is plain and otherwise architecturally unremarkable. So, these people reason, why save it? Why mourn it?

I'm here to tell you why. Our friend, the warehouse, was built in 1831. The Great New York Fire struck just four years later and raged for two days, Dec. 16 and Dec. 17. It scorched 17 blocks of the city, destroying between 600 and 750 buildings. It was the most destructive conflagration that ever New York suffered. The result is there are not many Manhattan around that survived it date themselves before the fire. The warehouse is one, a living piece of pre-fire history, of what a city building looked like back then. And what do we do? We tear it down because someone thinks we need a hotel in an area where no one likes to lodge. Smooth thinking.

Oh, and I read the comments to the City Room item, and I swear, if I see another jackass presenting "not every old building has to be saved" as an argument, or reminding us that New York is all about change and progress, I'm going to find that blowhard and lead him by his lower lip onto the nearest sidewalk where I will slap his fatuous face silly.

Maybe the Coolest Hotel in New York?

Now here's a bit of development to get excited about.

The New York Times reports of a new hotel on the horizon, and, from the sound of it, it may become the most unusual, freakiest, mostly utterly New Yorky hotel in Gotham.

Orient-Express Hotels Ltd., which owns tons of classy hotels and junk all over the globe, has inked a bizarre deal with—wait for it—the New York Public Library. Under the terms of the agreement, the NYPL will sell to Orient the property and the building housing its Donnell branch in Midtown for $59 million. But Orient isn't going to demolish the library, as you might expect. The deal specifies that the branch will own and occupy space on the first floor and underground of the coming 11-story hotel. So we've got a hotel with a built-in library. Weird, right? Kinda great, right?

But that's not all. The Donnell branch is on 53rd Street, just a block north from the great old "21" Club, which Orient also owns. The two buildings are so close that five floors of the hotel will connect to "21."

A low-rise hotel with a bonafied library in the basement and secret passageways to a former speakeasy. It's literary and liquored up! It's New York City in a neat little ball. Be still my heart. I think I want to live in this hotel.

The Poseidon Adventure

Situated on Ninth Avenue in the mid-40s, in the middle of development-happy Hell's Kitchen (or Clinton, if you insist), there's no reason the tiny Poseidon Bakery should still exist. But it does, stubbornly enough, churning out various Greek, Arabic and other delicacies on a daily basis.

How is this so? Well, I asked, and the answer is hit my ear like a primer on how to survive in New York in these land-hungry days. One: keep the family interested. The Poseidon is 87 years old (though the awning say 75 and the calling card reads 85) and has been through four generations of the same clan. Two: think beyond the storefront. Poseidon doesn't just sell to the neighborhood, but ships all over the world. Three: be your own landlord. They own the building and live above the bakery. No one can push them out.

Hearing this last bit of good news, I finally decided to do something I've been thinking about for weeks. I'm going to add a feature to the blog, listing the landmark restaurants, bars and shops that own their buildings, and are thus relatively safe from real estate speculators and reckless landlords. I will also list those poor businesses that don't own their buildings and are at the mercy of greedy rent-collectors. I will add items to the list as I learn the status of various icons.

A Good Sign: Rudy's Bar and Grill

Once Hell's Kitchen was decorated by this sort of neon beacon. Now Rudy's, long one of the great dives in the City, is one of the last, if not the last. Inside, the beers are cheap, the waistlines are wide (aside from the occasional slumming actress), the booths are covered in plenty of duct tape, and the hot dogs are free. The human-size pig statue outside is the joint's mascot.

A Lost Little Italy

The two blocks of Brooklyn's Third Avenue between Union and Carroll have often made me wonder as I passed them while seating in the B71. There seems to be old Italian enclave there, but I've never heard anyone talk about the area in those terms, though I have read here and there that Italian-Americans were once thick upon the ground thereabouts.

Near Union on Third is the cryptic Two Toms restaurant, an anonymous red-sauce joint with no posted menu and very limited hours. It always seems to be booked by a private party. If you do get in, the selections will be rattled off to you by a gruff guy who might also be the chef. The tables are tables. The chairs are chairs. It looks like someone's rec room. And at the end of the meal someone will scribble down a figure on a piece of paper and that's what you pay.

Anchoring the area on the other end, on Carroll Street just around the corner from Third is the more famous, much more posh, hundred-year-old Monte's, a former speakeasy and hangout of Sinatra, smack in the middle of a residential block, with beautiful views of the Gowanus Canal. More Italian food.

In between is the imposing Glory Social Club (Inc., thank you very much) and the straightforward Italian American Grocery, with Coke signs on either side, though this latter, 60-year-old, family-owned shop was recently gutted and is being converted into something else (a bar or cafe, I'll wager). And then there's my favorite, the abandoned awning for the once going concern called the V.M.P. Salumeria. Some odd sort of office work is going on in there now; could be a numbers joint, for all I know. Does anyone out there know anything about Third Avenue? Or would you be killed if you said anything?

Paul Auster Can't Buy Them All

Bad news from Brownstoner on everybody's fave lefty Brooklyn nabe. Park Slope, which recently lost indy bookseller 7th Avenue Books, and lives in fear of the death of the iconic Community Bookstore, will this spring have to do without Park Slope Books.

I'm never happy to report on the closure of any independent book store, but this news begs a question which I've often asked myself about the Slope: Is it really a literary neighborhood, or just an affluent enclave of run-of-the-mill yuppies that like to think of itself as literary? If it were really as well-read and book-happy as it's repped to be, well, it would have no trouble supporting a few booksellers, wouldn't it? And yet, over ten years or so, I've seen Slope book stores come and go with some speed. Last Exit Books, a fine used book store on Sixth Avenue, comes to mind in particular. It can't all be the fault of that one Barnes & Noble.