Perfect Storefront: Broadway Shoe Repair

This tiny place is either called Broadway Shoe Repair or Ban's Shoe Repair. (The signs vary.) It is at 272 Broadway, under the shadow of the Marcy Avenue elevated JMZ subway track. It's one of the last really old looking shops on that strip, which has become crowded with crummy chain stores. Note that, despite the narrow frontage, the shop managed to have an indented entrance and glass display cases on either side. Based on Yelp reviews I've read, the little shop boasts great service and low prices. Seems to be a vestige of an old-fashioned merchant work ethic.

A Perfect Storefront, Ruined

Klenosky Paint on Metropolitan Avenue in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, was the first shop I showcased in the running column "A Perfect Storefront," a feature I occasionally use to spotlight what I called at the time "Gothamite street art, coming in the form of conscious, sub-conscious or unconscious mercantile design."

"What makes a perfect storefront?" I continued in that first column, which ran January 2010. "Well, a lot of things. Originality, for one. That doesn't mean the store owner has to be self-consciously bizarre or artful, just that they show a little character and individuality. One should be able to tell that the store is owned by a person or a family, not a corporation or chain... Great storefronts are almost always accidents of time, putting themselves together in haphazard style with the flipping calendar." There's further philosophizing here, should you wish to read it.

Apparently, Klenosky didn't see the beauty of their own storefront. I walked by the other day and found the "new and improved" facade you see above. To which I can only say, "Thanks, Benjamin Moore corporate overlords!" I guess the hanging sign wasn't enough for them. Moore had to have it all. The Moore engine won't be satisfied until their taken over the signage on every independently owned family paint and hardware shop in NYC.

Below, you can see the humble charm that once was. 

How They Lived, How We Live

Here is a study in contrasts, on the corner of Richardson and Humboldt in Williamsburg. In the foreground, we have a handsome, three-story, brick building, with finely patterned blonde and brown brickwork, arches over the first story windows, a grand-looking entrance and an elegant cast-iron fence surrounding all. Who wouldn't be proud to live there.

Looming behind it you have a hideous, 11-story, "finger" building, erected by ubiquitous "architect" Karl Fisher in 2009. It was intended as a rush-job casing for million-dollar condos. Then the economy tanked, and it became a rental, like so many other Brooklyn condo towers. It was sold last year. Not sure what's happening with it now. But it's still ugly.

The smaller building, meanwhile, is a beauty forever. Though it looks (to me) like it was an apartment building, if actually began life as a schoolhouse, and also served as the Old Saint Catherine's Maternity Ward. (I tend to believe the ward part, the schoolhouse part not so much.) It was restored in recent years and now goes by the name of Humboldt Street Lofts.

A Good Sign: Ho May Kitchen

In western Williamsburg, an old-fashioned 1970s style Chinese take-out joint, with bulletproof plexiglass inside and everything.

Christmas Under the Onion Domes

Not a good picture, I know. But I had to run it. I love that Christmas trees are being sold in the shadow of the the Russian Orthodox Cathedral of the Transfiguration of Our Lord on N. 12th Street in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Looks like a scene from Russia.

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.

Turkey's Nest OK

Eater informs us of a potential Lost City landmark crisis moment that I didn't even know about, which is a good thing, because I've got enough to worry about, and have my health to think about.

Apparently, the DOH shut down the beloved Williamsburg dive the Turkey's Nest a few weeks back, and folks were wondering if the 100-year-old dive was going to reopen. Well, it has. "The bar's staff put in nine long days to make the necessary repairs to bring the place up to code, including giving the floors an aggressive wipe-down, and removing the coin operated machines that helped make the Turkey's Nest mouse heaven. One word of caution: although the bar is selling it's beloved $4 32 oz beers in styrofoam cups again, the margarita machine has not yet reappeared." Whew.

Last Night in Williamsburg

Driving snow at 10 PM in north Williamsburg. Not a car on the street. Bamonte's shuttered up well before quitting time. People walking down the center of the street. And some fool standing around taking pictures of it all.

Touchstone

I've been walking around Williamsburg, Brooklyn, for more than two decades. It's altered a lot in those years, I don't need to tell anyone. But as long as I've known it, this laundromat on Berry Street has stood. It's look hasn't changed much over the year. It's sort of your archetypal so-ugly-its-cool Williamsburg business. Not sure why, but I always look for it as a sort of assurance that not everything in the old neighborhood has been swept away with the gentrifying times.

A Good Sign: Ortiz Funeral Home

In Williamsburg.

A Perfect Storefront: Jr. & Son

This Williamsburg storefront very aptly expresses the nature of this business: an old neighborhood bar that doesn't want to attract too much unneeded attention. Tan brick, brown awning, brown door, small windows. Not even a phone number on the awning, or something telling hours of operation. The only touch of whimsy are the martini glass silhouettes on the awning. That is, unless you count the name, in which a man named Jr. has a Son, which is sort of like saying Jr. & Jr.

A Perfect Storefront: Klenosky Paint

I've conceived this new Lost City feature, "Perfect Storefront," as a kind of companion to my ongoing "A Good Sign" feature—as a way to show appreciation for everyday Gothamite street art, coming in the form of conscious, sub-conscious or unconscious mercantile design.

What makes a perfect storefront? Well, a lot of things. Originality, for one. That doesn't mean the store owner has to be self-consciously bizarre or artful, just that they show a little character and individuality. One should be able to tell that the store is owned by a person or a family, not a corporation or chain.

The facade should contribute to the palate of the streetscape, both acting in harmony with the immediate surroundings and providing something special to delight the eye as well. The shop need not be old, but age has it's advantages. Through the passing of years, the store slowly but surely melds with the block. It becomes an organic element. Also, the passage of time usually contributes various additions to the original facade, in the form of signs, stickers, new paint jobs, paneling. Things also go missing, too, such as letters on the sign. This all adds up to an appealingly lived-in feel, not to mention an intriguing, somewhat ineffable impression of living urban history. Great storefronts are almost always accidents of time, putting themselves together in haphazard style with the flipping calendar.

Bold or fanciful letter fonts, interesting color schemes, hand-painted signs, quirky entrances, attractive window displays, fantastic neon and anything eccentric all do their part, of course. And it doesn't hurt for the store to be situated in a beautiful building to begin with.

Bad storefronts? Anonymous, crap, cloth awnings; garish, cookie-cutter signage; chain-store insignia; those plastic "grand opening" flags; ugly Home Depot metal doors; those big red signs that thank you for your patronage; eye-stingingly wrong colors; It-Came-From-Outer-Space, completely out of place, overall designs—all steps in the wrong direction.

There's a lot that's wonderful about the Klenosky Paint store on Metropolitan Avenue in Williamsburg. The red facade adds a dash of color to the street, while the blue lettering of the sign ties the storefront in with the building's aluminum siding. The front entrance is set in a bit, which adds a bit of dimension to the front, as does the Moore Paints sign hanging perpendicularly from the storefront. The gentle repetition of "paint" knits the whole together. The hand-painted Paint Fair emblems lends a homey feel, and the backward "K" a touching kookiness.

Yes, I'm sure I've overthought this. But, sue me. This is the kind of thing I think about.

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A Good Sign: Turkey's Nest Tavern

Well known, old time bar in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

Some Stuff That's Interesting

Fireworks destroys Rosenwach Tanks warehouse in Williamsburg. Rosenwach makes all those great wooden water tanks you see on top of New York buildings. This can't be good. [Brooklyn 11211]

Squatters help fix up the East Village's beloved, but violation-laden Ray's Candy Shop. [The Villager]

The Food Emporium in Union Square is a lousy, cheating scofflaw. [Restless]

Joe Jr.'s—the gutting begins. [EV Grieve]

Di Fara has reopened. Yeah! But hours have been cut. Aw! And slices are now $5. Hey! [Grub Street]

More anti-bike propaganda, because, you know, car drivers are totally innocent of having destroyed the planet, and brake for puppies and shit. [NY1]

Bullseye on Williamsburg

Don't know why I'm obsessed with these Target wall paintings. But obsessed I am. This is the third I've spotted. It's on Bedford in Williamsburg. The chain seems to be, er, targeting New York's hippest neighborhoods. Which means, somewhere in the East Village there is a Target ad on a brick wall.

Butcher Chic

The other night, I passed by the storefront at 168 Bedford in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and found it occupied by a self-conscious eatery called Peter's Since 1969. Obviously, Peter's hasn't been here since 1969. The name of the place is a reference to the butcher it replaced: Peter Kuper of B&B Meat Market. So is the decor, which retains the meat market's white tile walls and many of the business' accoutrements, like the cutting table that once stood behind the counter.

I tend to like this sort of historically referencing retro decor. It's better than having the entire previous history of the space wiped off the map. But the contrivance is becoming so common, it's beginning to irritate me. It's as if the owners what me to congratulate them for being cool with the fact that their place used to be a blue collar enterprise. They're New Worlders hip to the Old World. Fine. I guess. I just would rather have the butcher back.

Austin, Nichols & Co. Wins in the End

What a strange journey to preservation the Austin, Nichols & Company warehouse in Williamsburg has taken. As per today's NYT City section:

ONE thing that the owners of the Austin, Nichols & Company warehouse at 184 Kent Avenue in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, were firm about throughout the long battle over the building’s fate three years ago was that it was not historically valuable. The city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission, which declared the 1915 structure a landmark, disagreed, but the City Council took the rare step of overruling the commission and siding with the owners.

A lawyer for the owners, the Kestenbaum family, called the warehouse an eyesore. Councilman David Yassky, who helped lead the fight against designating the building a landmark, described the warehouse as “a nondescript white box,” indistinguishable from anything else on the Williamsburg waterfront. When the mayor stepped in to preserve the warehouse, the Council overrode him, too.

But times have changed, and the warehouse, which was designed in the Egyptian Revival style by Cass Gilbert, the architect of the Woolworth Building, has had a reversal of fortune.

A short time after the Council voted, the Kestenbaums sold the warehouse, which takes up an entire block, to the real estate company J.M.H. Development. Then representatives of that company, saying that the building was not an eyesore after all, announced in December that it had granted a national preservation group the right to preserve the building’s exterior in perpetuity. The warehouse is now being restored and is scheduled to open for rental tenants this summer.

The Kestenbaums wanted to build condominiums on the site, either with a tower or a large rooftop addition, plans that would have been impossible if the structure had been made a landmark. J.M.H.’s rental plans, by contrast, are not impeded by preserving the building.

The Kestenbaums. What can be said about this family that this article doesn't already express in spades. Beauty is just wasted on some folks.

A Good Sign: Typewriters Adding Machines

Typewriters. Adding Machines. Adding Machines! Sold! Rented! Repaired! Rebuilt!!

But don't look for any of that here. You see from the windows that this is a location for Papa John's wretched prefabricate pizza. Somebody ought to rebuild those pizzas.

On Grand near Leonard in Williamsburg.

From Warsaw to Saigon

Nobody out there seems to care about the now-gone Quality Meat Market in Williamsburg, judging by the anemic response to my postings about the old Polish butcher. Thought this place was a classic!

Well, that's not going to stop my continued reportage on the steep decline in fine meat products in north Brooklyn. A Lost City reader tells me the space is to become a Vietnamese restaurant called (yawn) Saigon Grill. Yeah. City needs another Vietnamese restaurant, right?

Quality Meat Market Gone, or Getting Better?

In July, Lost City reported that the old Polish butcher Quality Meat Market in Williamsburg was shuttered and didn't look likely to open. However, we could dig up little confirmation as to its future.

Well, matters looked still grimmer today. A Lost City scout was by the address yesterday and reports thusly:

It's probably gone, permits were pulled from the DOB and posted in the window, alt 2 (expansion). Contractors on site, gut demo well underway, they provided no info on who they're working for or what tenant is going to be moving in after renovations are complete (former or new).

That would seem to be the end of Quality Met Market. Or is it? A look at the job action filed with the DOB on June 2 tells this: "PROPOSED HORIZONTAL ENLARGEMENT & INTERIOR RENOVATION AT FRIST FLOOR. PLUMBING AND PARTITION WORK AS PER PLAN. INSTALL KITCHEN EQUIPMENT & EXHAUST PROPOSED A/C SYSTEM. NO CHANGE IN USE, EGRESS OR OCCUPANCY.

So, does that mean the butchers are coming back? Hard to say. A previous job filing in 1999 was submitted by one Jozef Zurawski, which sounds like a nice Polish name. The new filing was submitted by Shiming Tam, which, uh, does not sound like a nice Polish name. Can anyone shed light on this?