Lost City Asks "Who Goes to Les Sans Culottes"?

Once a month, I have occasion to meet some colleagues at Felidia, the celebrated Italian restaurant on E. 58th Street. Each time, when I exit and make my way down Second Avenue, I pass by the weird old relic known as Les Sans Culottes, a French throwback that couldn't be more different from the contemporary, polished Felidia. Les Sans Culottes has collected more eccentricity in a mere 32 years than this City should bestow on a restaurant. I suspect it was never grand, the way other neighboring French places like Le Veau d'Or, were. It was always a little kooky, a little kitschy. It's endearing to its regulars, though, I dare say. And those sausage trees!

Here is my take on Eater.

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Banks Haven't Changed Much

If you think the no-fault treatment being given today's Wall Street higher-ups is a new phenomenon, go to the southwest corner of Canal and Orchard Streets and stare up at the S. Jarmulovsky Bank Building, which amazingly still stands, given its history.

Sender Jarmulovsky, who began his career as a pushcart peddler, was a big local financier in the late 19th century. He founded his bank in 1873 and built this building as monument to his achievement in 1895. Banking regulations were pretty non-existent back then, so he did what he pleased, and immigrants showed their trust by putting their savings in the bank. But the outbreak of WWI precipitated a run on the bank, when depositors sought to withdraw money in order to help relatives overseas. This caused the institution to fail. There was a riot. Thousands of immigrants were ruined. Six committed suicided.

Sender Jarmulovsky received a suspended sentence. And so it goes.

Did You Know FDR Liked Katz's?

There are pictures of everyone from Bill Clinton to Rob Reiner to Soupy Sales on the walls of Katz's Delicatessen. But here's one I never noticed until a recent visit. FDR!

I don't know about you, but FDR doesn't strike me as a pastrami-on-rye type of guy. Katz's is now a political whistle stop. Carter and Giuliani and Bloomberg have all made a stop. But in the 1930s?

The picture looks like the FDR who was elected in 1932. But honestly, it's not a photograph, but an illustration. I doubt FDR knew anything about it. It appears to be the cover of a giveaway menu or something. Roosevelt's name isn't even on it. "Compliments of Katz's Delicatessen/Known as the Best," it says. Then there's some Yiddish, that I wish I could read. Anyway, a neat artifact.

A Good Sign: Chuen Lee Fabrics

Actually, I don't just like the sign. I like the whole facade. A set designer going to Chinatown authenticity couldn't have done it better.

Crawford Norman

This intriguing old clock sits in the window of a old gold jewelry shop on the corner of Canal Street and the Bowery the south edge of the Lower East Side. It must have hung outside the shop at one point, and, by the looks of it, dated from the 1930s or 1940s.

It pointed to a bit of a mystery, though. The signage on the store, which looks to be of newer vintage, reads Crawford Fine Gold Jewelry. But the older clock has the names Crawford and Norman. Makes me think there was a name change somewhere along the life, and make me wonder who Norman was. An original partner in the firm?

13 Reasons Bloomberg Shouldn't Be Re-elected

I'm not sure why a great chunk of the metropolitan population, when thinking about Michael Bloomberg, don't remember his many mayoral failings, but only that they kinda like him for some reason. So, as Mayor "I-know-you-need-me" Mike jockeys for a third term, I thought I'd jog some memories with 13 reasons why he doesn't deserve one more single day.

1. Atlantic Yards. That gaping hole in downtown Brooklyn is as much his fault as Ratner's. He allowed it to happen, funneling money from the City coffers to the developer and looking the other way as Ratner twisted every law in the book,including that of Eminent Domain, in his favor.

2. The West Side Stadium. This bad idea—which would have choked the West Side and burdened Manhattanites with crowds, traffic, smog and congestion—had its only important champion in Bloomberg. It was his pet project, a legacy-making ego trip, and he has never admitted that he was in the wrong when he pressed for it.

3. Every Ugly Condo Tower and Every Dangerous Construction Site You See. Bloomberg unlocked the gate of the City's corral of avaricious developers, pointed them in the direction of every neighborhood in Gotham and said "Have at it, boys! I ain't watchin'!" To further mollify them, he put a puppet in charge of the Department of Building, leading to a body so corrupt and ineffective, it resulted in a rash of construction deaths.

4. Unaccountability. Bloomberg refuses to let the City know when he leaves for vacation in Bermuda. He thinks this is acceptable policy.

5. He's Too Charitable for the City's Good. Bloomberg gives thousands and thousands of dollars to many organizations and peoples. This is not a bad thing in itself. But it makes it difficult for many quarters to criticize his policies, for fear of reprisal. A cynic could said he's buying silence on a daily basis.

6. Every Chain Store You See. Giuliani ushered in the era of chain stores in NYC. Bloomberg accelerated the pace, killing indy shops left and right. If neighborhoods like Yorkville and the Upper West Side have been completely scrubbed of character, you can blame Mike.

7. Amanda Burden. He hired this lifelong socialite as Commissioner of Planning. She's never seen a neighborhood zoning that she didn't think needed more tall buildings.

8. Big Vision Projects. Cristo's Gates. Olafur Eliasson’s Waterfalls. These gargantuan art projects are here to beautify the City or increase tourism. They're here to make Bloomie look like a Big Vision Man, which is what he wants more than anything.

9. Wall Street Melted Down on his Watch. There are a lot of people to blame. There are a lot of reasons why. But Michael Bloomberg was the Mayor of New York City when it happened. This is not a small detail.

10. He Buys Elections. $73 million on the first election. More than that on the second election.

11. He Changes Stripes. Bloomberg, a lifelong Democrat, became a Republican in order to win City Hall. He then became an Independent when he hoped to run for President. THE MAN HAS NO CONVICTIONS EXCEPT PERSONAL ADVANCEMENT!

12. He's a Fake Subway Rider. Bloomberg loved to trumpet his use of the subway as a bonafied of his man-of-the-people status, until the New York Times revealed that three shiny SUVs ferry him every morning from his Upper East Side townhouse to an express Lexington Avenue station many blocks away.

13. He Allowed This Picture to Be Taken of Him.

Term limits were made for this man.

The Story of a Chicken

In 1991, I was living on the Lower East Side. It was still the Lower East Side then, though just barely. Essex was fairly lined with old Jewish businesses and there were small, dusty manufacturers on the side streets. Not a club or bar or trendy restaurant in sight.

I was in the early months of dating my soon-to-be wife. I decided to impress her by cooking her a Rosh Hashanah dinner. Only three years removed from the Midwest at that point, I knew nothing about Judaism or kosher cooking, but I figured I could muddle my way through. My main undertaking was to be a pot of matzo ball soup. I knew enough to understand that I needed a kosher chicken, but I didn't realize the importance of shopping ahead. It wasn't until late in the afternoon of the appointed night that I went out to purchase the fowl. Sure enough, most local grocery stores didn't carry kosher chicken, and those that did had been picked clean by smart forward-planning shoppers.

I began trudging down Essex in the drizzling rain looking for an open butcher. It soon started to dawn on me how hopeless my prospects were. Of course, kosher butchers closed early on Jewish holidays, as they did every Friday evening. The light was failing. My chances of finding a chicken were next to nil.

I walked the length of Essex and did not find an open store. Locked doors and roller shutters. Not a soul on the street. But I couldn't give up; I had no back-up plan, foodwise. And I promised matzo ball soup. I was also well aware of how foolish I would seem: A Rosh Hashanan chicken soup cook who thought he could buy a chicken on Rosh Hashanah.

I turned left down East Broadway and passed the old Forward building, Seward Park and Jefferson Street. Then, on Clinton, just a few doors south from East Broadway, a saw a dingy little storefront with a light on and no sign, but some of the earmarks of a butcher. I walked in. An old, stout, graying man was busy closing up shop. There was a large bloodied counter to the left, some meat hooks along the wall, and a large, ancient, walk-in fridge at the back with its door open. White, red and gray were the only colors on display.

The man eyed me up and down with a look of weary disbelief. "Who is this fool?" he seemed to be saying. I looked around. Not a piece of meat in sight, though it was clearly a butcher shop. A butcher shop that saw no need for niceties or decor, but a butcher shop.

"I need a chicken," I said, with little hope in my voice. The butcher sighed and looked around at the vast amounts of nothingness that surrounded him. "Do you see a chicken," he said, without saying anything. Then he shrugged and walked back into the fridge. A minute passed. He miraculously came back with the yellowish, rather misshapen carcass of a hen that looked as though it had lived a long, colorful, exhausting life. It was not one of those pretty, perfect, symmetrical birds you see in the supermarket. It was a real, dead, plucked chicken. A working-glass Friday night chicken.

And it was the only chicken I was going to find on the Lower East Side that eve of Rosh Hashanah. I bought it and he put it in a clear plastic bag. The soup I made from it was delicious.

I walked back to Clinton Street a few months later to check in on the butcher and he was gone. I should have guessed by the look of the place and look on his face that the shop was on its last legs and the owner was ready for retirement. Both man and business were from an era on its way out.

Above is a picture of the address where it once stood, now home to L's Beauty Salon.

Mayor Michael R. Berlusconi

From the New York Times, about Michael Bloomberg bid for an illegal third term at Mayor of New York: “What this represents is the complete collapse of “small d” democratic politics in New York under the Bloomberg monarchy,” said Fred Siegel, a professor at Cooper Union. “He is becoming our Berlusconi. He owns the press and he is not accountable in ordinary ways.”

The fox is in the hen house, New Yorkers. We're in more trouble than we know.

Billy Stein, Hardship Case, Spends $35,000 on Lobbying

Pardon Me for Asking has uncovered the possible reason would-be Brooklyn Borough President Bill DeBlasio has been relatively silent on the subject of zoning-buster 360 Smith (aka Oliver House), after remonstrating against the development strenuously last year. 360 Smith developer Billy Stein has been lobbying Councilman DeBlasio to the tune of $35,000!

Hey, isn't Stein the sharp-suited guy who pleaded hardship to the Board of Standards and Appeals in order to push his 70-foot Oliver House past new Carroll Gardens zoning regulations? Things can't be too hard if he has 35 grand to toss over to lobbyist George Arzt Communications, Inc.

So which sleazeball cares less about the community, Stein or DeBlasio? Tough one.

Cemusa Still Finding Ways to Suck

Bowery Street?