Halleck Street's Forgotten Namesake

Fitz-Greene Hallack has a couple nasty little street names after him in New York. One is up in The Bronx, in the Hunt's Point area. It's about two blocks long. The other is also in an industrial area, Red Hook, Brooklyn. This one is a mere one block long. And you could barely call it a street. It's more like an access point for unloading trucks.

Theses sad stretches of pavement are what's left to honor a man who was once New York's most famous and beloved poet. Hallack lived from 1790 to 1867. In is youthful years, he was widely read and called "the American Byron." He and his bosom friend Joseph Rodman Drake were both members of the Knickerbocker Group, which included such luminaries as William Cullen Bryant, James Fenimore Cooper and Washington Irving. Charles Dickens admired Halleck. Lincoln read his poems aloud. We, of course, still know and read these names. Yet Hallack's works are covered in dust, even though his most famous poem, "Fanny," (1819) was once so popular that 50-cent editions of it were hawked for ten bucks.

I have read some of Halleck's poems. Sadly, they deserve their obscurity. They're sentimental and derivative. His best known poem today is perhaps the one he wrote in tribute to Drake, when the latter died at 25 of consumption. Halleck so lauds the man, you would think Keats had passed. Literary scholars today think Hallack was probably in love with Drake. It's hard to counter their claim. Hallack described his friend as "perhaps the handsomest man in New York—a face like an angel, a form like an Apollo." And, in his will, Halleck asked that Drake be dug up and reburied next to him. Remarkably, this was apparently done!

To see what Halleck looked like, go to Central Park. There's a statue of him on the Literary Walk. It was erected a decade after his death. Today, his is one of the few statues on the walk to regularly bring head-scratches from the passing crowd. It was far from thus when President Rutherford B. Hayes dedicated the monument. An estimated crowd of 10,000 spectators attended, and so damaged to the surrounding turf that Park officials subsequently banned large crowds from the park.

My First Visit to the Red Hook Ballfield Vendors

I made my first visit to the Red Hook Ballfield Vendors of the summer this past week. I'm a little tardy in getting to them this year, I admit. Got there early and had to wrangle with no lines. Had a chorizo huaraches from the Martinez stand (above). Also, tried something new from the Carello Guatemalan stand, which has slowly become my favorite of the stands over the years, for its variety of foods, cheap prices, cheerful service and the freshness and deliciousness of its products. It was a pacaya, a tropical forest palm found in Mexico. It's deep fried and served on a tortilla like a taco, with hot sauce and onions. It's wonderful, with a distinctly fibrous texture.

The Other Schimmel

Yonah Schimmel is the stuff of New York legend. The shop he started on the Lower East Side is probably the best known knishery in the United States.

But, there was another Schimmel in the food-slinging business. I was recently contacted by the granddaughter of Leo Schimel (who spelled his name with one less "m"). Leo was Yonah's brother. Around the same time Yonah started his knishery, Leo opened a dairy restaurant in Jewish Williamsburg. It was called Sunset, or, possibly, Famous Sunset, and it was on Havemeyer Street. Maybe 203 Havemeyer Street. The granddaughter isn't sure. And Leo ran it in the early 1940s.

I've done some digging, but come up with nothing about Leo Schimel, or a restaurant called Sunset in Williamsburg. I did learn, however, that 203 Havemeyer was indeed a restaurant of some kind in 1945. But that's as close as I came.

Does anyone out there, by any chance, have any information about this lost link in the Schimmel/Schimel chain?

Yonah Schimmel, for the record, is still in the family, but hasn't been run by a Schimmel in forever. Schimmel began selling knishes from a cart in 1890. He opened the store with his cousin Joseph Berger, but left the business soon after. Berger continued to run it and moved to the current location on E. Houston Street. It's currently run by Yonah's great nephew, Alex Wolfman.

Lost City: Philadelphia Edition: National China Store

The beautiful Art Deco building is on 2nd Street in the Old City section of Philadelphia. It's just down the block from Trenton China, which I posted about earlier. A reader then commented that the business was perhaps part of an area formerly called "Restaurant Supply Row." I have to think he's right.

I don't think the building is still in use. It certainly wasn't open in the middle of a workday.

As the sign (partly) shows, the business was founded in 1929. Love the lettering above and below the line.

Wooden Phone Booth Update: Old Town Bar

Just a quick update on the wooden phone booth at the Old Town Bar. Like many of the phone booths around town, it has recently been gutted and is now bereft of a phone. But, more than that, you can't even enter it. The bar owners have pushed a booth up against the folding doors.

Station Cafe Dive Bar Loses Crummy Old, Wonderful Old Awning

The Station Cafe in Woodside, Queens—one of the greatest, rottenest dive bars in the city—has a brand new awning.

The former awning was faded, ripped, listing and brick red, like the bar's old metal facade. The new one is a stark black and white number. Not unhandsome in its way. Certainly not one of these faux-posh forest green numbers you see everywhere, thank God. But it certainly makes the Station seem less wondrously divey than it was.

One other thing. The old awning said Station Cafe on the front. A strangely quaint name for the place. Which was why the name was so great. The new awning offers the more prosaic Station Bar.

The old awning must have fallen down or something. I can't imagine the owners of the Station making the switch unless they were forced to.

The Old Town Bathroom

I've never before photographed the beautiful old men's bathroom at the Old Town Bar. (And, yes, judge me as you like, I've long wanted to photograph it.) This is because it is usually occupied, and propriety does not permit my taking photographs. Also, it's often after hours when I visit the ancient Manhattan tavern, and the light is not ideal.

However, recently, I happened to pay a call on the Old Town during daylight hours. The bar was sparsely populated, and I found the lavatory unvisited for many minutes at a time. Some old saloons in the city (P.J. Clarke's, McSorley's) still have their big, ceramic urinals. But the Old Town has the whole package. Every bit of the room, from the stall doors to the ceramic floors to the stained glass ceiling, has the look of the early 20th century. It's perfect.

Oh, and if you think my waxing rhapsodic about urinals is odd, consider this: just outside the men's room door is a framed proclamation from the Mayor honoring the 100th year anniversary, in 2010, or the urinals.

Read more »

Pauline's Cabaret, Best Burgers in The Bronx

Pauline's Cabaret, one of the more curiously titled taverns in Gotham, shivers under the elevated on Broadway in the Knightsbridge section of The Bronx. The bar is run by the O'Sullivans, Pauline and her son Roger. Hence, the name. Sure, there's karaoke, but that's recent, and can't completely explain the "cabaret" part of the moniker. Maybe there's entertainment on certain evenings.

Not sure about the strange, stairstep sign. Kinda looks newish, but the phone number without a prefix if definitely old school.

Read more »

Lost City: Philadelphia Edition: Trenton China Pottery

Trenton China Pottery is a restaurant supply business situated at the Philadelphia corner of 2nd and Arch Streets in the Old City section of the town. The company began in 1927 and was founded in this building, which is wallpapered with its multi-colored painted advertising and illustrations of appliances. Those ads are now in a wonderfully faded condition.

Last April, a group of undisclosed local investors bought the buildings for $1.4 million and plans to convert the nine buildings that comprise the structure. The plan is to have residential units on the top floors and retail at street level. I find it unlikely that they're keep the ads, not with new retailers moving in. That would be a crying shame.

The company is now located on Memphis Street in Port Richmond and operates under the new name; Trenton China.

In Case You Still Get Your Radios Repaired

Stumbled upon this cute little business in Riverdale. It specializes in all the things we supposedly don't do anymore—like get our radios, vaccum cleaners and televisions repaired. On the door are stickers advertising all the brands they are authorized to repair, including good old Hoover.