Christmas Pie—Bensonhurst Style

How do you know Bensonhurst's classic drive-in L&B Spumoni Gardens does a bang-up business in its patented retangular parmesan pizzas? When you walk in on a cold Saturday night and order one, the pizzaioli doesn't get to work pounding the dough. He just turns around, grabs a box resting above the pizza oven and hands it to you. And it's got a pizza inside it! And it's still hot!!

These guys are ready with dozens of freshly made pizza, and they know they're going to sell them within minutes of their coming out of the oven. That's a business, buddy! The slices were, as usual, light, tangy, zesty and addictive. I inhaled three pieces in five minutes.

I was amused to see a sign on the back wall advertising L&B's willingness to cater your Christmas dinner. Who's lazy enough to rely on take-out pizza and heros for their holiday feast? The guy behind the counter, however, said they do brisk business. OK. If it makes you merry, who am I to say no?

A Good (Old) Newsstand

Now, there's a beauty!

I ask you: what is wrong with this newsstand? It's pleasing in shape and appearance, blends in with Central Park behind it, you can go inside, it's open 24 hours and it's got an ATM! It's a masterpiece! And you know what? I bet the lock works and it doesn't leak. Why would you want to replace it with one of those Cemusa crap jobs? Why I ask you? Oh, I know why. Because there's no place to advertise on this one!

News on Two Lying City Agencies

The MTA and the Department of Building are not known for being particularly receptive or sympathetic to the needs of the people of this city, unless your name is Robert Scarano or something. Now, it's slowly becoming clear that they're not only unresponsive to public outcry, but actually hostile toward it.

Queens Crap reports today that an e-mail he sent to DOB commissioner Patricia Lancaster—who, it was revealed last week, is fond of cutting under-the-table deals with scofflaw developers—provoked a response from a New York City Police detective. Now, admittedly, QC's missive was a big unhinged; exclamation points and capital letters. But, still, it shows where Lancaster's priorities are. Consider complaint? No. Call cops? Yes.

Meanwhile, The Daily News reports what we all knew long ago: the MTA is wasteful, corrupt and self-rewarding. The agency has several presidents instead of one, and each gets thousands of dollars in housing allowances "even though they're in easy commuting distance from their jobs." The director of the MTA and the seven presidents of the agencies within its purview get more than $1.8 million in salary and deferred compensation. There are many redundant jobs, and the MTA plans to actually add more positions in the future. All at a time when the agency is forcing yet another fare hike on the public.

The News also found a total 112 MTA lawyers with a $12 million payroll. Guess they need all those sharks to fend off the public's constant attacks on the agency's sovereignty.

It's a blistering report. Now, let's see if anything happens. Bloomberg? Spitzer?

Bring Out Your Dead!: 2007

The Year of Our Mayor 2007 isn't quite over yet, but I figure the jackasses who run this City (developers, real estate agents, corporate CEOs who live far away and the backroom City Hall politicians they own) will be taking a break from their wrecking-ball shenanigans for the holidays. So, it's as good a time as any to toll the bell on the priceless and irreplaceable landmarks and businesses that were lost to good ol', sad ol' New Amsterdam during the previous, grievous nine months (the second straight year in which this blog has had to do what no one in power has the time or inclination to: NOTICE!).

Here we go. (Cue the mournful snare drum.) Since Jan. 1, 2007, New York City has lost:

Jade Mountain (one of the last old-style chop suey joints, closed after the death of its owner)
Gotham Book Mart (shuttered at this time last year, but now officially dead)
Gertel's Bakery (rent dispute, made way for condo tower, now living on as wholesale business)
Moondance Diner (following landlord dispute, picked up and moved to Wyoming)
Cité Restaurant
Vinylmania Records
The Lamb's Club
Jahn's Ice Cream Parlor (Forest Hills location)
Claremont Riding Academy
Ralph's Discount City
Kurowycky Meats
Rose's Turn
Morrone Bakery
Ramberg Marine
A five-story, 176-year-old warehouse between John and Platt Streets
Cedar Tavern (condos again)
The Wall Street Journal (lost to Rupert, anyway)


Meanwhile, on the Endangered List:

Chumley's (closed for business since April when its chimney detached itself from an inner wall; still hoping to reopen, which may require a miracle)
P&G Bar (lease running out in landlord dispute)
Katz's Deli (owner keeps fucking around with us about whether he's going to sell out)
The besieged Red Hook Ballfields Food Vendors (cross your fingers)
Admiral's Row (inside Brooklyn Navy Yard)
Community Book Store (Park Slope)
Chelsea Hotel (whatever's going on over there, it's fishy and full of foreboding)
Astroland (scheduled to die this summer, but given a one-year reprieve by Thor Equities)
Woodside's St. Paul's Episcopal Church, circa 1874 (damaged by fire)

On the Bright Side:
Monteleone pastries and Cammareri bakery reopened as a double act on Court Street in Brooklyn
The Second Avenue Deli reopened on 33rd Street.
The former Gage & Tollner will have life again, not as a TGI Friday's, but as Amy Ruth's
B&B Carousell in Coney Island may be restored to life

And These were Landmarked:
Domino Sugar Plant
Sunnyside Gardens
McCarren Pool
Lord & Taylor (Manhattan flagship store)
Eberhard Faber Pencil Factory complex
Staten Island's Standard Varnish Works Factory and Gillette Tyler Mansion
The Voelker-Orth Museum, Bird Sanctuary and Victorian Garden in Queens

Depending on how you look at it, this year was even worse that last year. But that's sort of like comparing the Great San Francisco Earthquake to the Great San Francisco Fire. What's the point? It's all of a piece and it's all bad.

Homeless Snowmen, Stalking Elmo and the Santa Godhead

A adventurous friend and I, along with our assorted children, decided to hop in her mini-van the other night to explore Dyker Heights, the Brooklyn neighborhood so beloved by local news stations this time of year.

As you may or may not know, Dyker Heights has been bit by the holiday cheer bug for many years now. Locals decorate their domiciles to such an extent that Con Ed sets upon gnawing its fingernails and Disney execs send down their interns to take notes. As Christmas approaches, the streets in the 80s between 12th and 13th avenues become clogged with gawkers.



We were among those rubberneckers until the kids insisted we park the van, get out and take a closer look. And so we did, and what we saw! One lawn adorned with king-sized inflated likenesses of Mickey Mouse, Tweety Bird, Scooby-Doo and SpongeBob, who, for some reason, have something to do with Christmas. A snowman made entirely of lights and as big as a house. Skating tots who endlessly spin on their platforms. And, as part of an elaborate decorating scheme entitled toyland, a Santa figure so big as to rank as a South Seas godhead. Scary, he was. The wife suggested we offer a sacrifice. The automated reindeer on the balcony, rearing up violently, appeared to agree.


Other houses offered live, full-blooded Santa stand-ins, who handed out toys and treats. One such was seated, eerily, next to a life-size Santa doll of similar appearance. It was hard to tell the two apart. While wifey and I were doping the thing out, a tall, red, furry figure lumbered down the driveway with two plastic buckets. Egad! It was Elmo! And he was headed our way!


Luckily, Elmo passed us by. His footing was uncertain and his intentions were unclear. He may have been collecting funds for charity, or to pay the electric bill. Either way, Elmo's World was never this bizarre.

Also collecting funds was a man in a very sad-looking snowman costume. He was standing with his plastic bucket not on the sidewalk but in the middle of the street, which made him seem vaguely homeless. In this same area was a suspicious figure trading Santa hats and light sabers from the back of his open van. WTF?

On one corner, a vast display was still under construction. Two men were busy hanging lights on trees. Judging by the nearby van, they were from DiMeglio Decorations, an operation whose logo features a particularly evil looking elf. Several of the layouts, in fact, appeared to be the work of professionals, not the people who lived in the house in question. Some lawns bore signs advertising the company at work. B & R Christmas Decorators was one I saw more than once.

Some houses had no decorations whatsoever. What Grinches these people much feel in such environs.

Blue Christmas?

Am I imagining things, or did the Rockefeller Center tree people start adding blue lights this year? I may be misremembering, but I don't recall this color is previous lighting schemes. Either way, I like it. It somehow adds to the cheerfulness of the tree and the beauty of its appearance.

Sometimes Bureaucrats Surprise You

You get all excited about the possibility of knocking down some historic, one-of-a-king buildings so you can erect a nifty supermarket and a really neat parking lot next to it and then some assholes from Washington tell you the damn buildings are actually worth preserving! Well, if that ain't a kick in the teeth.

That's what happens this week when a federal study commissioned by the National Guard to access the state of the 100-plus-year-old group of military mansions inside the Brooklyn Navy Yard known as Admiral's Row didn't conclude, "Hey, go ahead! Knock 'em down!," but instead said eight of the ten structures were sound and retained "an extremely high level of integrity." $20 million and they'll look good as new.

"But not as good as a new parking lot!" screamed the mad-as-a-wet-hen Navy Yard officials who want the buildings, and their rich history, gone yesterday. Restore the handsome things!? We don't want the property if we have to do that!! We likem wreckem ball.

"If the federal government...requires that some or all of these structures be rebuilt from the ground up...neither the City of New York or the [Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corp.] are interested in acquiring and developing the site and it will continue to lay fallow for years to come," wrote Navy Yard Development Corp. President Andrew Kimball yesterday in response to the report, according to The Daily News.

The final recommendations of the report, which the City must abide by, are still to come. Any dope—any federal dope, it turns out—can see Admiral's Row deserved landmark status.

But for this temporary snafu alone, I think the Army Corps of Engineers. I love to see City officials throw hissyfits when they don't get the rubber stamp they've been promised.

Cartier's Christmas Vortex

Cartier knows how to make the best of a bad situation.

For many years, Cartier has been a stand-up among the Fifth Avenue Christmas decorations, wowing crowds by simply wrapping up its stately building in a king-sized red ribbon, as if it were a giant present. (See above.)


This year, being encumbered by scaffolding, the jewel dealers put on their thinking cap and found a way to turn lemons into lemonade. The company has wrapped up every last yard of metal scaffolding in evergreens and white lights, creating a dizzying tunnel of swirling holiday cheer on the stretch of sidewalk outside its building. Just step inside it and see it you don't feel like you've entered a yuletide funhouse.

A Good Sign: Laundry

It says "Laundry." The sign at the laundry says "Laundry." Look closely and you'll see that behind the word "Laundry," upsidedown, is also the word "Laundry." Way to recycle a sign.

Sherman's Molt

What's happened to the Augustus Saint-Gaudens statue of General Sherman in Manhattan's Grand Army Plaza? Just 17 years ago, back in 1990—the equestrian statue, which was dedicated in 1903 and was the sculptor's last major work—was given a fresh coat of gold.

Now, look at it. Is gilt supposed to erode this quickly. I remember sitting under the statue just a few years ago and basking in the still-brilliant gilding. Now it looks like it's moulting. Even from a distance, it frankly looks like crap. Whole chunks of gold have fallen off both the horse and the angel that leads Sherman. When the restoration was completed, a lot of people complained it was too brilliant and gaudy, that it was vulgar. But that look was far preferably to this.

The Parks Department website says that site was given an inspection in April and found to be "acceptable."