Red Hook Red Again

For some years now, multiple strings of red outdoor lights have spelled out, in block letters, "Red Hook" on the side of the Golten Marine building, situated at the very entryway of that neighborhood at the corner of Hamilton and Van Brunt. They used to be lit fairly regularly, but haven't for a last year or two.

For whatever reason, the red "Red Hook" stared blazing anew about a week ago. Have no idea why. But it's good to see the welcoming sign again. And poor old beaten down Red Hook needs all the cheering it can get.

Joyous Riot of Signage to Make Exit

Brownstoner asks, re: the visually chaotic Russo Reality buildings on south Smith Street in Brooklyn, which are due to be demolished: "Is this the end of an era or just buh-bye to a few eyesores?"

I'll offer an answer. No, it's not the end of an era. But neither is it the eradication of an eyesore. The assemblage of colors, signs, fonts and detail on the two buildings near the Smith and 9th Streets subway stop is too eccentric, too effusive, too expressive of life in New York in all its multifarious weirdness to be considered simply ugly, simply unsightly. The facades are full of flavor and zest. Whoever mounted these layers of ocular stimuli obviously has a knack for living and impromptu design. (They also made being a notary public look exciting and wonderful.) Artists would readily recognized the buildings as found art. If Berenice Abbott were still alive, she's instantly see Russo as worth recording for posterity with her camera.

It's a different time in the life of Smith Street and Carroll Gardens. But, for many year, the Russo buildings were the only cheering things about this desolate, dejected corner of Brooklyn. They served a role. They can't be saved, obviously, but they should be saluted as they go down.

Neglect: Nature's Wrecking Ball

Even ruins need a little love.

City Room reports that everyone's favorite historical haunted house, the Smallpox Hospital on Roosevelt Island, is a little less there than it was a while ago. Last month part of the facade fell to the ground.

This should come as a surprise to no one. Sure, the 1856 relic is a landmark and has been for 31 years. But pinning a ribbon on a building doesn't help it stay vertical. Preservationists have been trying to get a plan going to stabilize the building for years. Wrote City Room:

Stephen H. Shane, the president and chief executive of the Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation, the state agency that oversees the island, said he was “perfectly willing to declare this an emergency situation and skip the usual government requirement of bidding in order to get the ruin stabilized as quickly as possible.”...

Under the current master plan for Southpoint Park by the Trust for Public Land, the ruin would be stabilized, though the building would not be rebuilt. There is $12.9 million available for the entire first phase of park development, which is to begin this year, of which $4.5 million has been set aside for the stabilization project.

And Mr. Shane said that the salvage of the latest collapse would have to come out of that money. “I can’t spend budget dollars I don’t have,” he said.

The building is about the only thing of interest left on Roosevelt Island and a solid reminder of the isle's grisly past. It really was a beautiful structure, too. Take a look below.

A Good Sign: Family Pizza

On Flatbush Avenue. A family makes the pizza? Or the pizza is perfect for a hungry family? Either way, friendly sign.

Long Island College Hospital: Enabler of Brooklyn's Desecration

Peek behind half the atrocious, elephantine, misguided examples of overdevelopment in South Brooklyn and you'll find a common culprit: the feckless, irresponsible, fire-sale antics of Long Island College Hospital.

Wonder where L&M Equities got all the land needed to flatten the Hamberger Christmas Tree Ornament Factory on Hicks Street and put up a fat slice of condolife? They bought it off LICH, of course. How did the Clarett Group get its hands on 340 Court Street at the corner of Union, paving the way for their plan to build a much bigger condo/retail building than the squat former Brooklyn Longshoremen's Medical Center that sits there now? By giving LICH a cool $24 million, that's how. And how is it that Time Equities’ is able to annex the landmarked 105-year-old Lamm Institute building at 110 Amity Street with a cram-as-much-housing-in-as-possible plan for six townhouses around the corner, not to mention a rooftop bulkhead on top of the old Lamm? You guessed it! LICH needed some pocket change.

I don't know what's going on over there at ugly old Long Island College Hospital (Ugh. So ugly.). But they sure need some money and have decided that selling off land to the smarmiest bidder is the best way to do it. OK, fine. It's their property. But should the community have to pay for their every windfall? Can LICH only keep the local citizenry in good health by killing off the neighborhood's integrity? The first two of the projects mentioned above have come down in size since first proposed, but you can bet that wouldn't have happened if developers hadn't seen that local residents weren't about to lie down about the plans.

How many more Brooklyn lots LICH owns I don't know; they're a secretive bunch over there. But if I were an unscrupulous developer looking to build me some new luxury condos, I'd hightail it off to LICH with a sack of money, plop it on the president's desk and say, "Whaddaya got?"

Streit's Matzah Factory Not to Rise Again

And the erasing of the historic Lower East Side continues.

The Jewish Week reports that Streit's, the last family-owned matzah bakery on the LES, has been put on the market for $25 million. This small operation on Rivington hasn't been the age-old company's base of operations for years and years. My impression is they kept it around for old time's sake, the same way Shapiro's maintained a kosher wine warehouse on the same street until just recently.

You had to see this one coming. Still, it's a shame. I recall visiting the plant when I lived on Eldridge. It was more like a museum than a factory, and quite an education to watch the baking process. The wife was just there a couple weeks ago and enjoyed the visit.

According to the Jewish Week, "Streit’s currently operates a warehouse and dry pack operation in Moonachie, N.J., distributing its regular, lightly salted, egg & onion and whole-wheat matzahs worldwide." It's still a family operation, and the clan plans to use the space to make matzah for the next year or so while they build a new facility. So there's time to patronize the place and sigh a few sighs.

Frank's Restaurant Is No More

Frank's Restaurant, a Meatpacking District institution which has been house is Chelsea Market since 2005, has shut its doors, Eater reports.

Yuppies passing by on their way to buying brownies or wicker baskets wouldn't know it, but Frank's has been around since 1912, when no one without a big white apron and a couple of fat, meaty hands would even venture near the area. It used to be at 10th Avenue and 15th Street, where it mainly served the workers in the area. The place was run by a whole bunch of Molinaris, including Chris, Steve and James.

To be, ahem, Frank, I haven't heard many good things about the place and its food lately, but one hates to see 95 years of New York history go down the drain.

Schoolmarm Savings and Loan

There's an old bank on Flatbush Avenue, not far from the old Dutch Reformed Church near Church Avenue, that permanently preaches Puritanical values not to be found inside any bank today, let along the home of any bank patron. The building is home to a branch of some God-awful chain right now, but it used to be one of the grander locations of the Fulton Savings Bank. (See above) The building must have erected between 1870 and 1889, when Fulton merged with State Mechanics Bank.

Inside the ceiling rises about 30 or 40 feet. And written along the uppermost edge of the wall, running the length of all four walls, are some words to live by. The basic thrust of the message is that saving money and not spending it breeds all the finer virtues man can achieve. My favorite part of the wall is a passage that instructs that fiscal responsibility "teaches self-denial," that greatest of all things. Can't recall the last time I saw "self-denial" carve in stone in two-foot letters.

The Pierre to Take a Year Off

The Pierre, one of Manhattan's classic classy hotels—which all of us have passed as we've strolled down Fifth Avenue near the southeast corner of Central Park, but few of us have entered—has closed down for a year-long renovation, the New York Times reports.

The hotel is going to spend $100 million to stay competitive in the New York hotel market. Built in 1930 by Schultze and Weaver, it was first managed by Charles Pierre Casalasco, hence the name. He soon went bankrupt, a victim of the Depression and the Pierre went through a series of owners. Strangely, the name never changed. The penthouse was modeled after Mansart's Royal Chapel at Versailles. Frank Sinatra, William Paley and Audrey Hepburn were regulars. Many of the hotels rooms are actually co-ops with permanent residents. It is now owned by Taj Hotels Group.

It's a place where employees stay for decades, not years, and sadly a lot of them won't return when it reopens, including bartender Joseph Dacchille, who has been there 31 years. Dacchille's father was a bartender at the Biltmore Hotel for 47 years. His grandfather was a bartender at a Coney Island saloon where Jimmy Durante waited on tables.

Old Signs on Flatbush

Flatbush Avenue appears to be the epicenter of the no-need-to-take-down-the-old-sign-to-start-a-new-business ethos. Here are a couple choice examples, each within a few steps of the other.

One all-around discount store still bears a vertical neon sign which reveals that this was once where you went to purchase Furs by Novick.

Nearby, an awning for a suit warehouse is still topped by a couple boxy sign advertising the once omnipresent and dominant shoe brands of Naturalizer and Hush Puppies. Overlaid on them, for reasons unknown, is the visage of a rather severe looking gentleman who stares at us as if daring us not to buy his shoes. Was this the guy who owned the store? The mascot of either Naturalizer or Hush Puppies?