A Good Sign: Economy Candy

One of the last remnants of the old Lower East Side. Get your old-time favorites!

I Just Like This House

That's all. Not much else to say here. It's on President Street near the BQE and it stands out. The brickwork on the facade is quite different from anything else around it. The closely set rows of three windows are unusual, as are the striking arches over the door and first-floor window. The double door is also attractive. Best of all is the way the owners have allowed the former powder-blue paint job to slowly fade away, revealing the red brick underneath. The weatherbeaten looks give the house a appealing dishabille air. Any artist, I think, would be happy here.

Universities, Hospitals and Other Public Emenies

This is probably a thought that has already occurred to a great many out there. But in recent months, as I watched events unfold in Greenwich Village, Noho, Harlem, the East Village and South Brooklyn, I've often thought that the greatest battles over New York City's soul that are to come won't be between the public and commercial developers like Bruce Ratner and the Joe Sitt. They will be with private institutions that, on the face of it, are benevolent forces, dedicated to the public welfare. That is, hospitals and universities.

Last week, St. Vincent's—longstanding preserver of Village life—laid out its whack-attack plans to take a buzzsaw to a largish portion of Greenwich's landmarked district—some to make a better (and bigger) hospital building, some to make a big residential building that will generate money to make a better (and bigger) hospital, and all of it to make St. Vincent's bigger and better and huger. "Me mighty hospital! You tiny bohemians! Me crush you, then later patch you up!"

Meanwhile, several blocks east, New York University, a past master at gobbling up real estate, has been up to its usual tricks. The august institution—which bestrides the blocks between Houston and 14th Street, and from Sixth Avenue to Second—is a behemoth that won't be gainsayed. It has an appetite and lack of scruple any rapacious developer would admire. Many still fault the bastion of higher learning for a host of crimes against nature, including: ruining the view from lower Fifth Avenue by building a boxy student center of the south side of Washington Square Park; and the abomination built on top of St. Ann's on 12th Street. (Thanks to Curbed for the photo.) Their latest shenanigans include plans for some zany "superblocks" just below the park, and a jacking up of rent that will possibly force Second Avenue's community-serving Met Food supermarket onto the street. N.Y.U. anticipates the need for a total of 6 million additional square feet of space by 2031 for academic uses, housing for undergraduate, graduate, professional and faculty personnel and for student services. Say your prayers, Villagers.

For all of NYU's chutzpah, Columbia University is perhaps even more gloriously arrogant and hard-hearted. The university recently ate up is East Harlem but good! The chowdown was part of its $7 billion expansion program. The school spent $1 million in lobbying fees, and had lots of fun abusing eminent domain to kick out plenty of teeny local land- and business-owners, and get a 17-acre swath of Manhattan's green earth renamed Columbialand. (Will they ever teach this case in Columbia Law?)

As for other instituions that are supposed to do the public good, but just as often do them ill, I've complained before about Long Island College Hospital's deleterious effect on the life of South Brooklyn. (Thanks for the new Clarett building, LICH!) Part of the reason these corporations—let's call them what they are—get away with the amazing shit that they do is they pose as beautiful, shining beacons of near-altruistic goodness. They feed the very life of the City, they do. NYU and Columbia educate, improving our young 'uns' minds and creating generation after generation of thinking, productive citizens. St. Vincent's and LICH keep us in fine fettle, deliver our babies, watch over our old folks, and fix our broken bones so we can live to walk another mile. They wouldn't hurt us. Why, they wouldn't hurt a fly! They're all for the greater freakin' good, you insignificant ingrates!

Don't believe it. NYU would build a dorm on your sainted grandmother's grave, and St. Vincent's would sell a penthouse suite to the rat bastard CEO who's responsible for your high prescription-drug bill. They're bullies and connivers and moustache-twirlers. It's time City Hall gave them the same fish-eye they'd give a Wal-Mart or a relocating Virginia gunseller. Our healers and teachers are stuffing dynamite under the feet of New York's renters, landowners, small businesses, history and heritage.

A Good Sign: Bob's Grinding Service

A traveling sign, anyway. For one of the City's few mobile knife-grinding services. Wonder how many people come out with lawnmowers to be "sharpened by lathe"?

What Cafiero's Looked Like

I've posted on this blog before about a legendary eatery (at least in my nabe) that used to exist on President Street between Hicks and Columbia. It was called Cafiero's, and apparently function from the 1920s until sometime in the 1960s. It was a favorite both of Brooklyn judges and politicians and local mobsters, as well as the occasional celebrity, like Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe.

Unlike some famous restaurants of the New York past, it seems to have disappeared without a trace, aside from the remembrances of local oldtimers. It's never mentioned in articles or books about Old New York, or even ones about Old Brooklyn. The building, 97 President St., is still there, which is a marvel in itself, since the construction of the BQE and extended digging along Columbia in the 1970s destroyed many of the original structures in the area.

To get a better idea of the place, I sent away to the Municipal Archives for a tax photo of the address. Looks like a quaint, cozy little place, complete with cloth awning and the restaurant's name in handsome (I assume gold) script above it. I can't imagine they had room for more than 10 tables inside, which perhaps lent to the joint's reputation for exclusivity. I've run across some some posts about Cafiero's on The South Brooklyn Network—a chat room for old Red Hook and South Brooklyn residents to shout out "Hey, Joey!" and "How's cousin Francis?" and talk about the teachers at Visitation Catholic school and their favorite bygone ice cream joints. People talk about having their Confirmation dinner there, or it being their first fancy dining experience as a kid. They all seemed to like it. Wish I could get ahold of an old menu. (Then again, it was probably the kind of place where the waiter told you what was available that night.)

I'm intrigued by the old guy in the picture, hands on hips, listening to some fella's spiel. Could it be old man Cafiero himself? The photo shows a barber shop to the left, a grocery store to the right, both long gone.

Below is how the Cafiero's building looks now. It's a private residence. I have a hunch that the large piece of metal screwed to the section of wall about the door hides the original Cafiero's sign. It looks like a quickie job. There are other remnants of the building's old life, as well.

These cast borders on either side of the structure are evident in the old photo (if you quint your eyes).

And the old awning was probably strung through these fixtures.


Finally, I have a good feeling that these few ornamental, pale-blue tiles were part of the Cafiero's front stoop.

Sonny's Sign Fades Away

At the corner of Union and Hicks, on other side of the BQE from Carroll Gardens, has long sat a little corner store without a sign but known locally as Sonny and Nancy's. It's always been a bare-bones, old-school place. There are pictures of the old Columbia Street on the wall, before it was wiped away by the waterfront's decline and a big dig along Columbia that killed commerce. There a case of cigars on the right hand wall. Old Italian guys hang out there for hours, and people who aren't old Italian guys aren't encouraged to linger.

Nancy is still there behind the counter. Sonny passed away a few years ago. To tell the truth, I found him an intimidating presence, blustery and vaguely menacing. I got the feeling he was some sort of unofficial mayor of the block. But others in the neighborhood obviously respected him.

For many years, the side of the building was adorned with a large, plastic banner that proclaimed the Sonny and Nancy's was "home to four million-dollar lotto winners." Over time, as the sun beat down on Hicks Street, the wording faded. For the past year, the poster has gone completely white, the letters disappearing from the scene just as surely as Sonny had. I often wondered why the sign was allowed to deteriorate that way.

Yesterday, I was walking by and saw that the sign had been taken down for good. It was being replaced by Old Brooklyn Wine & Liquor Co., a new wine shop down the block. Sorry, Sonny.

***

(Note: There seems to be some understanding about my post in certain corners. Sonny & Nancy's shop is still there as always; just the sign advertising the lotto winners has gone.)

Some Stuff About New Yorkers Flipping Out

Village resident railed against the evil that is NYU, which wants to squash Second Avenue's longstanding Met Food by tripling the rent. One resident yelled, "Are you a real estate company or a university?" That's what we all wonder.

Brooklynites expressed their fury last night that Bruce Ratner ("Liar," "Con Artist," "Vampire") was being honored at a gala by the Brooklyn Museum.

Bloomberg's Parks Department is making sure there won't be a second Tompkins Square riot on its watch.

(Priceless photo courtesy of Brit in Brooklyn. Looks like a '60s shot, huh?)

Meet Big Black: Clarett's New Carroll Gardens "Mausoleum"

Carroll Gardeners met their new neighbor—known as 340 Court Street and coming to you courtesy of developers The Clarett Group and architects Rogers Marvel—and guess what? They didn't like it.

The Rogers Marvel design (Rob Rogers himself was on hand, as well as Clarett's David Hollander) runs 70-feet high and comes right up to the sidewalk on Court. That is, it's 70 feet without the "mechanicals"; we'll get to those later. It has two setbacks of 5 feet, one occurring around the 50-foot mark (where the current zoning law requires builders to have a setback), the other happening at 60 feet. The overall design will feature six brownstone-like townhouses on the Sackett Street side, four on the Union Street side. Parts of the bigger building appeared in the rendering to kind of flow over the roofs of some of the townhouses, like cement lava. The underground parking, which will serve 72 vehicles, will have its entrance and exit on the Sackett Street side, just a few feet from Court. The main entrance of the place, which will feature apartments as big as four-bedrooms, will be on Union.

The townhouses on Sackett looked all right to me, fairly in harmony with the street; the ones on Union not so much. But they will likely not be the issue with the neighborhood organizations. No, that honor will go to the big, boxy, black thing that will sit on Court like a giant outdoor barbeque pit. (Sorry about the quality of the picture; it's a shot of a film projection.) One speaker in the audience called it a "mausoleum." Others signified the color of the building was depressing. Rogers said the substance used was a kind of "fabricated cement board" meant to simulate stone (whatever that means), and commented that it was a "lively material." Since Rogers Marvel did seem to have made a thorough study on the neighborhood (based on their film presentation), it did seem an odd choice of color and material. I don't know of any other buildings on Court Street of that color or gloomy appearance.

The height, of course, bothered many. Clarett signified (as you knew they would) that they could have built much higher, but didn't out of consideration for the area. They also made a comment (that made no sense to me) that they chose to have the building come up to the lip of the sidewalk so that it wouldn't appear monolithic. To my eyes, they've achieved the opposite effect.

I almost feel sorry for developers and architects at these sort of public gatherings, because they're up there completely exposed and the audience usually lets them have it with both barrels. But then they start spewing deceitful bilge and that sympathy evaporates. Take those "mechanicals," which can include a variety of roof objects, such as air-conditioning units, elevator towers and bulkheads. These are allowed by law. But development-watchers known bulkheads can be monstrously big and awfully ugly. An audience member asked how tall the bulkheads would be. Rogers actually replied "No taller than they need to be." My God!! How's that for a response to set a crowd against you? Pressed with a few more questions, he admitted some with be 10 feet and others 14 feet. So that's effectively an 84-foot-tall building, not a 70-foot one.

It's funny. Rogers began his film presentation with a survey at Rogers Marvel's other projects around Brooklyn. Many of the previous works involved the incorporation of old structures with new building, including undertakings at Pratt and on State Street. Some were quite impressive and attractive. The Court Street building was by far the worst of the creations on view.

It's Moses All Over Again

This paragraph in the Tom Robbins article in the current Village Voice got me thinking:

Essentially, current buildings-department regulations create a race between aggrieved citizens and corner-cutting developers: Neighbors have to muster all their energy to stop illegal work, while builders try to outrun them, getting foundations in the ground and walls up before anyone throws a red flag. Then the developers' lawyers go to work, arguing that so much money has already been expended that civic decency should allow them to continue.

That argument—"You can't stop me now! I've already done so much!"—sounded familiar. What rapscallion had used it in the past? I turned to me copy of Robert Caro's biography of urban planner and public scourge Robert Moses, "The Power Broker." Sure enough, on page 219:

[Moses had] the insight of a political genius, that physical development would help rather than hurt his cause—the risk had been magnificently justified. And he had understood the significance of that justification. Once you did something physically, it was very hard for ever a judge to undo it. If judges, who had to submit themselves to the decision of the electorate only infrequently, where thus hogtied by the physical beginning of a project, how much more so would be public officials who had to stand for re-election year by year?... Once you physically began a project, there would always be some way found of obtaining the money to complete it. "Once you sink that first stake," he would often say, "they'll never make you pull it up."

Robert Moses. Role model to today's developers.

Hot Tongue Is Hot

Checking back in at Eisenberg's Sandwich Shop—where the #9 sandwich, "The Spitzer," (hot tongue on rye), has been on offer since our former Governor landed in the soup—I was a big surprised to see the sign and sandwich still in evidence. Haven't we moved on to the next news cycle by now?

I inquired. Apparently the sandwich is "very popular," according to the staff. Hm. Maybe some good can come out of this mess after all.