I Wish They Have Built It

Gothamist posted this item about the Coney Island Globe Tower that never was:

Today the Library of Congress posted a bunch of old New York Tribune covers in their Flickr pool, one displaying the ambitious tower, where the plans for it were announced in May 1906. Inside, investors were offered "a ground floor chance to share profits in the largest steel structure ever erected...the greatest amusement enterprise in the whole world...the best real estate venture." The Globe Tower would cost around $1,500,000 to erect, and the man behind it, Samuel Friede, was looking for the means to make it happen.

His vision included a 700-foot-tall sphere subdivided into eleven floors, and placed at a corner of the Steeplechase property on Surf Avenue. Inside would house everything from a garden, restaurants, a roller rink, bowling alley, a 4-ring circus, a music hall, the largest ballroom and theme park in the world, a hotel, an observatory, and obviously the United States Weather Observation Bureau and Wireless Telegraph Station. Below the globe one would find a combination parking garage, subway and railroad station, including a direct route out to sea incase a boat was your preferred mode of transportation.

This article explains the fate of Friede's dream, noting that in March of 1907, "George Tilyou, tired of the endless delays, threatened an injunction. A Brooklyn Supreme Court judge prevented it. None-the-less, by 1908 it became clear that the most impressive architectural project ever conceived was a fraud. Tilyou was left with the problem of removing thirty foundation piles on his property."

Tilyou have vision. Compare his ideas to those laid out these days by Joe Sitt and Mike Bloomberg.

Lost City Asks "Who Goes to Forlini's?"

I've been to Forlini's a few times. I keep hearing how it's a fave with lawyers and judges and the like. But I always seem to go where there are no lawyers or judges around. Of course, I don't know exactly how to spot a judge on sight. (Silver hair and a black robe, right?) But one of these days, I want to catch Morganthau at the joint.

Here's the Eater column:

Who Goes There? Forlini's

The answer to “Who Goes There?” as it pertains to Forlini’s right now is, of course, no one. The conventional scuttlebutt on this family-owned, half-century-old restaurant—a lone life raft of Italian cuisine in the great China Sea below Canal Street—is that is survives on the patronage of the judges, lawyers and various legal professionals who work at the hulking Manhattan Criminal Courts Building just across Baxter Street. And that scuttlebutt is true. But those courtroom jockeys are all on holiday in August.

“This is a big vacation month for us,” said the smiling, moustachioed bartender, whom I had pretty much all to myself. “Very slow.” Why not just close during August? “We close only one day a year, Christmas Day. There’s still enough people to stay open.” Among those few people on a recent night were a family whose son kept fleeing the table to play a video game in the bar area, and a resident loudmouth holding forth on subjects including Russian literature, politics, the Romanian revolution of 1989, actor Peter Ustinov, and a married couple, known to both he and the restaurant’s manager, who had put on a show of bad behavior the previous evening. “That was what you would call a sketch,” said the manager, with exacting syntax.

Lunches are the big thing here, not dinner. I ate at one of the tables opposite the bar. It seemed more convivial. When it’s sparsely populated, the airless main dining room—with its salmon-colored booths, tan walls and bad oil paintings—can feel like an upholstered mausoleum. The narrow bar, where it is also possible to eat, feels more like a tavern you might find in any New York neighborhood.

I’ve eaten at Forlini’s a few times. The food is not special, though I could see getting attached to it if I ate there five lunches a week. I acted on a tip that spaghetti and meatballs, though not on the printed menu, is available and good. True on both counts. Plus, it is one of the cheapest entrees available—$9!—on a menu that can skew pricey. I did not opt for the numerous listed cocktails which the menu “suggested”: Kir Royale, Rusty Nail, Singapore Sling, Pink Squirrel. (Bet they were already suggesting those back in 1956, when Forlini’s opened).

I thought of asking my usual question: do the proprietors of the restaurant own the building they occupy. But they I thought: What’s the difference? When you’re best customers are judges and lawyers, I think you’re chances of losing a fight with a landlord are pretty slim.
—Brooks of Sheffield

Red Hook to Get Lobster Rolls

Brownstoner previously reported the news that Red Hook's Lobster Pound would open this summer at 284 Van Brunt Street. It's run by Susan Povich and Ralph Gorham, who, every week, drive up to Maine and come back with a load of fresh shellfish for sale. Which sounds like a great job to me.

Now Sarah Schmerler reports on her new blog that Gorham is "about to install a kitchen and serve Lobster Rolls to passers-by for $13 a pop," which is kinda really extremely exciting, at least to a Clam Shack junkie like me.

Gorham is apparently a woodworker by trade. He has his shop next door. He builds furniture out of recycled wood in his shop. He actualy built the wooden, rubber-lined tubs which hold the lobsters.

No arrival date yet for the rolls. Hurry, guys. I have no money for a New England vacation this year. So bring the Clam Shack to me!

A Visit to Video Gameland

Video Gameland.

Sounds like a throwback to the 1980s. Certainly the sign outside this narrow den of hyperactivity on Mott Street in Chinatown looks to be from about that era.

There's nothing dusty, however, about the scene inside the L-shaped space. Literally, about 100 machines of various types. Dozens of serious-faced teens, in line for machines, checking out each other's performances, huddled around hot games. It reminded me of the atmosphere inside an old-style pool hall or in a back-room power game. No talking, no smiling: we're here to play.

Though innocent, the place somehow felt illicit. Low ceilings, red brick walls, exposed pipes, tiny faux Tiffany lamps hanging from the ceiling, a supervisor of some sort crouched inside a wooden shed in the corner. If you crossed an opium den with a Coney Island arcade, it might look like this.

Used to be the Canton Chop Suey restaurant some decades back.

Mosco Street at Dusk

Keep Your Sunnyside Up

OK, so you've been arrested. Cheer up! Spartan Bail Bonds is right behind the Criminal Courts Building, on Baxter Street, and they're ready to do battle for you. What's more, they've got the right attitude. "Where superior thinking overwhelms superior force," is their motto. Sure, that translates into "We know how to work the system," but at least their staying positive. And look at the charging Spartan, cape flowing, sword aloft! Holy man! That's the bail bondsman I want!

Then again, you could go with David Jakab Bail Bonds, the one with the picture of the handcuffs. Your choice.

Comment of the Day"

"This was originally an old fashioned pharmacy/ luncheonette (soda fountain stools and all). It was called Columbus Circle Pharmacy. My dad owned it in the 1960's until Starbucks took it over approximately 10 years ago."—Erika Abelman Zim

Ratner-Owned Brooklyn Cineplex a Potential Fire Trap

Brooklyn Paper wrote a small article about a fire that filled the United Artists multiplex on Court Street, Brooklyn, with smoke yesterday afternoon. But the paper didn't need to tell me. I knew about it already, since two friends of mine were in the theatre at the time.

The Paper gives a bit of the flavor of the event in this passage:

Eight minor injuries, mostly from smoke inhalation, were reported in the fire, which apparently started in the popcorn maker and quickly forced the evacuation of all 11 floors of the building.

Alison Katz and her friend Melissa Garry were watching “The Ugly Truth” in a sixth-floor theater when the fire started.

They said they did not hear the alarm, but learned of the fire when “one of the ushers finally turned on the light, rushed in and told us to get out,” Katz said.

“But no one was leading us, so we just went down the escalators,” she added.

The incompetence and complete absence of any proper evacuation procedure was far worse than that accounts lets on, however. Anyone who has ever patronized this poorly run cinema knows first hand the lack of intellectual and professional engagement of its young, callow, bored, slothful staff. It should come as not surprise, then, that nobody knew what to do in the case of a fire.

Like the patrons quoted above, my friends (who were there with their children, seeing "G-Force") did not hear the fire alarm. They only knew something was up when a staffer came into the theatre (which was filled with children) and said there everything was OK and they should stay put. Soon after, however, a more panicked worker came in and hurriedly said everyone should leave. No instructions. And certainly no one lead the moviegoers out or waited to make sure the theatre emptied out.

My friends found their own way down the many escalators by themselves and the building was quite smoky. The whole affair was horribly handled, and, even though the fire was localized, it's a miracle no one was seriously hurt.

It's just what you'd expect from a movie theatre owned by Bruce Ratner, isn't it? Screw the public; let's make money!

What Your Mayor Is Up To

From the New York Times:

City Hall Broke Rules Funneling Money to Groups

By MICHAEL BARBARO and RAY RIVERA

For years, aides to Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg routed hundreds of thousands of dollars in city money to at least two politically connected nonprofit groups in violation of government contracting rules, according to records and interviews.

The mayor’s office, from 2002 to 2006, gave $1.1 million to Agudath Israel of America Community Services and more than $400,000 to Ohel Children’s Home and Family Services, using a little-known pot of discretionary money that it controls.

By law, the mayor’s office can give the money only if it has been requested by a City Council member or borough president, but in these two instances, records and interviews show, the money was given by the Bloomberg administration, then later attributed to a council member without his knowledge.

Agudath Israel and Ohel provide services including career counseling and mental health care and are powerful institutions in the city’s Orthodox Jewish communities — political forces long courted by the mayor.

And the organizations have substantial ties to the Bloomberg administration: Mr. Bloomberg, since becoming mayor, has personally donated $200,000 to Agudath Israel, and a former top aide to the mayor is a lobbyist for Ohel.

In documents, the Bloomberg administration contends that since 2002, it distributed money annually to the two groups at the request of Councilman Simcha Felder, a Bloomberg ally. But Mr. Felder, a Brooklyn Democrat, says he never sought the money.

“I did not ask for it,” Mr. Felder said in an interview.

A spokesman for the mayor said the administration disagreed with Mr. Felder’s account. He said City Hall had conducted a formal audit of all money distributed through the mayor’s fund and determined that all grants had been done at the request of an elected official.

“We have no reason to think that the funding analysis contains any errors,” the spokesman, Marc LaVorgna, said. “And we disagree with the councilman’s recollection.”

But the mayor’s office said it had no documentation showing that Mr. Felder had made the requests. In fact, the mayor’s office could not provide documents for much of the money it had distributed and said it relied on interviews with its own staff to conduct its audit.

When asked whether Agudath Israel had requested the money from Mr. Felder, David Zwiebel, an executive vice president of the group, said that the group had sought the money directly from the mayor’s office.

“It was news to us that the mayor’s money was being funneled through the City Council,” Mr. Zwiebel said.

Much has been revealed over the last year about a discretionary fund operated by the Council to finance hundreds of nonprofit groups, some of which were fictitious companies or organizations that employed the relatives of lawmakers. A wide-ranging criminal inquiry into that fund, conducted by federal and city investigators, led to the indictment of two Council aides and the resignation of a Council member, Miguel Martinez, who pleaded guilty last month to misusing public money.

But much less is known about the mayor’s fund, the existence of which was kept from many in city government until it was revealed by the Bloomberg administration last year in the wake of the Council fund embarrassment.

Like the Council fund, the mayor’s fund allowed lawmakers to finance nonprofit groups and small projects in their districts without going through a formal competitive bidding process. Records show that from 2002 to 2008, when the fund was shut down, the Bloomberg administration gave nearly $20 million from the fund to more than 500 groups on behalf of more than two dozen council members, most close political allies of the mayor’s.

Many Council members who received money said they got it after convincing the mayor’s staff of legitimate needs in their districts. But money also went to members who sided with the mayor on major initiatives like the overhaul of the city’s garbage system in 2006 and his failed plans to build a stadium on the West Side for the New York Jets. Groups championed by Mr. Felder received the most: nearly $6 million over six years.

City law bars the mayor from sending money from the fund to groups of his choosing. In two memorandums issued last year, City Hall acknowledged that the distribution process lacked transparency, leaving the impression that the mayor was directly financing nonprofit groups.

“Unlike the City Council and borough presidents, the mayor’s office cannot designate contractors to receive funds through the discretionary funding process,” wrote Edward Skyler, a deputy mayor.

Yet that appears to be what the Bloomberg administration did in the case of Agudath and Ohel. Mr. Felder said it was not until the 2007 fiscal year that he even learned that money was being given to the groups in his name. That year, he said, the mayor’s director of intergovernmental affairs, Haeda Mihaltses, asked him whether she could attach his name to the allocations.

“We can’t do it without you,” he recalled her saying.

Mr. Felder said he agreed to let his named be used, but at a price: he wanted the mayor’s office to distribute an additional $700,000 to his favorite nonprofit groups the next year.

The following year, Mr. Felder got nearly all of the extra $700,000 he asked for. Mr. Felder said the extra money allowed him to finance deserving groups.

Mr. LaVorgna said that Ms. Mihaltses remembered only that Mr. Felder requested the money for the groups, and he disputed the claim that Mr. Felder was offered $700,000 as part of a deal.

By 2008, the mayor’s office had given the two groups nearly $3 million in Mr. Felder’s name.

Mr. Felder declined to characterize his feelings about the mayor’s office’s use of his name.

“I don’t know what to tell you. I have nothing to say,” Mr. Felder said. “I am trying to be as honest as I can without ruining my relationships with people who will be annoyed with what they read.”

Agudath Israel said it never asked Mr. Felder for the money, going instead straight to the mayor’s office and the commissioner of the community assistance unit at the time, Jonathan Greenspun, who served as Mr. Bloomberg’s liaison to the Jewish community.

“We always worked with the mayor’s office,” Mr. Zwiebel said.

Agudath Israel and Ohel, like all nonprofit organizations, cannot make political endorsements. But it is clear that both were admirers of Mr. Bloomberg’s. The mayor was a guest speaker at Agudath Israel’s annual dinner this year. He also chose a board member of Agudath Israel’s parent organization, the real estate developer George Klein, to serve on his transition team after his election in 2001.

Mr. Klein said he did not “recall playing any role” in securing money from the mayor’s office for Agudath Israel.

Ohel had its own ally within the Bloomberg administration: Mr. Greenspun. In 2007, after he left the mayor’s office, he became Ohel’s lobbyist, records show.

Councilman Felder said that in his conversations with the Bloomberg administration after 2007, aides “indicated it was Greenspun” who had requested the money from the fund.

Mr. Greenspun said that while he was a commissioner, both Agudath Israel and Ohel sought his help to obtain money from the fund. But at the time, he believed the money had been requested by a council member, he said.

After he left City Hall, however, Mr. Greenspun said he never lobbied his old colleagues to give either group money from the fund.

A spokesman for Ohel, Derek Saker, wrote in an e-mail message: “Ohel has been fortunate to receive critical government funding to assist the city’s most vulnerable populations.”

He added that the group is “grateful” to Mr. Bloomberg but did not mention Mr. Felder, who, according to the Bloomberg administration, ostensibly requested money for the group six years in a row.

Vote for Tony Avella, for God's sake!

Coney Island Tries to Get the City to Listen, Take Two

The disastrous new Coney Island zoning recently passed by City Council makes it possible for some money-mad cretin to building a 20-story tombstone on the corner where the iconic Nathan's Famous hot dog joint has stood for nearly 100 years. The building is not landmarked (of course), so concerned parties are now pushing to gain protection for the culinary and cultural institution. What do you think the chances are that this administration will listen?

Here's the Daily News' take. There are two bits of good news in there, in boldface:

It's already a landmark for hot-dog lovers around the world - and now they want to make it official.

Advocates are pushing the city to landmark the building at Surf and Stillwell Aves., where Nathan's Famous has been dishing out dogs since 1916, to prevent it from being demolished as Coney Island undergoes sweeping redevelopment.

Under a zoning plan passed by the City Council last week, a hotel tower of up to 20 stories could be built at the corner currently occupied by Nathan's. It's one of four sites along Surf Ave. where hotels will be allowed.

Coney Island USA founder Dick Zigun said landmark status is necessary to stop Nathan's from going the way of such mainstays as Astroland, which closed last year.

"To not have Nathan's would be insane," he said. "Even when you build new rides and businesses and hotels ... the appeal [Coney Island] is going to have is the history.

"You don't want the new Coney Island to be indistinguishable from a suburbanized, homogenized, standardized amusement park off the New Jersey Turnpike," Zigun said. "You want it to be special."

Landmarks Preservation Commission spokeswoman Lisi de Bourbon said officials are still weighing the historical and architectural significance of the building.

Two other historic Coney buildings, the Shore Theater and the Coney Island USA building - home to the original Childs Restaurant - have been deemed eligible for landmarking, de Bourbon said.

Landmark status has already saved other Coney icons like the Cyclone and the WonderWheel from the wrecking ball.

Nathan's Famous CEO Eric Gatoff said the company has no position on the landmark proposal, but insisted the hot-dog emporium isn't going anywhere. He noted Nathan's - which doesn't own the building - has 18 years left on its lease.

"We expect to be in that building forever," Gatoff said. "Our expectation is there will always be a Nathan's on the corner of Surf and Stillwell."

The Handwerker family, which founded the original Nathan's and still owns the building, could not be reached for comment.

More than 125 people have signed an online petition launched three days ago to push for the landmarking - and most frankfurter fans were all for it.

"It should be a landmark already," said Bill Funk, 69, an upper West Side accountant who has visited the stand once a week all summer for the past 50 years. "There deserves to be change here. There should be better development, but this should stay."