Rat-Squirrel House's Secrets Sealed Up for All Time

Nothing goes in. And nothing comes out.

That's the story of the Rat-Squirrel House of Cobble Hill after last week's Kick-out-the-squatter-and-seal-up-the-building, city-sponsored commando raid of last week.

Any rats or squirrels or squatters or crazy old ladies left inside 149 Kane Street are in there for life! Cinder blocks fill every garden and ground-floor cavity now, the windows, the doors, even the hatch leading to the cellar.

All that remains is for the thing to be torn down, or fall down.

Well, That's Just Dumb

Writes a reader, regarding Little Italy's long-suffering Petrosino Park:

As the summer slips away, local residents and visitors to our neighborhood can only look forlornly at a partially-renovated Petrosino Park and wonder -- what is going on?

While we allegedly wait for supplemental granite, apparently coming here on a very slow boat from China, we can only look past the chain link fencing and see a work in progress. Many of the new plantings seem to have taken well, along with a host of weeds. Some new pavers were laid down, and then some of those new pavers were ripped up.

Spotted in the middle of the park is a new tree, its root ball still exposed, that is struggling to stay alive. It seems that only the recent heavy rains have kept this tree alive.

Due to the negligence of the contractors, and the indifference of our elected officials and our parks department, residents' hopes for a new park being open this year are falling away like the leaves of this dying tree.

Jesus, guys! Plant the damn tree!

Court Street Listing Looks Like Union Market Is Already There

Folks in South Brooklyn have been excited of late that the big, former Blockbuster Video site on Court Street is not going to become a McDonald's—as was feared—but a Union Market grocery store.

On June 5, Brownstoner reported that the property was sold off for $3.7 million to a firm called Broadmill Development. But what's going on here? Now, Massey Knakel Realty has the space listed for a whopping $5.495,000! "50 feet of frontage on Court Street. Excellent Cobble Hill retail corridor location," goes the description. "9,000 square feet of additional air rights. New 15 year lease with 10% rental increases every 3 years."

So Broadmill is flipping the property? With Union Market in it? According to the picture above (shown on the Massey Knakel site), the grocery store is already there!

Recipes of the Lost City: Longchamps' Chicken Manhattan House

A little labor intensive, this one. It is named after Manhattan House, at 65th Street and Third Avenue, the home of one branch of the Longchamps chain. You'll need a bunch of 8-inch pans. And about a day to kill, since you have to make the brown sauce first, which will take a few hours. And the chicken stock, which takes a few more hours. (I eliminated the recipe for the chicken stock; it's your basic stock; you can use your own recipe or any cookbook recipe you like.) Seems like a lot of work, but it sure sounds like the result will be fantastically yummy.

Chicken Manhattan House

2 chickens, 2 1/2 pounds each
2 cups milk
4 T. flour
1 T butter, melted
3 eggs
Salt
1/4 cup butter
Flour for dipping
1/4 pound fresh mushrooms
1 clove garlic, chopped
3 shallots, chopped
1 onion, chopped
3 scallions chopped
2 fresh tomatoes, chopped
1 bay leaf
1 cup basic brown sauce*
1 cup chicken stock
1/2 cup white wine

Cut each chicken into 4 parts. Mix milk, flour, butter, eggs and dash of salt; beat well. Pour this pastry mixture into 4 heated 8-inch pans. Bake at 375 degrees F. for 8-10 minutes or until brown. Flour and salt the chicken and brown on both sides. Add mushrooms, garlic, shallots, onion and scallions and cook until brown. Add tomatoes, bay leaf, brown sauce, stock and wine. Cover and cook for 1 hour. Place a leg and a chicken breast in each pastry shell. Top with sauce.

*Basic Brown Sauce

2 pounds veal bones
Few chicken bones, neck and feet
1 carrot, sliced
1 onion, sliced
1 leek, chopped
1 stalk celery, sliced
1 bay leaf
3 black peppercorns
2 cloves
Pinch rosemary
1 clove garlic
1/4 pound butter
1/4 cup flour
1/2 cup sherry
3 large tomotoes, chopped
1 T. catsup
1 T. chili sauce
1 t. Worcestershire sauce
3 quarts chicken or beef stock
Salt

Put veal and chicken bones, chicken parts, carrot, onion, leek, celery, bay leaf, peppercorns, cloves, rosemary, garlic and butter in a pan. Put in a 350 degree F. oven to brown for 20 minutes. Add flour and stir over low heat until flour has browned. Add sherry, tomatoes, catsup, chili sauce, Worcestershire and stock. Simmer for 3 1/2 hours. Strain. Season to taste.

Past "Recipes of the Lost City"

B61 Begins New Phase in January

Brooklynites will have something to cheer about in the dim, chill days of January.

That's when the heinously long route of the eternally late B61 bus line will be officially split in two. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority will "split the route of the B61 bus into one section from transit-starved Red Hook to Downtown and another section from Downtown to Greenpoint (and beyond into Queens)."

The name of the northerly half of the line will be rechristened the B62. Which is a good thing, because I won't have to get used to a new name in order to bitch about my bus line.

Guss' Pickles, Back in the Day

A faithful reader sent in this shot of Guss' Pickles, taken when the shop was still on Essex Street, in the 1990s, long before all the turmoil that is sending the timeless shop out to Brooklyn, far away from its roots and true name.

The Men and Ladies Rooms Signs at Sevilla Restaurant

You'll see these sort of quaint, Art Deco signs over the bathrooms at various Manhattan restaurants of a certain age. Sardi's, for one. This pair, at Sevilla Restaurant in Greenwich Village, are in particularly good shape.

Me and Sidney Zion

I did not know Sidney Zion, the colorful career journalist who died yesterday. But I met him on one memorable occasion.

It was a party at "21." The restaurant's longtime director, a poised, manicured figure in tailored, white-collar French-cuff shirts named Bruce Snyder, was retiring after 35 years, and all the regulars who loved him—corporate titans, old-school pols and journos, heads of state—gathered in droves to say goodbye. Two floors of the restaurant were used, and they were full. There was a lot of food, "21" burgers and oysters, and lots of drink. Many speeches were made.

Toward the end of the evening, my wife and I settled down to a place at the main bar on the ground floor, under the trinkets and toys that cover the Bar Room ceiling. It took us some time to get the bartender's attention and order our drinks. A man next to us already had his poison in hand, a jumbo-sized martini with olive. He wore a blue blazer, tie and thick black glasses. His expressive pink face was framed by a rim of silver hair. And he was garrulous.

Spying our dilemma, he began lamenting that it was no longer possible to hang out at the "21" bar on a regular basis. "It's the smoking ban that killed it," he growled. "In the old day, the people were three deep at the bar, every day! There were clouds of smoke. Now it's dead." Apparently, he was a habitue of the old place. He said his name was Sidney Zion, a journalist. (My brain was not clicking at the time, and the handle meant nothing to me. Just another writer.) We talked some more. When he found out my wife and I were both journalists, we talked even more. He had a way with gabbing, about frivolous and serious things alike. Playing things close to the vest was not his style. He trusted you with his opinion; his thoughts were not a secret cache to which only he and a few worthies had access. You could see how he'd be adept at becoming intimates with all sorts of people quickly, how he could "get that story."

We eventually retired to a table. Our conversation ranged from politics to religion to family matters. I liked him, even admired him. He was open, willing to take an intense (if temporary) interest in someone he had never met before in his life—and at an advanced stage of life, too. He also reminded me of something that was missing for the New York journalism work of the 21st century, something I was constantly looking for and never finding: character, humor, raffishness, a kind of rough-hewn humanity, people who drank, smoked, ate, made the rounds of their favorite joints—in short, lived.

I never saw Zion again, except in the papers. I started reading his column. (His last perch was in the conservative New York Sun.) I didn't always agree with him. I still liked him.

Sidney Zion was 75.

The Carroll Gardens Almost-Non-Existent Norwegian Heritage Tour

Carroll Gardens—once South Brooklyn—has a deep Italian heritage. Everyone knows that. You can still see thriving examples of it everywhere you look. It also once had a prosperous Irish population. This is less well known. Finally, a lot of Norwegians once lived in these environs. This is hardly known at all.

I take an interest in the area's Norwegian past, because my ancestry is half Norwegian. And I've gotta tell you, you have to look have to find evidence that any Norsemen ever breathed air around here. But I have looked hard over the years. For what it's worth, here's what I found. It ain't much.

NORWEGIAN SEAMAN'S CHURCH: The center of Norwegian Brooklyn culture once stood at the northwest corner of Clinton and First Place. It's still there, of course, just converted to apartments some time ago. This is the church's second location, the first having been on Williams Street (now Pioneer) in Red Hook. It was built in 1865 as the Westminster Presbyterian Church. When the Norwegians took over, a large Norwegian style pulpit was installed and an old anchor was placed on the lawn. About a half century ago, during one of the King of Norway's rare visits to America, this was the only stop he made in New York City.

NORWEGIAN SAILORS' HOME: Walk north on Clinton to the southwest corner of Carroll. Here, in the old Greek Revival building where the Guido Funeral Home is now, the Scandinavian Sailors' Home once stood. It wasn't a rest home, but a kind of hotel where sailors could stay when in port. Marriages and christenings also took place here. Here's an account of one Gunnar, who stayed there in 1906: "I am staying at the Scandinavian Sailor's home, which I prefer to many other lodgings for many reasons. Firstly the seamen living there are mostly decent and able people. Secondly the food is good. To every breakfast we get oat porridge with whole milk and egg and ham. Further we get hard bread and crisp bread. Here in America they mostly eat a kind of soft white bread, which one soon get fed up with." Then again, 1908, the New York Times described the "dingy, smoke-filled back room" of the place. Different perspectives.

HANS S. CHRISTIAN MEMORIAL KINDERGARTEN: Walk up to President Street and turn right, toward Court. The squat, pale, classical buidling at 236 President Street was built as in 1897. It was named in honor of Hans Christian, a Norwegian immigrant, a prominent Gowanus lime and brick merchant. It's now a private residence and the words "Christian Memorial" have been chipped away from their place above the doorway. You can still see their shadows. (I just blogged about this last week, if you want to know more.) Christian himself lived across the street at 231.


FRELSESARMEEN: Walk to Court, and turn right. Frelsesarmeen is the curious word carved at the top of the Eileen Dugan Senior Center at 380 Court Street, on the west side of Carroll Park in Brooklyn. Frelsesarmeen is the Norwegian name for Salvation Army, and that's what this building was once. I've never met anybody who remembers the address functioning in that way, though. The Senior Center was founded in 1974. In Carroll Park across the street, there's a monument to soldiers from the area who fell during World War I. If you give the list a scan, you'll find many Scandinavian names.


P.J. HANLEY'S: Keep walking down Court to Third Place. Called by some the oldest bar in Brooklyn, Hanley's was born in the 1870s as a Norwegian tavern. It went the Irish pub way in 1898 after Jack Ryan bought it. He ran it for 60 years. P.J. Hanley entered the picture in 1956, and he sold it to his two nieces in the mid-90s.

This Week on Lost City

Trouble and turmoil at the Rat-Squirrel House; Guss' Pickles Is Moving to Brooklyn, and Without Its Name; The South Brooklyn Bike Thieves Were Caught (Two of Them, Anyway); The Riddle of President Street Unraveled; Irving Place, We Hardly Knew Ye; Fifth Avenue Cast-Iron Job Gets Spruced Up.