Butcher Butchered

Gowanus Lounge reports that A&S Pork Store on Fifth Avenue in Park Slope, the last surviving butcher in that nabe, will be closing, ending a 66-year life for the shop.

Sad news. As I don't live in Park Slope, I've never been a big customer, but I've admired the store's colorful presence each time I've passed it, and occasionally wandered inside to admire the goods on display. It's a rent hike, of course, pushing A&S out. They have three months to find another place, so I guess there's hope, but I wouldn't be surprised if the owners just pack it in. It's hard to absorb the expense of a major move in these times.

And there's more from Adventures of a Gal, which makes the story all the more unfortunate: "I spoke to the owners at A&S and it seems to be a family squabble gone awry and now the daughter of the former owner (still all family) is jacking their rent up b/c she knows she can get more money for that space and doesn’t care that the family business won’t be able to afford it."

Nice.

So Long, W. 45th Street

A month ago Lost City remarked that the strip of former restaurants along W. 45th Street between Broadway and Eighth looked ripe for the wrecking ball. Sure enough, a month later half of the buildings are gone, reduced to a pile a rubble. Vanished are the addresses that once housed Puleo's and Puleo's II. Still standing are the one-time homes of Barrymore's and Sam's. Also left is the jigsaw pattern on the side of the former Sam's, an interesting arrangement of wall and brick which looks to me a bit like something Robert Rauschenberg might have come up with.

The million-dollar question remains what's to become of the old steakhouse Frankie and Johnny's, which sits right next door and continues to act like nothing's going on. It's hard to see how a hotel will rise on this sight with F&J still there. Perhaps it will remain, a la Hurley's and Rockefeller Center.

360 Van Brunt to Get New Tenant

Several new wrinkles in the ongoing mystery of 360, the praised restaurant of chef Arnaud Erhart that put Red Hook on the dining map until he capriciously shut the place down and disappeared last year, prompting a million conspiracy theories as to why he left and where he went.

Walking past the storefront today, I encountered a man sitting with a purposeful air in a lawn chair in front of the opened shop. I thought this might be the new tenant, but no. Even better: it was the landlord. And he had a heap of information regarding the new sign in the window that read "New Restaurant Opening Soon."

The new eatery, "another fancy sit-down place," will arrive in September. It will be Italian, and run by an Italian, whose name I didn't get, but who runs a restaurant outside Italy, and has put in time at Patois on Smith Street. (Perhaps with that information, the foodies out there may have an idea who the guy is.) The place may be a "family affair," run by the chef and his clan, and the landlord said the man was committed to the place.

That sort of explains what will become of 360. But what about what happened to it? "I think Arnaud decided he had accomplished what he set out to do," said the landlord. "One of the best ten restaurants in New York? Goodbye." Where did he go? "Madagascar to save the coral reefs," he said with a smirk. I'm pretty sure that was a joke. But what came next probably isn't. Arnaud is back in the city now, but may possibly soon leave for New Orleans, perhaps to open up a new restaurant.

Bleecker & Macdougal

I'm a bit slow on the uptake here, but for form's sake I'd like to take a moment here to mourn the passing of Le Figaro cafe on the southeast corner of Macdougal Street and Bleecker. I know the kitschy old wooden cafe hasn't been what it should for many years. (The original incarnation actually shut down in 1969.) Still, its exit marks the final death knell for an intersection that was, for a time in the post-WWII years, more Greenwich-Villagey than any other.

This was the crossroads of every significant literary and music figure of the '50s and '60s. They all spent time here: Dylan, Burroughs, Agee, Ginsberg, Pollock, Auden, Baldwin, Cage, Williams (Tennessee), Miles Davis, Styron, O'Hara. The famed San Remo was on the northwest corner. There were few literary hangouts more famous. All of the above were rooted to the wooden booths. At the northeast corner sat the old Cafe Borgia for 60 solid years, until 2001. After the Cafe Reggio up the street, it was the oldest cafe in the Village. Dylan and the Beat poets hung out here too, as well as Warhol and Albee.

As you can imagine, one came to this area to drink. Drink coffee and drink alcohol. Drink and talk, talk and drink—both, furiously. The intellectual life of the Village ragee here day in and day out. Now, with Figaro's death, it's one of the most indistict, unimaginative intersections in New York City, in my opinion.

Folkster Fred Neil wrote a song called Bleecker & Macdougal back in '65. It went:

I was standing on the corner
Of the Bleecker and MacDougal
Wondering which way to go
I've got a woman down in Coconut Grove
And you know she love me so

I wanna go home

We all do, Fred.

Cafiero's: An Eye-Witness Account

In my continuing excavation of Cafiero's—the once legendary, now forgotten Italian eatery on President Street near Columbia—one thing I have not been able to discover was how the place looked and operated inside. From the looks of the storefront, it couldn't have been that big.

Clearing up this matter and many more is one Ralph Scarfogliero, who lived across from said restaurant as a kid, and recently left a comment on Cafiero's item I posted way back in May 2007. First among his many tidbits of information was the name of the proprietor: he was called Sharkey, if you can believe it. He wife Katie and sister Mamie were waitresses. Brother Frank was the cook. There were also waiters named John and Red.

From the sound of Ralph's account—which I will unroll verbatim soon—the place operated a bit like a private club and could easily have provided a scene in many a Scorcese film. There were a few tables up front as you walked in, and twice as many in the back, and I have heard from other past visitors that if Sharkey knew you, you were taken to the back.

If you ever have heard all that talk about New York life being more flavorful in the past and have questioned it, consider Ralph's testimony:

Sharkey would always greet the neighborwomen by saying hello Sophie dear, or hello Connie dear. He lived above the restaurant and his sister and her husband lived on the top floor. They only served lunch and one 6PM sitting for dinner. There were 6 tables in the front, and you could walk back through the kitchen to the back room to find another 8 tables. When I was a kid Sharkey would send me around the corner to the bakery to get another 3 or 4 loaves of fresh Italian bread when he ran short. His wife would type up the menu for the day, there were no printed menus. He retired in the seventies and although was approached to sell the restaurant many times, he always refused. I can remember one time some 15 years after he retired, someone would come back from being out of town to dine there only to discover Sharkey sitting outside telling them sorry, he's retired.

They would make the biggest heroes ever, only cutting off about 4 inches from a loaf of Italian bread. Frank had a knack of pitching a ball of dough from the kitchen all the way to the front of the restaurant where I would be waiting for my take out, and beam me in the head. He never missed and I never caught him in the act.
Boy I sure do miss those days.

My heart just throbs with yearning when I hear stories like that.

Other things I've learned: they had valet parking, to handle the many cars that were often idling out front; the kitchen was open and could be inspected as you passed through to the back room; the cooks handed the dishes through an open window onto a buffet table, where the waiters picked them up; decor was nil; most ingredients were imported; the house wine was home made.

Everyone describes the food as not just good, but great. This could just be nostalgia talking, but the raves sound convincing. Dishes mentioned include the Charcoal Broiled Veal Spedini, Vinegar Peppers over grilled pork chop, potato croquettes, the sides of rigatoni.

Apparently, after he retired, Sharkey just kept the restaurant as it was: tables, chairs, kitchen, etc. He just didn't open it for business. Pretty sadistic, dontcha think?

Lost City: Troy, NY, Edition: Tiny Hot Dogs

Localized culinary traditions drive me mad with excitement. In these days of rapid globalization and homogeneity, they're a sign of continued life and individuality; provincialism in the best sense.

Troy, New York, a mid-sized city on the Hudson River, just north of Albany, has a lot to interest the curious traveler who's not too put off by the drab trappings of a down-on-its-luck, has-been industrial center. There's the famed Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, the oldest technological university in the English-speaking world. It was home to the W. & L. E. Gurley, Co., which for more than a century made precision instruments that were used to survey much of the American West after the Civil War (it's building is now a national landmark). Also here was the Meneely Bell Company, which made, yes, bells, that went all over the country and the world. The Erie Canal begins just north of here. For the literary-minded, "A Visit from St. Nicholas" was first published in the Troy Sentinel, and Kurt Vonnegut set a couple of his novels here. For the Mob-obsessed, Legs Diamond did business here during the bad-old Prohibition days, when liquor flowed down from Canada through Troy. And, perhaps most significantly, the notion of "Uncle Sam" began here when butcher Sam Wilson supplied the Union troops in the Civil War with meat. Soldiers equated the U.S. stamped on the barrels with "Uncle Sam" Wilson.

All this intrigues me, but what got me jumping up and down when I recently visited Troy were the tiny hot dogs. Yes, tiny hot dogs. For whatever reason, Troy, Albany and the surrounding area take their frankfurters in bite-size portions. Three-inch franks are served on three-inch buns, and people typically order a bunch of them, the way folks get a sack of small burgers from White Castle. No one could explain to me why this is, only that it's been this way for some time.

No place in Troy dolls out these delicacies with more notoriety than Famous Lunch on Congress Street right in the downtown. The luncheonette has been there since 1932 and has been run by three generations of the Vasil family. It used to be called Quick Lunch before, well, it became famous—supposedly because some Troy marine stationed in Moscow got a hankering for the dogs and had some flown over. Since then, it's Famous Lunch.



Troy used to teem with mills, and thus teemed with mill workers, and Famous Lunch still looks like a place suited to them. There are no airs. There are blond wooden booths along the right wall, a counter with low stools along the left, checkered tile floor, a stainless steel grill on the other side of the counter, and a wooden phone booth at the back. Ur-luncheonette.

Prices are cheap. I took the owner's advice and got the "special": four hot dogs with the works and a drink. "The works" includes "Zippy sauce" (a special concoction) chopped onions, mustard and a dark beanless chili. Literally hundreds of these dogs are cooking on a grill near the front window and the counter guys fix them up quickly. One tattooed gentleman next to me order a dozen, all piled up on a plate. Made me feel like a lightweight. The mini dogs are garlicky and strong, and probably a good recipe for heartburn, but I ate them with no protest. There's something called Zippy Fries on the menu, and supposedly the famous rice pudding is served with half and half, but I didn't try these.



The wieners have always been made by the same German butcher, the Troy Pork Store, just a couple blocks away. It's been around since 1918. It's another gem of Troy authenticity.



And I found a 12-pack of miniature hot dog buns at this Troy bakery, ready to the taking home, in case you need some small franks in the comfort of your four walls. All of Troy, you see, is in on the local lunch legacy.

Lost City Asks "Who Goes to Tripoli?"

Tripoli, subject of my latest "Who Goes There?" on Eater, looks completely out of place on Atlantic Avenue. From the outside, the austere Lebanese restaurant seems like another Gage & Tollner, a high-ceilinged relic from a grander age of dining. The building anchors the stretch of Atlantic from the harbor to Court Street.

I regret my decision somewhat to finally visit the place, because the restaurant is so much more humble on the inside. So I'm sadder, but wiser now. But it's a nice place, run by a seemingly nice family.

One funny aspect about the business. Notice the gray paint on the facade, and the gold lettering used for "Tripoli"? It's the same gray paint and gold lettering used for the small businesses (dry cleaner, pharmacy) on Atlantic right across Clinton Street. That's because Tripoli used to be located on the opposite corner, where, presumedly, the landlord of that building imposed the gray-gold color scheme on the owners of the eatery. When they moved across Clinton, they apparently kept the color scheme even though the didn't have to. It lends a nice uniformity of design to the intersection.

Lotta Visual Stimuli

There's a lot to engage the eye on most Manhattan intersections. Even so, you have to hand it to this corner of Fifth and 32nd. Youch! Kinda go blurry after a couple seconds. Doesn't help to look up, either. The old buildings a major piece or ornate brik-a-brack.

A Good Sign: Junior's

In Brooklyn. Where else? (Don't tell me Manhattan, too.)

Erie Basin Park

The other day, I finally biked down to Beard Street to take a look at the new IKEA and see how big and blue and popular it was. But I got sidetracked by the entrance to the new Erie Basin Park that the Swedish giganto built around its store, and soon decided to put off my visit for another day.

I'm not one for handing corporations compliments, but I have to admit that I was rather floored by the park. First of all, it's pretty huge. I was on my bicycle and it seemed to go on forever. Second of all, it provides fairly unexampled access to New York Harbor. It's shoreline all the way, something Red Hook's always needed. Thirdly, while IKEA can rightly be blamed for having trashed a lot of Red Hook's maritime history (Todd Shipyards and all its records, anyone?), it did salvage some of it and incorporate it into the park. An 18-foot compass is set into the ground. There are colorful sculptures of thick rope and many large yellow bollards (those knobby things you tie the ropes to). Big cement chocks ("A heavy fitting of metal or wood with two jaws curving inward, through which a rope or cable may be run") bear the names of 24 ships—many with interesting and romantic names—that were once repaired on the site. And, of course, the four towering cranes that have been preserved and dot the site. like so many Imperial Walkers on the ice world of Hoth.

Additionally, there are informational panels that describe various aspects involved in the mending of a large ship. Meanwhile, out in the water are rotting and ghostly examples of old docks, warehouses and ships, giving the area the feel of a living museum/graveyard of Brooklyn's waterfront past. The sense if history is palpable.

Say what you will, IKEA did a great job on this park. It's a bit like Disney and the New Amsterdam. If I had my way, I'd rather have Disney out of Manhattan for good. But I never want to give up their restoration of the New Amsterdam Theatre.