Bill's Gay 90s Is Gutted

I walked by Bill's Gay 90s saloon on E. 54 Street yesterday, for the first time since the Prohibition-era tavern closed last March, and found it gutted.

One of the windows looking into the second-floor dining room was papered over, but the other one was wide open. (There was work going on inside, but I didn't see any workers. I could only hear them.)  One could easily see that the walls, which were once covered with framed theatrical posters from the 1890s and 1900s, and other artifacts of Olde New York, has been stripped bare.

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A Good Sign: Sylvia's Restaurant

A Harlem classic. Both signs are good. The one above, I think, is older.

Sokol Bros. Sign to Be Saved

A local tipster informed me the other day that the great old sign to the Sokol Bros. Furniture Store—the Columbia Street institution that was torn down recently—will be saved.

When I saw said sign on a scrap heap of rubble recently, I feared it would be junked. I asked a workman about its fate, but he had no idea. My informant tells me that, once the apartment building that is replaced the store is built, the sign will be hung in the interior courtyard. Apparently, the preservation of the sign was part of the deal the owner of Sokol made with the developer.

An Oasis of Tiki in a Staten Island Mall

Jade is a tiki bar and restaurant sitting in the middle of a Staten Island strip mall. It opened in 1972, a year in which tiki bars were on their way out, culturally speaking. But it became a favorite with locals, and has survived for four decades, recently fighting off a near-death experience with its landlord before signing a new lease for 10 years.

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The Little Theatre, As It Was

Broadway's Little Theatre—known for the past 30 years as the Helen Hayes Theatre, and Broadway's smallest house—recently commemorated its 100 years (on and off) as a working theatre. I went to the ceremony, and to the luncheon afterwards at Sardi's. On the walls at Sardi's were various old photos taken at the time of the Little Theatre's birth.

Above is the engagingly simple box office area. The below photo gives a taste of the elegant downstairs sitting room.

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Schnack Owner Part of Team Reviving Leske's Bakery

As reported earlier on this blog, Leske's Bakery, the old Scandinavian bake shop in Bay Ridge, which closed in May 2011, is reopening under new management. Part of that management team is Harry Hawk, the restauranteur behind Carroll Gardens' late, lamented hot dog joint Schnack. Hawk wrote in to report his vision for the place:

We think that you are correct that things are (anywhere) not nearly as good as they used to be.

The bakers have requested we "turn back the clock" on quality and we agree. For example we will return to making Custards and puddings from scratch.

There is a fine line here of course. The further back you go in terms of quality, ingredients, etc. the more expensive the baked good become.

In season, we will be making fruit toppings from scratch with local fruits.

Once we open, we are eager to get everyone's feedback.

Why the Red Hook Pool Should Open Earlier Than July 4

So scenes like this could be happening right now. When it's hot. When it's summer. Not when the City is good and ready. A two-month season for such a wonderful public resource? C'mon.

O'Connor's, Classic Brooklyn Dive, Closes—for Renovations?

What happened?

I knew that times were a-changing over at O'Connor's, the 81-year-old Fifth Avenue dive bar. The Park Slope fixture had been bought by a new owner, who was slowly "improving" the old tavern, adding televisions, a big back room,  a food program and a rooftop addition meant to house a beer garden. It was all very un-O'Connor's. The appeal of the bar had always been its old-world decrepitude and timeless feel. There was a wonderful silence to the place and, if you didn't like quiet, a great juke box.

Well, now, it's just plain closed, according to Here's Park Slope. Apparently, work has reached such a point that the joint has to close down in order to complete it. The staff has been let go and the phone lines shut down. If it does reopen, expect a cleaner, more respectable bar. In short, a different bar. Hopefully, the owner won't touch the old bar and booths.

BQE Service Road Gets Immigration Mural

Cars driving too fast between Atlantic Avenue and Hamilton Avenue on the BQE Service Road known as Hicks Street will now be treated to an oddly placed, and very large, mural on the history of Italian immigration in the South Brooklyn area.

As far as I can tell, the painting went up today. The paints and brushes were still on the sidewalk when I walked by this afternoon. There are five panels separated by painted pillars: immigrants gazing from a boat at the Statue Liberty; immigrants disembarking from a ship named after Christopher Columbus; American saint Mother Cabrini, who taught at the local Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary Roman Catholic Church (the nearby Mother Cabrini Park is named for her); an image of Catholic education; and a unspecific domestic scene.

Nice. Particularly since it will remind people of the area's rich, and fast disappearing, Italian-America history. But the only people who are going to see it are the oddballs (like me) who sometime walk down dirty, dusty Hicks instead of the commercial strip Columbia Street or the picturesque Henry Street.

The Amazing Cool Past Life of the Holiday Cocktail Lounge

Well, this almost makes me glad that the Holiday Cocktail Lounge went out of business. Almost.

Barbara Sibley, the new owner of the storied old East Village dive (she owns La Palapa next door), was revamping the interior when she discovered an old mural beneath the mirror behind the horseshoe-shaped bar. The colorful, rather louche painting depicts a belly dancer being observed by two turbaned sultans and three harem girls.

Sibley suspects—correctly, I'm thinking—that the mural belongs to the Ali Baba Lounge, which occupied the space from the 1930s to the 1950s, at which time the Holiday took up residency.

Sibley seems to respect the joint's long history. The mural will be kept and restored. She will retain and refresh the old bar and keep the awning. She's going to rip up the plywood floor to get down to the original wood. She also found flocked wallpaper behind the current walls in the back.

(Photos are by Noah Fleck.)