Truly Yours Best Hats

I am obsessed the hats and get sad when I think that not too long ago there was a haberdashery or two in nearly every neighborhood in New York. And now we have, maybe, three or four real hats stores in the City. (I don't count the places that sell a limited selection of ready-mady baseball caps, Kangol caps and cheap, too-small straw porkpies and call themselves hat stores. That's like buy a bunch of loaves of Wonder bread and Drake's coffee cakes, sticking them on the shelves and calling yourself a bakery. I mean Worth & Worth, JJ Hat Center and the like.)

I found this matchbook the other day. It was remarkable enough in that it was a matchbook for a hat store, not a bar or restaurant. I don't think I've ever seen that before. But the address, 139 Nassau, corner of Beekman, rang a bell. Seemed to me I remembered a hat store being on that corner.

I was right. The corner was the home of Young's Hat Store until recently. The faded sign is still visible, though the shop is gone. At some point it was also called Hat Corner. According to this New York magazine listing, Hat Corner began selling hats there in 1959, and Truly Yours began doing business in the 1890s. So the address was associated with headgear for more than a century. Remarkable.

Found an ad for the store from 1957. As on the matchbook, they proudly proclaim this is "Our Only Store." And they feature their "Bankers Hat," which is manufactured by and sold only at their store. They carried Homburgs, Tyroleans, Flat Tops, Light Weights. "Water Blocked" and "Richly Lined." Nifty.

The Story of Hankow Gardens

Funny thing. The commenters who responded to my recent post about the bygone Times Square chop suey palace China Bowl didn't talk that much about China Bowl. They shared memories of another chop suey palace on 34th Street called Hankow's or  Hankow Gardens.

I had never heard of this place, so my curiosity was piqued. And so here is this week's second foray into lost New York Chinese restaurant lore.

Well, it was called the New Hankow Restaurant and was at 130-132 W. 34th Street. It was there in the 1950s, and in 1968, New York Times restaurant critic Craig Clairborne weighed in, saying "It is pure speculation, but at midday this may be the busiest Chinese restaurant in Manhattan. Customers queue up to await their turns at table, and you might suppose from the crowds that the food was wildly fantastic. It isn't, but it is more than adequate and the appetizers show considerable imagination."

There was a Hankow Restaurant at 124 W. 34th Street in the 1930s. According to a report in the Times on Sept. 8, 1937, it sustained considerable fire damage. I'm guessing this led to the birth of the New Hankow Restaurant.

According to one reader, "the chinese restaurant on the south side of 34th that was on the 2nd floor was in a building that was demolished when the building that Old Navy is in was built (10 or 15 years ago). They had classic chinese/american food and I remember going there as well. The food was quite good!" Almost right: it's a Sephora now, not an Old Navy.

Couldn't find a picture of it, but I did find this old matchbook.

Silk of Summit Street

Saw this cast-iron faux pillar holding up one corner of a building on Van Brunt Street in Red Hook, and was intrigued for a couple reasons. One, it was old enough to say "South Brooklyn," the former name of the area that today comprises Cobble Hill, Carroll Gardens and Red Hook. Two, Mr. Silk had a business on Summit Street, a path on the northern border of Red Hook that is only a few blocks long. I've never seen any extant evidence of an old Summit Street business before.

Today, Summit is just a couple short blocks of lackluster housing stock on the west side of the BQE and one block of rather pretty housing in the east side. Over the highway is the area's only walking bridge, leading straight to St. Stephens Catholic Church on the east end. Before the BQE cut it in half in the 1950s, and the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel was built, Summit had a different personality. It ran four straight blocks, all the way up to Hamilton Street where it met the old Trolley line leading to Hamilton Ferry. There were a number of businesses on the lane back then.

The Roman-Catholic Thomas Silk's place of business was at 70 Summit Street. He was a blacksmith and was working at his trade as early as the 1840s, when he had an office at Water Street in Manhattan. If I have the right Silk, the Brooklyn Eagle reported that he died in October 1902, and was "one of the oldest inhabitants of South Brooklyn" at the time of his death.

70 Summit Street still stands. It has a place-of-business look about it still.

Poor Fairchild

Most of the tombs at lovely Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn look like this. Kept up fairly well and looking pretty grand for their age. Who know how many family members visit on a regular basis, but someone's looking to their appearances.

This vault, high on a slope in the southwest corner of the cemetery, is not so lucky. I was attracted by its untended, unloved facade. Both doors have been boarded over, one with wood, the other with brick. The stoneface has fallen away in places, revealing the red brick beneath. There's been no tending of the grounds surrounding it. And one of the names of the formerly interred has been removed.

The one that remains is E.B. Fairchild. Who was this unlucky son of a bitch? I checked the Green-Wood burial database and uncovered one Eugene B. Fairchild as one of only two Fairchilds with the initials E.B. buried there. The name corresponded with the lot number number where I found this crypt, Lot 42.

Eugene was buried on July 11, 1881, according to Green-Wood. The New York Times reported that  a Eugene B. Fairchild died in 1877. (Perhaps it takes a few years to build a crypt. I don't know.) The Times described him as "a well known and much respected gentleman, who as President of the Waverly Boat Club and a prominent member of the Masonic fraternity." A lot of Masons attended his funeral.

Who knows if this is the same guy. The name was probably not that uncommon a one back in the 19th century. But what happened here? Given that the doors are shut up, I can't imagine Eugene's still in there? Did he find space at a better cemetery?

Memories of Hav-A-Pizza

Some posts can surprise you. For instance, when I posted this picture of Hav-a-Pizza in June 2011, I didn't expect that many people remember the old hole-in-the-wall pizzeria on E. 86th Street. But people did. Fondly. Here are the comments, which nicely fill in the Hav-a-Pizza story. The second one is from Frank Brevetti, the grandson of the store's owner. (Guess what? The shop closed because the landlords raised the rent. Same old story.) The fourth is from the son of a man who worked there.

"I remember when pizza was 25c a slice.About the mid 60s. And everytime the subway fare went up right away the price of a slice went up too."

"My grandpa owed hav a pizza. It was the landlords that forced him out both in Ny and again in NJ. They kept raiseing the rent to the point they couldent stay. In 1972 THEY WANTED 100grand a yr for that 20 by 20 store. Just rent. Try to pay that at 25c a slice."

"I remember Hav-A-Pizza from the late 50's. It was the first place I ever had pizza. As I remember it, pizza, then, was kind of new as a fast food. I don't think my parents had ever had it. It was fantastic pizza. There was much more sauce and cheese on it than today's slices in similar joints. It had a distinctive, rich, aromatic flavor that I occasionally get a whiff of in a slice today that instantly takes me back to 86th and Lex. A girl I knew who went to an exclusive East Side private school, Nightingale Bamford, told me years later that the school decreed Hav-A-Pizza off-limits. I'm not sure why, but I think it had to do with the school's (mis)percetion that unsavory, Fonzie-character types hung out there. I remember the clientele as non-descript, average people, maybe mostly young people. I remember Tony who was always there flinging the dough in the air. He wasn't friendly, at least to us, but he wasn't unfriendly either. When I first went there a slice was not 25 cents, it was 15 cents, and this was not The Depression. This was 1957-196?. A soda was 10 cents. So 2 slices and a Coke cost 40 cents. Even back then, this was just pocket change even for a school kid with a modest allowance."

"My dad Ernie used to work there making pizzas with Tony. We have a picture still today through the front window, of my dad flinging the dough in the air. It so nice to see this pic. It brought back many memories for my dad when he saw the pic, My dad and tony still talk everday."

My dad Erniused to work there making pizzas with Tony. We have a picture still today through the front window, of my dad flinging the dough in the air. It so nice to see this pic. It brought back many memories for my dad when he saw the pic, My dad and tony still talk everday =)My dad Ernie used to work there making pizzas with Tony. We have a picture still today through the front window, of my dad flinging the dough in the air. It so nice to see this pic. It brought back many memories for my dad when he saw the pic, My dad and tony still talk everday =)

Is Dennett Place Really Bennett Place?

Dennett Place, the one-block thoroughfare of workingmen's cottages situation behind St. Mary Star of the Sea in Carroll Gardens, has always been a favorite conundrum of local historians. (That's a 1940s tax photo of the street above; it's not as attractive today—lots of aluminum siding—but still cute.) Nobody knows for whom it was named, or even if it should be spelled Dennet or Dennett. There are no famous Brooklyn Dennetts. But there is a history of Brooklyn Bennetts.

I got the idea that the street has been misnamed for more than a century when I read a personal history of the street, written by a resident of the street and published on the Brooklyn Historical Society's blog. The writer tried to get to the bottom of the street name's origin, and in doing so uncovered this old map from the 1860s where the alley is named Bennett Place.

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That Drug Store That's Always Been There

Some City landmark businesses don't get a lot of attention from the press, simply because they're not that flashy and don't draw attention to themselves. One such is Thomas Drugs, which has been quietly keeping the Upper West Side healthy since 1904. Regular reader Upstate Johnny G reminded me of the shop—which I've passes by hundreds of times—and I realized that I, too, have neglected Thomas and never posted a thing about the drug store.

Thomas is at Columbus and 68th Street. And maybe they like their low profile. For I can find out little about them. They have no website. And, as far as I can tell, they shop has never been in the news and the owners never interviewed about anything.

Something funny about the name Thomas—it seems to breed drug store longevity across the nation. A Thomas Drug Store in Thomasville, Georgia, says its the oldest drug store in that state. It was founded in 1881. Another Thomas Drug Store, in Meyersdale, PA, has been there since 1896. There is Thomas Drugs in Cross Plains, TN, which was established in 1930. In contrast to Manhattan's Thomas Drugs, all those drug stores make a big deal of their histories.

The Story of the China Bowl

Virgil's, the huge Times Square BBQ joint, recently got a big new sign and bright red awnings to go with it, I noticed. They also exchanged the stationary bowl-shaped sign at the top of the restaurant for a rotating oval one. That last renovation was a shame, because the bowl-shaped sign was all that remained of the address' former tenant. It was bowl-shape, you see, because it used to say China Bowl. That was the name of the Chop Suey palace that occupied this spot on W. 44th Street for decades until 1993, when the owners of family-style joints Ollie's and Carmine's bought it and converted it to Virgil's.

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Dennett Place, From the South

Because you can't have too many pictures of this curious, Carroll Gardens, one-block street of former workingman houses.

Lost City Asks "Who Goes to Prime Burger?

I used this week's "Who Goes There?" column on Eater to pay my respects to Prime Burger, which is closing today, Saturday, May 26. Here's an account of my visit:

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