Jay Dee Bakery Going Where Cheyenne Diner Went

I you were looking to grab a bit of the old Jay Dee Bakery before the Queens landmark is no more, you're too late.

On Monday, diner saver Michael Perlman wrote to all and sundry that the longstanding Jay Dee Bakery, at 98-92 Queens Blvd, Forest Hills, had closed, and he was trying to save some of its elements, if he couldn't save the business itself. "The owner said he will give away any salvagable Art Deco features for free, if an individual, organization, or museum is interested. Rego-Forest Preservation Council is hoping that several features will live on elsewhere and showcased or creatively and adaptively reused, which has been done countrywide."

According to Perlman, the first to respond were the couple from Alabama who bought the Cheyenne, Perlman's most recent salvage project. "They would like to recreate all of Jay Dee's ornamental plasterwork," he wrote. "They said they will come with a heavy load flatbed truck. Jay Dee and the Cheyenne Diner will become the centerpiece of a small town they're developing with a historic feel. They are also considering moving parts of a historic theater facing demolition and reassembling them, or replicating a demolished theater."

So, a fake, teeny New York City grows in Alabama. In a word: weird. But at least someone cares about these things, even if New York and its mayor don't.

Jay Dee Bakery Shutters for Good

It's looking to be a lousy week for neighborhood institutions.

Diner saver Michael Perlman wrote in to say that the longstanding Jay Dee Bakery, at 98-92 Queens Blvd, Forest Hills, has closed its doors after nearly 60 years. He didn't say when exactly it closed, just that it closed. Being Perlman (the man who found a home for the Moondance and Cheyenne Diners), he's trying to save it in any way he can. This does not appear to include keeping the business open. Instead, he said:

n Aug 10th, my colleague and I met with the owner, and tried to convince him to preserve and adaptively reuse the property, making him eligible for grants, positive media, & awards. It will be transformed into a Russian restaurant, and the owner decided that he is not interested in preserving its historic Art Deco features. The news is unfortunate, but the owner said he will give away any salvagable Art Deco features for free, if an individual, organization, or museum is interested. Rego-Forest Preservation Council is hoping that several features will live on elsewhere and showcased or creatively and adaptively reused, which has been done countrywide. We would be saddened if these unique businesses' Art Deco attributes are demolished forever.

Among the Art Deco feature one could conceivably claim are:

- The classic reverse channel neon sign reading Jay Dee Bakery;
- Ravenna green mosaic columns surrounding the window, which features a classic Art Deco orange and red vertical swirl pattern that resembles jewels;
- Art Deco Lucite door and steel handle with "Pull" etched vertically;
- Window featuring a variety of vintage tiered wedding and birthday cake models;
- Exterior green terrazzo exterior floor (which likely continues inside underneath current floor tile);
- Circular Art Deco recessed ceiling & indented cake displays built into upper walls (silhouettes); and
- Any original counters & the brass cake tie devices hanging from the ceiling.

I visited Jay Dee only once, blogging about it back in April 2006. I was, in fact, one of my earliest posts on Lost City. It was a lovely, old style place. I bought a Passover cake there that, against all odds, tasted quite good.

Jay Dee, the Passover Palace

Necessity in the mother of discovery.

Recently, as Passover was approaching, my wife, who is Jewish, was crying out for Kosher for Passover grub to fill our fridge and cupboards. I work in the most non-Jewish part of Queens and dreaded the long trip into Manhattan to find the needed goods. So I boarded the V to blindly investigate Forest Hills, motivated by nothing more than the vague feeling that I’d heard somewhere sometime that there was Kosher food out there.

My instincts are good. There was Kosher food there, in spades. Restaurants, markets, pizzerias, sushi, butchers, a magnificent temple to eating called the Knish Nosh, and at least one bakery: the Jay Dee, as a circa-1950s sign about five feet high (and the biggest thing on the storefront) proclaimed proudly. Guess you’ve got to have a big sign to be seen across roomy Queens Boulevard.

Big sign, I thought. Old place, too. But Kosher? I ventured in. Shelves and racks and counters filled with pastries, cakes, cookies and bread. Nah, I decided, looks too tasty. None of these delicacies can be Kosher for Passover, a holiday renowned for engendering the worst excuses for dessert in the history of man. (The taste of sawdust comes to mind.) Nonetheless, I asked the somewhat fish-eyed young lady behind the counter if she had any treats suitable for holiday consumption. She wordlessly gestured to every single thing in the window.

An older man with whispy white hair came out from in back to tell me everything in the store was in fact Kosher for Passover. It was like some fantastical dream, like hearing that every course of the scrumptious meal you’ve just eaten was made from tofu. Meanwhile, through a small, square window in the back wall, an irascible old man barked out orders in Russian or Hungarian or something.

I chose a chocolate nut cake and something called a “cherry strip.” Really a strudel, but that’s a German term, and you can’t blame a Jewish bakery for preferring to say “strip.”

Bring Out Your Dead! 2009 Roundup of Lost New York Landmarks

The shedding of Gothamite landmarks slowed a bit in 2009, as compared to previous years under the all-powerful Bloomberg-Burden-DOB Developmental Complex, but that was mainly because all the builders took a big sock to the kisser from the recession. Had they had the wherewithal and the Wall Street clients, developers would have happily planted thrice as many office towers and condo complexes and landlords would have kicked many more mom-and-pops to the curb.

Still, there was bloodletting enough for all in this sad burg that's so resigned and lazy that it endorsed land-grabber-empowering power-monger Mayor Mike to another, ill-gotten term on the throne. Here are the never-to-be-seen-again, New York City one-of-a-kinds on which, since Jan. 1, 2009, cruel fate has rung down the final curtain. (For previous annual Bring Out Your Dead tallies, check here for 2008, here for 2007 and here for 2006.):



Gone, Baby, Gone

Diamond Dairy, a Diamond District kosher luncheonette on the second floor at the back of a diamond exchange. One of a kind and utterly irreplaceable, gone after sixty years in business.
The Pink Tea Cup, a 55 year-old soul food staple in Greenwich Village, run by several generations of the Raye family, announced it would shutter for good on Jan. 1, 2010.
Armando Tailor, a vestige of old Italian Carroll Gardens on Smith Street, closed after Armando Nardi retired, taking with him decades of old-world skill.
Tavern on the Green (as it was). The City rejected the LeRoy family's bid to retain control of the famed restaurant, leading to a bankruptcy filing, legal warring with City Hall over the rights to the name, and a coming fire sale of the joint's many sparkly decorations. Goodbye, Crystal Room. My mother will miss you.
Cafe Des Artistes. Another bankruptcy case, George Lang, owner since 1976 of the posh UWS favorite with the wonderful murals, walked away in a litter of labor lawsuits. The Howard Chandler Christy murals belong to the Hotel des Artistes. No one's jumping on the lease so far.



Jay Dee Bakery, Forest Hills fixture for 60 years.
Joe Jr. Restaurant, a beloved Greenwich Village greasy spoon served its last July 4, after 45 years in business.


Joseph Patelson Music House ended 89 years of selling sheet music on June 7.
Manny's, mecca for generations of musicians, favorite store of hundreds of legends from The Beatles to B.B. King, the great store of midtown's Music Row, was mothballed by owner Sam Ash, who turned the storefront into—what else?—another Sam Ash. This was perhaps the greatest loss of the year, in my opinion.


Arnold Hatters, one of my favorite stores in the City, and one of the only real hatters left in New York, finally gave up the ghost, the Rubin family never having survived having been bumped from their previous Eighth Avenue home by the New York Times tower. 83 years the place was in the business of dispensing lids and skimmers.
Amato Opera, a musical beautifier of the Bowery, closed after 61 years.
Trunzo Brothers Meat Market and Salumeria, in Bensonhurst, now a 99-cent store, dunzo after 33 years.
Giambelli, a 50-year-old Italian restaurant in midtown, done in by the MTA, which needs to build a ventilation plant where the eatery stood, to serve the new Long Island Rail Road connection to Grand Central Terminal.
Frank's Fish Market, in Washington Heights.
The "21" Club's Tie Requirement. The venerable old restaurant, one of the last in town to insist on proper neckwear, knuckled under to the slothful anti-demands of the Great Underdressed.


Endangered Landmarks

The Eagle Theater, a classic old showcase of Indian films in Jackson Heights, closed in May. I suppose there's a chance it may reopen, but a slim one. The nearby Jackson Heights Triplex, in business since 1924, closed a few months later.
Gino's, which may become the victim on an ongoing union dispute.
48th Street's Music Row, the eternal strip of music stores on W. 48th between Seventh and Eighth Avenues, which the Sam Ash people don't think is long for this world.
H&H Bagels, the owner of which UPW legend keeps allegedly breaking the law, not paying his taxes, and pissing off the Feds.
Monte's Venetian Room, possibly the oldest Italian restaurant in Brooklyn, which closed under mysterious circumstances in fall 2008 and hasn't reopened yet, but hasn't been gutted either.
Nathan's Famous, the Coney Island icon, which is not landmarked, and, under the City's moronic new zoning of the area, could be replaced by a a hotel tower of up to 20 stories.
O'Toole Building, dirt under St. Vincent's feet if the Greenwich Village monster hospital gets it way.
The Brooklyn-side view of the Brooklyn Bridge, thanks to a 17-story DUMBO tower planned by the Walentases of Two Trees, and approved by City Planning debutante Amanda Burden, despite the disapproval of almost everybody without a motive.



And These Were Landmarked or Saved

Totonno's, iconic Coney Island pizzeria, which will finally reopen in December after suffering a fire in March.
Nom Wah Tea Parlor, the oldest dim sum joint in Chinatown, which was closed down twice by the DOH, but managed to reopen.
The former B.F. Goodrich building at 1780 Broadway, but not its sister building around the corner, 225 West 57th Street—Thanks, meddling City Council!
Paramount Hotel
La MaMa E.T.C.
Herman A. and Malvina Schleicher House
Ridgewood Heights North Historic District in Queens
St. George's Syrian Catholic Church
Prospect Heights Historic District
Fort Washington Presbyterian Church
The Bronx's NYPL Woodstock Branch and Hunts Point Branch
New York Botanical Garden's Museum Building
(Plus many more Landmarks Commission designations, but those were the highlights for me. The commission was fairly busy during the last half of the years, perhaps in reaction to having been taken to the woodshed late last year by the New York Times, which ran a series of unflattering articles.)

Saved But Left Town

Cheyenne Diner, which closed in midtown, and hoped to reopen in Red Hook, but ended up in....Alabama.

Saved But Altered

Theatre 80, former playhouse, former movie house, in the East Village, now still a theatre, but with a cafe.


Saved But Humiliated

The landmarked interior of the old Gage & Tollner on Fulton Street, now an Arby's franchise.



Resurrections

Vesuvio Bakery, the landmark, luckless SoHo bakery, which was bought and reopened by the City Bakery folks.
Holland Bar, Hell's Kitchen dive of dive, offered a new lease by the same landlord that kicked the decades-old bar out last year. Downside: the walls have been scrubbed clean of character.
Armando's, aged Brooklyn Heights restaurant and Dodgers haunt, found the courage to reopen on Montague Street, with a new interior and, better still, the same old neon lobster sign.
P&G Cafe, which was forced out of its longtime space at the corner of Amsterdam and 73rd, but found a new home (sans excellent neon sign, sadly) at 78th and Columbus.
Vermont Farmacy, weird Carroll Gardens relic pharmacy being rescued by new lease-holders, who hope to open an old time soda fountain.
Elk Candy Company, former Yorkville bastion of marzipan greatness, reopened as Internet company upstate.
Paris Shoe Store, which left its lovely, longtime Greenpoint home to move down the street a bit, to an unlovelier space.
Henry Miller's Theatre, gutted, aside from the landmarked 43rd Street facade, but given a new theatrical life. And the great old sign was saved.