Colony Music, Vestige of Bygone Times Square and Bygone Music World, to Close

Colony Music, one of the few remaining iconic Times Square independent businesses left, will close its doors on Oct. 1, it was reported. Business partner Richard Turk told Playbill.com the shuttering was due to "increased expenses, decreased sales," and the surfeit of online sellers of sheet music and recordings.

Colony has been in business since 1948, and was a vibrant reminder of a time when the Theatre District had not just theatre, but was also full of music venues featuring jazz and cabaret, and other businesses connected to the music industry. It's very location is a bit of music history: it occupies a corner of the fabled Brill Building at 49th Street and Broadway, where songwriters used to plug away at pianos, trying to hatch songs that might become the next hit record for the singing stars of the 1940s, '50s, '60s and '70s.

For years, Colony was recognized by passersby for its iconic neon sign of a mini-skirted girl on tip-toe, holding an outsized album aloft in ecstatic, vaguely erotic delight. The sign was removed a few years ago at the landlord's behest.

To a certain extent, Colony's fate has been sealed for some time. The store was born in a time when people went to actual physical stores to buy record albums and 45s and sheet music. That sort of music shopping has been dead for years. Still, it was beloved by music purists, and denizens of the theatre.

Lafayette French Pastry Closes

I'd noticed recently that Greenwich Village's Lafayette French Pastry looked closed, but I thought perhaps the owners were on summer vacation. I learned today from Eater that the longstanding baker had shuttered for good. Taking over the space will be the irrepressible New York culinary world loudmouth Michael Bao.

This was actually Lafayette's second location in the Village. It used to be on Bleecker Street near Seventh Avenue. It moved about 15 years ago, replaced by a Burritoville which has since vanished. In that guise, it epitomized, for me, the Greenwich Village small business, full of effortless local character. Lafayette was around 85 years old, run by three generations of the same family, a real relic of the old Village. According to their Facebook page, the owners got a letter of eviction in June.

Lost City: Milwaukee Edition: Sullivan's Cigar Store

The wonderful-looking Sullivan's Cigar Store is on S. Packard Avenue in Cudahy, Wisconsin, a small city just south of Milwaukee, so close it might as well be a suburb. I came upon it recently after getting lost following a detour in Milwaukee, and all but hit the brakes, so stunned was I by the beauty of the old storefront.

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Lost City: Upstate New York Edition:

By some strange set of circumstances, I recently found myself marooned for an hour in Garrison, New York, a small hamlet about an hour or so upstate, on the Hudson River, opposite West Point. It's a cute little place, a Washington Irving kind of 19th-century town. But there's not much there. While waiting for the next train back to Manhattan, I remembered a New York Times story from a few years back about an old Garrison tavern that had closed after many years in business. So I set out to find it.

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Eisenberg & Eisenberg

The first tux I ever rented in New York was as Eisenberg & Eisenberg. I don't recall who recommended it. Maybe no one. The store was located on an upper floor of a building on Fifth Avenue in the 20s. You had to climb up a set of stairs to get to a vast, unadorned hall lined with suit racks. This was a new experience for me, coming from the Midwest, where every stores is at street level. The salesman were middle-aged men who were in it for life.

Soon after, I bought a tux and never went back. But I was always glad to know they were there, and smiled whenever I passed their building. Recently, I noticed they had moved, to a ground floor space on W. 17th between Fifth and Sixth. It's still a fairly unadorned space, and they still rent tuxes.

Eisenberg & Eisenberg was founded in 1898. Who the two Eisenbergs were, I can not tell you. Brothers, I assume. On their website, they boast the Mickey Mantle used to shop there.

Wooden Phone Booth Sighting: Station Cafe

I've been inside Woodside's old Station Cafe dive bar many times over the years. I don't know how I missed that they had an old wooden phone booth tucked in the back. The phone has been removed, as is the case with such booths all over town since Verizon started bringing the hammer down, charge-wise, on keeping phone booth phones. But they haven't removed the booth, thank God, or filled it with junk. Sorry about the quality of the photo. I only had my cell phone with me that night. And the Station Cafe was, as always, dark as night.

The Clock on Columbia Street

I've written about the large standing clock that used to adorn Columbia Street in Brooklyn before, but this photograph—the best I've seen to date—is the first I've posted on the blog. 

To recap, the intersection of Columbia Street and Union Street used to be one of the great commercial centers of South Brooklyn. Stores and pushcarts lined the streets. There were two movies theatres and plenty of bars and restaurants. The first Thom McAn shoe store and the original Citibank were located in the area. Then Robert Moses dug the BQE, cutting the neighborhood off from the rest of Brooklyn. The Brooklyn docks slowly died. And a big sewer dig throughout the '70s, designed to hurt the Mob, causes numerous buildings' foundations to crumble. The area died and has yet to fully recover today. 

One landmark oldtimers remember well is the clock. It stood outside a jewelry store run by Robert Corn on Columbia between Union and President Streets. It became an unofficial meeting place, as in "I'll meet you under the clock," and legend has it mobsters would convene there to hatch their criminal exploits. 

When the businesses began to leave and the buildings topple, the clock was uprooted and removed sometime in the 1970s. Nobody knows where it went, but some believe it still exists somewhere in somebody's basement or attic. 

I've never been able to find out anything about Robert Corn of his business. One would think he has ancestors out there somewhere who know something about that clock.

More on the Brooklyn Deaconess Home

The former Brooklyn Deaconess Home of Simpson Methodist Episcopal Church on President Street in Carroll Gardens—now a lovingly kept up, three family home—has long been a favorite local building of mine, and an ongoing obsession. (I've been lucky enough to see the inside on one occasion. The bottom two floors are a veritable museum of 19th-century Brooklyn interiors.)

Recently, a reader sent me this passage from the Twenty-First Annual Report of the General Board of Managers of the Woman’s Home Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church for the Year 1901-1902. (Cincinnati: Western Methodist Book Concern Press, 1902 (p. 144).) Very interesting.

Brooklyn Deaconess Home.

238 President Street, Brooklyn, N. Y. 

Mrs. F. A. Fowler, Superintendent.

"The Brooklyn Deaconess Home of the Methodist Episcopal Church" is incorporated under the laws of the State of New York under the above title. The Home itself was deeded, however, some years since by the late Emira Christian, as a memorial to her husband, to theBrooklyn Church Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church, this City Evangelization Society assuming the entire care of the property in consideration of a preference in the assignment of deaconesses to its fields of labor. Accordingly, all contributions given to this Home are used to place and keep the deaconesses in our own Home. During the past year fourteen deaconesses and probationers have been assigned to work, and (with the exception of one, who for several months worked in the interests of our Seney Hospital, under the direction of its superintendent) all were engaged in parish work in the several Churches with which they were connected. Nearly four thousand dollars was expended by the Treasurer of the Home for its support and the maintenance of the workers. This year a small debt of one thousand dollars, which has been outstanding for several years, is being paid. Most of the deaconesses are assigned to down-town missionary fields. A few more young women who feel called to this work may find admission to our Home.

Our Training-school is of a high order, the Faculty consisting of some of the most scholarly of our city clergymen, and the list of special lecturers includes the ablest preachers of several denominations.

Recently, by an amendment to the Constitution of the Board of Direction, which consists of representatives from the Woman's HomeMissionary Society, the Brooklyn Church Society, and the Conference Deaconess Board, a Board of Managers, consisting of two ladies from each Church in the boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens, and the pastor's wife (ex-officio) was constituted, and to it is delegated all matters pertaining to the raising of the funds needed for the support of the Home. Deaconess work in Brooklyn is growing in popularity, and ourHome, under the efficient superintendency of Mrs. Frances A. Fowler, is an essential factor in our local Church work.

Esposito Pork Store Picks Up the Slack for Joe's Superette

I noticed this sign in the window of Esposito Pork Store on Court Street in Brooklyn the other day. It hadn't been there before. Obviously, the butcher is trying to fill in the prosciutto ball hole left in Carroll Gardens by the closure of Joe's Superette in spring 2011. The neighborhood institution was known citywide for the excellence of its prosciutto balls. Sure, those balls are now being made at Prince Street Pizza by an ex-employee of Joe's. But a Brooklynite doesn't want to have to have himself to SoHo every time he wants a deep-fried, hammy, cheesy treat. I haven't tried Esposito's prosciutto balls, but I plan to soon.

Meanwhile, here's what the former site of Joe's looks like now. The letters on the great old sign were taken away by relatives of the former owner, I was told. The space will be a Greek restaurant when it reopens. The renovation has revealed bit of very old brick, steel pillars and tin ceilings.

A Good Sign: Wolf Jewelers

Wolf Jewelers is on Myrtle Avenue in Glendale, Queens. I have read an account that it was founded in 1982. With that sign? With that awning? No way. I'd say 1950s, though I have no evidence to back that up.