Tin Pan Alley Threatened

A reader has alerted Lost City to a threat to five of the assortment of buildings along W. 28th Street which were once collectively known as Tin Pan Alley, the early-20th-century wellspring of much of America's musical heritage.

The five buildings at 47-49-51-53-55 West 28th Street has been put up for sale as a group. The Loopnet listing recommends that they be demolished, "yielding over 111,000 sf of Prime Chelsea property." The listing also provides a proposed architectural rendering of what might be built there instead (seen below). The usual thoughtless, anodyne, everyday pile of bricks. The cost to commit this crime: $44,000,000.

The listing has been up since September. One can only hope that, with the current economy, the seller doesn't have a chance in hell of making that price. Lost City has previously decried the fact that these buildings—once home to music publishers that fostered the talents of songwriters Gershwin, Berlin, Donaldson, Carmichael, Warren, Waller, Kahn, Cohan, Mercer, Youmans and dozens more—have been left to rot, with nothing marking their significance to American culture save a small plaque. They don't enjoy landmark status. No pocket museum or tourism bureau marks their presence. It's a positive shanda!

55 W. 28th Street was also, incidentally, the address of famed American socialist Emma Goldman's magazine Mother Earth. If only Goldman were around today. She's organize a hell of a protest against this sale.

The Gift of the Rinse Cycle

What could possibly have been behind the naming of this Chinatown laundromat? Sure, it's on Henry Street, but "O'Henry"? Are they trying to say the laundromat is "of Henry" Street, but using the whimsically abbreviated "o'" instead of "of"? If so, it doesn't quite work. The spelling comes off like an Irish surname (though I've never encountered anyone with the name O'Henry). Could they be honoring the candy bar? (Unlikely, I know.) Or weirder still, could they actually have named their laundry after famed short story writer and one-time New York resident, O. Henry, and have gotten the punctuation wrong?

Or could the name be a play of words on some or all of the above ideas? Whatever the answer, this is safely one of the strangest named laundromats in town.

Gobblety Gook

You hear the one about the New York billionaire who played the other New York billionaire?

Our Fair Mayor, Mike Bloomberg, helped pave the way to his bid to knock down term limits by drafting cosmetics mogul Ronald S. Lauder to his totally altruistic cause. (The City must be saved!) This was critical because Lauder's the dude who "bankrolled the 1993 campaign to create term limits in New York City and is considered the single biggest threat to changing the law, since he is willing to open his wallet to defend it," as the Times' City Room blog puts it.

Lauder agreed, except he thought he had agreed to a one-time-only waiver of the law, one that would benefit Bloomberg only. Only the Mayor and City Council suddenly found out afterwards that they couldn't do that legally; they would have to make the changed from a two-term limit to a three-term limit permanent. Awwww. Sorry, Ron!

Lauder's rich, though, and rich people don't like feeling like fools. He told The New York Times that he would oppose a permanent change, calling it "a terrible mistake."

Uh-uh. Trouble in Bloomieland!

Caught in London at No. 10 Downing Street (what's he doing there? I thought we needed him to save the City!), Bloomberg tried to explain the situation. You ready? Listen to this (I have boldfaced the laughingly bullshitty segments:

Ron and I had a conversation. He wanted to change term limits one time — from two to three. Not get rid of term limits and not do anything other than change it one time, from two to three. When we talked to the lawyers, the lawyers said that has a significant probability of not standing up in court, but a solution we worked out with his lawyers, and he and I on the phone, was you change term limits, and I promise to appoint a Charter Review Commission, and ask them to put on the ballot — not this coming November, not November 09, but of November 2010, because you don’t want it the same time as a general election. The issue plain and simple: should it be two terms or three terms and leave that up to the public. Not to revisit the issue of term limits — that was voted in by the public, and then reaffirmed by the public, and I understand that — but to say whether it should be two or three going forward. So it’s not bait and switch. It was something that we both agreed to, and I think it will work out fine. I’ll talk to Ron when I get back; I’ll be back in the morning.

Nah, it's not bait and switch! And the public has spoken on term limits—he knows that! Of course, he knows that! He's not changing the law, just tweaking it.

The man is a hopelessly prevaricating dissembler.

Old Hoyt Street

Residents of Hoyt Street in Carroll Gardens have in recent months decried restaurateur Jim Mamary's plans to open an Oyster Bar on that lane, insisting it would spoil the quietude of that retiring residential strip. At one Community Board 6 meeting, one local declared: "Bottom line: Hoyt Street is residential."

Which I pretty much agree with. But which was not always the case. To anyone with eyes, it's clear that Hoyt was once—and not too long ago—a commercial strip as busy as neighboring Smith Street. Nearly every corner building between 3rd Street and Sackett Street has the look of a former storefront. I've learned from recent conversations with locals that there were at least two German bakeries on the street and many other businesses aside, including whatever concern once operated out of the Oyster Bar space (a grocery, as I remember). So, in one way of looking at it, Mamary is returning the strip to its historical roots. Not that there were any oyster bars back then.

New York at Night

Cafe Roma in Little Italy. Sign needs a little mending. Though "Ma Roma" ("Mother Rome") has a certain lilt to it.

Heard on the B61

"Those guys on Wall Street, they couldn't run a hot dog stand! Give them $220 million? They should be lined up against a wall and shot!"

Not subtle, but succinct.

No Tea for You

I went down to Chinatown this past weekend to enjoy the wares of the newly reopened Nom Wah Tea Parlor on Doyers Street—only to find it still shuttered!

Last week, the owner told me it would reopen last week after a month-long, enforced closed by the Department of Health. Don't know what happened. Maybe they failed their inspection again. Or maybe the DOH guy didn't show up. Frustrating.

Frankie and Johnnie's Going Strong as End Nears

A friend was good enough to treat me to dinner at Frankie & Johnnie's Steakhouse on 45th Street the other night, giving me a chance to enjoy the former speakeasy and Theatre District staple before the Death March of Progress yanks it down.

I was surprised to find the place thronged, packed to the gills with noisy, happy diners. According to my friend, it's always that busy. We sat in a corner banquette with a full view of the actions, under a photograph of Robert Preston dining with Sandy Dennis (!) at the eatery back in the 1960s. Tables and chairs are packed tightly together in the small room and the seasoned waiters swan in and around the narrow spaces between with ease. We were mothered over by a veteran waiter whose mindful, decorous manner made us feel quite cared for. We both ordered the Filet Mignon with Mushroom Cap, along with sides of garlic mashed potatoes and spinach. I'm not much of a steak fan, so I was surprised how happy the entree made me. It was a beautiful piece of meat from start to finish, tender and flavorful. The mashes potatoes were a dream. We downed it with a superb half-bottle of 2004 Grgich Cabernet Sauvignon.



It's quite a cozy room and it's sad to think it will be gone by January (according to our waiter). It still has a secret, sequestered air to it, and the vista looking through the blinds down on the busy Broadway side street of W. 45th Street is a bird's-eye close-up you can't enjoy anywhere else. The spot shows its age, with the stairs up to the restaurant, and another flight up to the bathrooms, visibly slanting and sloping at curious angles.

The trip up to the bathroom is worth a visit. I wondered if this stairwell once served as an escape route to a secret room or passage when 1920s guests were surprised by unwelcome visits from the police. There is also an old Daily News clipping hung next to the men's room that is worth a perusal. It concerns an 1963 encounter between Jason Robards and Richard M. Nixon in the F&J bar. A drunk Robards was singing old Irish tunes when he spied Nixon at the bar with some government men and let go with "Trick Dick! What the hell are you doing here?" He continued: "You were a lousy football coach. You were a lousy Vice-President, and you'll never be President." Nixon tried to laugh off the encounter by offering to pay for a round for the room. He put $20 on the bar, but kept his arm around the bill. Sure enough, when he left, he surreptitiously repocketed the $20, therefore stiffing Frankie & Johnnie's.

Bet Robards thought of that night often when filming "All the President's Men."

Strong Place Church's Windows Take a Lickin'

An eagle-eyed Lost City reader noticed on Friday (Oct. 3) that some dramatic work was being done of the long-aborning Strong Place Church condo conversion project in Cobble Hill.

Workers at the Cobble Hill site were taking hammers to what were once the arched, stained-glass windows in the 1852 Gothic church. "Under the protective glass I could swear there is some of the original stained glass being broken," said our scout. "Probably badly damaged but...I don't think it was a big deal. At first it looked like a bunch of old glass fell down. I think it was just a few small pieces and the rest was gone years ago and covered with wood." Our reader (who also took these photos) admitted it could very well be the case that not a single shard of stained glass remained in the windows. Well, either way, nothing like a bunch of guys smashing cathedral windows to get your attention.

Trader Joe's Takes the Time

Trade has picked up at Trader Joe's in Brooklyn since it opened a week ago. I hear weekdays after 5 PM get pretty hectic. There's only one more thing Joe's has to do to make its arrival fully welcome by the community: fix the damn clock.

The double-sided clock on the outside corner of the old Independence Bank Building stopped working the day Independence stopped working. For a year, it's only been right two times a day, giving B61 riders no way of telling exactly how late their bus is.

A devoted Lost City reader recently did me the favor of asking Joe's "Captain" when the clock would again be in working order. Amazingly, he said "everyone" had been asking him that question. (Guess I'm not the only one bugged by the stopped clock.) Anyway, he said he expects it to be running by the end of October.