Cute little store on George Street in New Brunswick, NJ. There's another Walk Rite in Newark. A mini-chain? The diner next to this shop isn't a bad joint, either.
Who is Louis Zuflacht?
Louis Zuflacht. What a name. Hard to forget. Especially when it's in large metal letters (formerly lit by neon), in an ostentatious font, on the side of a building.
That's the name that has graced the building at the corner of Suffolk and Stanton Streets for many decades now. A clothier, Zuflacht hasn't done business out of this storefront in a generation or two. But subsequent occupants of the address—either out of deference to the lovely signage, or out of laziness—have left Louis' name up there, ensuring that the former proprietor has not entirely passed from public memory.
I've passed by the sign dozens of times and never bothered to look up his story, though I've always been intrigued. It seems the right time to correct that error since the shop is unoccupied at present (after being everything from an art gallery to a video gamer hangout), so, it could be argued, 154 Stanton Street belongs to Louis Zuflacht more now than in has in many years.
Louis was born in either 1881 or 1883 in New York. He died in 1986, having lived more than a century. His place of business was a men's haberdashery. His sons Jack and Joe joined the business and ran it for a while. He apparently had a partner, named Harry A. Schechter, who died in 1962, according to an obit in the Times. When the neighborhood went south, so did they—literally, to Florida. At some point, the City owned the building.
The building was erected in the 1860s. In 1939, this was a men's clothing store called Tress & Tress, so Zuflacht must have come along soon after, judging by the style of the sign. (An electrical sign application was filed with the City in 1942.) Still, it's possible there were two shops at this address at one point. It was bought by artist Denise Carbonell in 1984 for $340,000. She converted it into a store that sold her handmade quilts as well as vintage clothes and furniture. She lived on the second floor. It was then bought by Kristen Copham in 2008 for $3.28 million. Copham turned it into a gallery.https://trendyeuropetoday.blogspot.com/2024/08/who-is-louis-zuflacht.html
Lost City: Chicago Edition: The Logan Theatre
The Logan Square neighborhood of Chicago, down on its luck for some years but now in the midst of a resurgence, has been robust enough to hold on to its grand old movie house, appropriately named the Logan. It's a bold presence with a large vertical sign climbing up the facade and an old-fashioned marquee and box office, and a lovely stained glass arch outside. Inside, there's a rather spectacular, Art Nouveau, fully stocked bar. I'd go to the theatre just to drink there.
It was opened in 1915 as the Paramount Theater. It had only one screen then, as did many movie houses. In 1922, a family named Vaselopolis took over. It remained in family hands for many years. (Scion Chris Vaselopolis was born in the theatre.) The building enjoyed a thorough renovation in the 1990s. The theatre is now owned by the Mark Fishman, a real estate magnate who bought it in 2010. (Fishman, unfortunately, also owned may apartment buildings in the area and have a rep for jacking up rents. Is suspect Fishman's renovation of the Logan is less altruistic in nature and more about improving the general value of the neighborhood so he can charge higher rents. Still, better to have had the reno done through greed than not at all.)
Two Stories of Beauty at Henry and Union
I am quite familiar with the northeast corner of Henry and Union Streets in Carroll Gardens. I've eaten many a slice of pizza there over the years, first at Nino's, a neighborhood institution that closed in 2007, and then at its replacement, the not-dissimilar Francesco's. A recent rent shake-up caused Francesco's to move and reopen in what was once half of its former space, on Henry Street; the other half, on the corner, is empty for the time being.
Going into the new half-Francesco's recently, I spotted on the wall the above photograph, which told me something about the corner's pre-Nino's history. That the area was once occupied by a candy store and a dairy shop of some sort is less interesting to me than the look of the building in this 1940s photo. Today, the two, two-story storefronts attached to those two Henry Street brownstones are covered in nondescript red brick. They are not attractive.
In this photo, however, the two storefronts are just gorgeous. Look at that curbing, long cornice, that immense stretch of plate glass. If I'm not mistaken, there's some stained-glass panes on top of each larger window.
Based on the below photo of the intersection, taken in the 1970s, that lovely architecture was gone by then. (The corner is in the top left corner of the photo.)
A Good Sign: Parkside Lounge
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The Parkside Lounge has been lending beauty, grit and integrity to the corner of E. Houston and Attorney Streets for decades. How they stay in business in this climate, I do not know. The owners must one the one-story building.
Lost City: Chicago Edition: Hollander Storage
Shiver and cower before the hulking immensity of Hollander Storage in the Logan Square section of Chicago!
Ahem, excuse me: Hollander International Storage and Moving Company, Inc. The enterprise's full name, don't you know. This business was founded in 1888. And, as far as I can tell, this impressive, five-story, brown-brick building was erected around that time period.
The outfit is still in family hands. The website tells us, with due confidence, "Whether you require residential moving, business relocation, long-term storage, or something in between, it's a commitment four generations of the Hollander family has nurtured." Hey, they've got my attention.
A Good Sign: Rizzo's Fine Pizza
Old New York Pizzeria's often have good signage, but typically not of the neon sort. Rizzo's Fine Pizza in Astoria is a happy exception. That's got to be one of the peachier neon signs I've ever seen on a slice joint. And how many pizzeria's chose to describe their cuisine as "fine"?
Rizzo's was founded in 1959 by the brothers Joseph and Salvatore Rizzo, along with their brother-in-law Hugo Lupi. Squares are the order of the day here. Rizzo's specializes in thin-crust Sicilian, an unusual pizza genre.
What Newspaper Lobbies Should Look Like
Everyone who works at a newspaper should begin the day by walking into a building like the Chicago Tribune's. Perhaps it would remind them of the potential nobility of their profession and how journalism can be, and should be, a pillar of Democracy.
The Tribune Tower was erected in 1925. It is the work of New York architects John Mead Howells and Raymond Hood (who went on to build the McGraw-Hill Building), who beat out famed Finnish architect Eliel Saarinen a famous 1922 contest to win the assignment. (Many at the time thought the modernist Saarinen should have prevailed over the more old-fashioned Hood-Howells conception.)
The building's charms go beyond the impressive, neo-Gothic facade and vaulted entrance. The wood-framed, bas relief map of North America over the reception desk reminds us how seriously (or self-importantly, depending on your point of view) newspapers once took their perceived mission of bringing the world to their readers. The map was made out of shredding money. Read into that what you will.
The lobby is known as the "Hall of Inscriptions." Written on the floor and carved into the lobby walls are quotes by John Ruskin, Joseph Medill, Patrick Henry, Daniel Webster and many others on the matter of a free press and its important role in public life. If you're a Tribune reporter and have forgotten what your purpose is, it's not for lack of reminders.
Inspiration lies outside as well. The base of the Tribune Tower is covered with 120 stones taken from historical locations all around the world, including the Parthenon, the pyramids, the Taj Mahal, the Alamo, the Great Wall of China and Edinburgh Castle. How the Trib nabbed a piece of all these famous structures, I have no idea. Seems impossible. Perhaps it was accomplished at a time when stealing antiquities wasn't as ticklish a political prospect as it is today.
According to some information, Tribune owner, the conservative Colonel McCormick, instructed his foreign correspondents to bring back rocks and bricks from their various posts. Kinda shady. But McCormick usually got what he wanted.
Lost City: San Francisco Edition: A Good Sign: Marquard's Little Cigar Store
"A Good Sign" hardly seems to do justice to the former Marquard's on O'Farrell and Powell Streets in downtown San Francisco. How about "A Really Good Sign," or "A Great Freaking Sign!"?
Marquard's Little Cigar Store certainly didn't have a little sign. The sprawling signage—more of a marquee/awning/canopy than a sign, really—embraces the entire corner. Sadly, the sign is all that remains of Marquard's; there a rinky-dink hat shop in that corner space now. The building was erected in 1907. The cigar shop and newsstand (note the neon New York Times sign) went out of business in 2005, but the City happily declared the sign a landmark worth preserving.
Down By the Old Mill
I was stunned when I walked by this old mill building in Port Morris, a former industrial section of the southern Bronx which is little discussed in the daily goings-on of the City. It's a simple building, but by the brickwork and the shape and number of the windows, it looked immediately to my eyes like a relic of the Industrial Revolution, the kind of mill that immigrants slaved in during the latter 19th century; something out of Dickens. And it seems to be in perfect condition.
Taking a close look, I saw the building was the work of Philip Knitting Mills. Our friends at Forgotten New York tell us: "Morris Philip (who has an appropriate first name in this part of the Bronx) was the firm’s founder. Besides having patents for some specialized knitting machines, he’s most famed for inventing the Philip Cup, the splash proof coffee cup lid. The Philip Cup factory was located at 26 Bruckner Boulevard."
A Perfect Storefront: Astoria Music
Among the ugly chains stores on 30th Avenue in Astoria is this charming shoebox of an enterprise, Astoria Music, where you can buy musical instruments, get instruments repaired and take music lessons. All in that tiny place. I love the display window, with its hanging guitars and drum sets.
How old is Astoria Music? Would you believe, 1922? And always in the same location. It was founded by the Greek Badgetakis family, all of whom were musicians. In the 1960’s a grandson, John Badget, took over, and in 1982 George Phillips, also a musician and also Greek, bought the business.
During the 30’s, 40’s and 50’s, the shop was also recording studio and record shop. If we are to believe the store's website, famous musicians who recorded or bought merchandise here included: "Tony Bennett, Jimmy Rushing, Louis Armstrong, Glenn Miller, Junior Mance, Milt Jackson, Lenny Tristano, Bix Beiderbecke, Dizzy Gillespie, Ben Webster, Buck Clayton, Cannonball Adderly, Woody Herman, Clarence Williams, Eva Taylor, Fats Waller, Billie Holiday, Mercer Ellington, Lena Horne, Ethel Merman, Illinois Jacquet, Charlie Mingus, Russell Jacquet, James P Johnson, Lester Young, Milt Hinton, Count Basie, Jimmy Heath, Nat Adderly, Benny Waters, Ella Fitzgerald, Phil Schaap, Roy Eldridge, Clark Terry, Percy Heath, John Coltrane."
Lost City: San Francisco Edition: A Good Sign: Khan Toke Thai House
Nice old-school, yellow, inner-lit sign at the Khan Toke Thai House in the Richmond section of San Francisco.
The Latino Equivalent of the Apollo
This church, Pare de Sufrir, on E. 138th Street and Brown in the Mott Haven section of The Bronx, hides a great cultural history. The building was one the Forum Theatre. It opened in 1923 with 2,300 seats, offering a little vaudeville along with silent movies. It was an independent theatre, not owned by any big movie house chain. It also had a Kimball organ.
After World War II, in 1948, with demographics changing in the area, it became the Spanish-language Teatro Puerto Rico, presenting stage shows. This was the theatre's golden age. It was quite the social mecca for the city's Puerto Rican population, and attracted performers from all over Latin America, and audiences from all over the city. Here's an image of the marquee back then. And here's the theatre.
That lasted a long while. Later, if was the home of wrestling and boxing matches. It then closed for a while, and reopened as a performing arts center, presenting both live shows and movies, all in Spanish.
We can thank corrupt New York State Senator Pedro Espada for the closure of this historical theatre in 1996. The owner rented the theatre to Espada, and the senator failed to pay the rent, using $95,000 in state grant money earmarked for the theatre to line his own pockets. I thought I couldn't hate Espada more than I already do, but now I do.
By the time the church took over, the auditorium was in pretty bad shape. The church renovated it, pouring quite a bit of money into it.
In 2000, the New York Times reported this item about the theatre's past:
The southernmost site on the tour is the former Teatro Puerto Rico, a family-oriented theater at 490 East 138th Street, at Brown Place, now the Iglesia Universal del Reino de Dios (although the sign also still says Teatro Puerto Rico). Regarded as the Latino equivalent of the Apollo, it was once the hub of la farandula, a vaudeville-style package of Spanish- language events that began with singing, dancing and small bands or a chorus line, led into acrobatic, magic and contortionist acts, and ended with a movie double feature. The legacy of those spectacles lives on at the church, which presents Latin gospel music, with full jazz bands on its stage on Sundays.
Lost City: San Francisco Edition: A Perfect Storefront: Paradise Coffee & Donuts
There's nothing so special about this downtown San Francisco shop. There's certainly nothing historic. I just like it's general simplicity, along with the Coca-Cola sponsored signage, the old-style frontage with the indented entrance, the long narrow windows on the door, the thatch of ceramic tiling in front of the door and the rows of transom-like windows at the top. For added value, there's that line of neon-bright "fruit juice" jugs in the window. The liquid inside is sugary poison, but the bottles sure are pretty.
It's on a rough stretch of street—near a lot of big hotels, but also in the middle of area favored by prostitutes, druggies and the homeless. So, given that, you can take the place's name as either ironic or hopeful.
The Rat-Squirrel House Was Always Weird and Creepy
I've always assumed that the Rat-Squirrel House—aka 149 Kane Street in Cobble Hill (seen today, above, and in olden times, below), Brooklyn, a structure whose creepy and bizarre decline and resurrection I've chronicled for five years—was once a normal, upstanding structure, occupied by normal, upstanding citizens—not the reclusive, Collyer-Brothers-like lady who let the landmarked building fall to wrack and ruin during the '90s and early 2000s.
I was wrong.
A few weeks ago, I received this message from a reader. It's the first time I've ever been contacted by anyone with intimate, direct known of 149 Kane Street. Read and wonder:
The Rat-Squirrel house belonged to my grandparents, Edward and Molly Fitzsimmons. I was born in 1954 and my memory of the house begins when I was 2 or 3. I remember it as a dark somewhat scary place when I was young and as I grew into my teens it became simply creepy except that my grandparents, who I loved dearly, lived there. The basement was always dark and empty. I believe my grandfathers sisters lived there when my mom was a child. The first floor had an unused parlor and sitting room that had all the furniture in it covered with sheets. I recall it smelled like an old canvas tent. There was also the only toilet, in the entire house, in a small unheated room under the stairs. Grandpa called it the "water-closet." The house never had a tub or shower. The third floor had three rooms which were used as bedrooms for my mother and uncle. They were unused when I was a child but we played in them when we visited. The second floor contained the kitchen in the back of the house.Some houses have auras, have a certain predestined karma. The Rat-Squirrel house is one.
Wooden Phone Booth Sighting: Harvard Club
The same eagle-eyed reader who sent me photos last week of the wooden phone booths at the Queens County Supreme Court, soon after sent me this image of wooden phone booths at the Harvard Club in midtown. Which makes me think this reader of mind travels in some well-heeled circles.
Famous Oyster Bar Sign Saved
Soon after I wrote about midtown's circa-1959 Famous Oyster Bar for a "Who Goes There?" column in 2013, the joint gave up the ghost. The restaurant closed in January 2014, pushed out by a greedy landlord.
The good news is the classic neon sign—always the best thing about the place—has been saved. Bowery Boogie reports that Grey Lady co-owner Ryan Chadwick purchased the twin signs, and will soon attach them to the facade of his establishment at Allen and Delancey Streets.
Sarge's Deli Reopens After 15-month Closure
This City is growing alarmingly short of classic New York delis. So it was painful to hear, in November 2012, that Sarge's Deli in Murray Hill—one of the lesser sung delis, but a dearly loved one nonetheless (witness the crazy number of comments on my "Who Goes There?" column in 2011)—was gutted by fire. I'm sure many suspected it would never rise from the ashes.
Happily, the skeptics were wrong. Sarge's reopened for business this week. Here are some shots of the interior. Strangely, the owners seemed to have strived to recreate the deli's unremarkable interior exactly. The place basically looks as it did before the fire. Only a little cleaner.
The Mystery of Jade Fountain Liquor Corporation
The Lower East Side has lost a great many of its mercantile landmarks over the past 20 years of gentrification. And I'm not suggested that Jade Fountain Liquor Corporation—a grungy little booze shop on Delancey east of Essex—can replace the likes of Ratner's or Gertel's. But, hey, it is nearly a hundred years old!
Maybe.
According to the patchwork sign—which says, among many things, "As Old As Hills"—the store was was found in 1920-something. (I can't tell what the last number, now fallen off, was.) Which is, of course, absolute nonsense. No liquor store in the U.S. was founding in 1920-anything, because Prohibition was in effect from 1920 to 1933. Nor is it likely that the shop has existed all that time as Jade Fountain. Not in this location, which was solidly Jewish until the 1960s or so. Chinatown didn't start to encroach on Delancey and Essex until the late 1980s
So what can we find out about the address of the place, 123 Delancey? In 1901, there was a five-tenement building here with a store on the ground floor, which doesn't fit the description of the current structure. (Though the store WAS a saloon.) By 1980, this storefront had been empty for two years, when some renegade artists took it over and put up a show. So, surely Jade Mountain hasn't been in this space for very long. Thought the business itself may have existed as Jade Mountain at different addresses for may years.
Let's just say this, then: the store and storefront itself is certainly old. You don't see that sort of graceful curving glass facade on any stores past the '50s. Inside, it's a plexiglass deal, with all the bottles walled off from the customer. The usual crime-fighting ghetto set-up. But, beyond the glass, the bottles are lined up on shelves in wooden cabinets that look 75 years old. Someone did business at this address a lot time ago. Maybe they sold liquor, maybe they didn't.
A Perfect Storefront: Golden Pizza
Haven't done one of these in a while. But this pizzeria, encountered by accident during a trip to The Bronx, seemed to fit the bill, what with the corner space, the hand-painted signage on both sides of the storefront, and the upper signs with the illustration of the pizza man flipping dough.
Golden Pizza is in Mott Haven. It's at the corner of Brook Avenue and 138th Street. From the looks of the place, it was founded in the early 1970s, and no later. But who can tell? Places like this, there's very little recorded history about. But it has the feel of that kind of local pizzeria that neighborhood people have been depending on for decades. For the record, it's owned by two folks named Harjinger and Manginda Singh.
From Hearty to Quaint
This is the Park Slope storefront on 9th Street that used to contain Catene, the Italian sandwich shop that specialized in calamari heros, and closed in 2012 after 46 years in business. Judging by the cute exterior, it looks like the next tenant will be a little less rough and ready. Cute storefront. But I miss the old, brazen, red sign.
The Other White Horse Tavern
Everyone knows the White Horse Tavern on Hudson Street, the century-old-plus haunt of writers, singers and anarchists, last drinking spot of poet Dylan Thomas, etc. Fewer know of the city's other White Horse Tavern, dive-ish hole in the wall on a nothing side street on the southern tip of Manhattan.
The latter White Horse is situated in an old, five-story brick building at 25 Bridge Street. There's nothing surprising about there being two White Horse Taverns in New York. White Horse is the name of a blended Scotch whisky that was extremely popular in the middle decades of the 20th century.
The White Horse is a survivor, a lone old-world structure surrounding by glass towers. I don't know who owns the bar, but I have to believe they also own the building, because there's no other explanation as to why the bar still survives, given the valuable land it occupies, and the low prices it charges.
There are reports of a five-story building being here as far back as the 1870s. Whether it's the same five-story building, I don't know. There was a fire here in a "fancy bag factory" in 1891. It was owned by Jefferson M. Levy until 1904, then the City owned it for a spell, until selling the property to William B. Gottlieb in 1916. The City somehow came into possession of it again, and sold it to George W. Butler in 1930. An electric sign application was filed in 1928.
There was a restaurant here as early as 1962. It don't know if it was the White Horse, but I can't imagine a tavern calling itself that unless it was founded in the mid-20th century when that brand was king. My guess is the White Horse has been here since Prohibition was repealed. The wooden bar is long and, judging by the wooden cooler cabinets in the back, quite old, dating at least to the 1940s.
The White Horse gets a varied clientele. You'll see Wall Street suits and blue collar hardhats. The prices are extremely cheap, both for the drinks and food. (Yes, you can eat here.) You can get a shot and a 16 ounce PBR for $5, and a soup and salad lunch for $8. It has crazy weekday hours—opens at 8 AM and doesn't close until 4 AM. It does close on Sunday.
La Cross Pharmacy
I encountered La Cross Pharmacy while on a recent visit to the Mott Haven neighborhood in The Bronx. It's on the corner of Saint Anns Avenue and 138th Street. I was attracted—as I often am with such places—by the the old signage running down the edge of the building.
Added attractions included the indented, angled corner entrance, the metal pillar bearing the word "Drugs" in vertical letters, and the sad window display of a lonely wooden mortar and pestle.
By the looks of the facade, I'm guessing La Cross has been around since the 1940s. It won't be around for much longer. The shelves were sparsely stocked, and there's a sign on the side of the building saying it is for sale.
A Visit to Charles Country Pan Fried Chicken
Some priceless New York dining institutions just don't get the press others do simply because they are in out-of-the-way, or less-desirable neighborhoods. And so the 100-year-old bar or 50-year-old deli will be covered exhaustively year in and year out simply because its in the East Village or Cobble Hill—that is, the areas all the bloggers and journalists either live or like to hang out.
I can be as guilty as any of such professional laziness, though I do try to get to a neighborhood that is not my own at least four or five times a week, and a borough not my own once a week. I had first heard of Charles' Country Pan Fried Chicken years ago, but it wasn't until last week that I hauled myself up to the far eastern corner of Harlem, on Frederick Douglas Boulevard, where Charles Gabriel does business.
It's not a flashy place. You'll miss it, if you're not keeping a sharp eye out. From the outside, it looks like a run-of-the-mill, low-fi avenue restaurant with a crummy awning. Inside, however, it's soul food heaven. A cook is busy turning and turning again fifty pieces of chicken on a large, deep circular skillet filled with oil—a cooking technique different from simple deep-frying and one drawn from Gabriel's native North Carolina.
Prices are rock-bottom cheap. For $11, you get two pieces of chicken—either the country pan friend type, or barbecued, smothered or baked—and two sides, which include greens, mac and cheese, black-eyed peas, red beans, okra, yams, and other delectable dishes. The only two drinks available are iced tea and lemonade, both homemade. More people take the food to go, but there are four or five tables if you want to stay. I stayed and enjoy some of the best fried chicken I'd ever had—crispy and juice and not overwhelmed by batter.
Gabriel started out selling his chicken out of a truck about 25 years ago. His first storefront business, at the current address, had taken out for about six months when a car plowed into the shop. He reopened in 2009. You have to take the 3 train all the way to the end of the line to get here, but it's worth it.
Shades of Madison Square
I snapped this shot recently while walking on Essex Street along Seward Park in the Lower East Side. The building with the illuminated clock is the old Jewish Forward building, which was renovated a while back and converted into condos. Somehow the dusky image of a tall, striking building seen above the tops of bare winter trees reminded me of this classic Alfred Stieglitz image of the Flatiron Building and Madison Square from a century ago.
The Weirdest Steak House in Town
On lower Stone Street (not the cool section lined with bars and favored by brokers), under some scaffolding, there is a narrow operation that I've always considered the weirdest steak house in New York. Most steak houses are huge and spacious. This one's a sliver, but fire-engine red. It's also pretty sad and decrepit looking, and bears what I consider an odd name: Nebraska Steakhouse. I guess there are a lot of cows in Nebraska. Or were, historically. But in a town where most steak houses proudly trumpet the names of their founders or owners (Peter Luger, Smith & Wollensky, Ruth's Chris, Keen's), it seems strange to crow about another state.
The menu's the usual array of large cuts of meat, with a chicken and lamb dish thrown in. (Though they do have something called "Mona's Health and Wellness Menu," which included tilapia and turkey meatballs and such.) The prices at—again, as usual—sky high. Judging by the largely positive Internet reviews, it seems the food is appreciated by the customers. Also appreciated, apparently, are the shapely, mainly Russian, female bartenders. At the annual Christmas party, they all dress up like sexy little Santa's helpers. I guess that's one way to keep your male clientele coming back.
The joint's curious personality may have something to do with its owner, one Mona Muresan, who is a Romanian-born body-building champ. She moved to the U.S. in 1992, when she was teenager. She began as a coat check girl and worked her way up the chain of command until she eventually bought the place from its previous owner in 2006. Real Horatio Alger story.
There has been an eating establishment at this address at least since 1930. In 1932, it was the Satin Coffee House, which sounds intriguing.
A Good Sign: Hong Kong Tailor Jack
On Waverly Place in Greenwich Village. Jack's been there since 1987, which is odd, since the store and the sign look far older.
Great Pizza Where You Least Expect It
Rose & Joe's Italian Bakery is a small hole-in-the-wall joint on 31st Street, at the end of the Q and N lines, in Astoria. It looks sweet from the outside, the way all Italian bakeries ought to. Inside there are several cases of the usual cookies and treats you find in such places, but that's not the hidden treasure that makes this place remarkable.
In the back, there is another counter where pizza is made and sold. There were a few round pies when I was there, but it was the large Sicilian that caught my attention. I asked which kind of pie the bakery was known for, and an old lady indicated the Sicilian. It was indeed special, thinner, lighter and flakier than many of the heavy, sodden Sicilian slices I've had around town, with good quality sauce and cheese. I'm not saying its one of the best slices in town, but it's well above average, an quite a surprise to find inside a bakery.
Rose & Joes's is roughly forty years old. I'm told they only make the pizza when they have the time and the extra dough.
Wooden Phone Booth Sighting: Yale Club
In recent weeks, readers have been sending me photos of extant wooden phone booths like crazy. And I couldn't be happier. This one is in the Yale Club in midtown Manhattan. The door has been taken off. Next to it is another booth with the phone missing. The reader said he saw someone sitting in this booth working on their iPad. See: they still have a use!
Home of Bawdy Times Past
This somewhat impressive-looking, somewhat anonymous building on W. 26th Street between Fifth Avenue and Broadway holds quite a culinary past. Until 1904, it was the home of Delmonico's, the most famous restaurant New York has produced or ever will produce. After 1904, it was Cafe Martin, a super-chic dining spot favored by the well-heeled and fabulous for a decade early in the 20th century.
It was owned by Jean-Baptiste Martin, who laced the place's design with just the right tough of naughtiness to titillate the patrons. A rural by William De Leftwich depicted nude women floating through space. And ladies could dine—a rarity at the time—if accompanied by a gentleman. A few years later, the forward-thinking Martin declared that ladies could smoke in his restaurant. Martin was also a good marketer. He provided postcards to diners. If they wrote a note to a friend or relation, the cafe would post it and mail it.
Cafe Martin provided the world with plenty of scandal. Architect and libertine Stanford White dined at Cafe Martin on the night he died. He was spotted there by jealous millionaire Harry Thaw, who would shoot him later that night at Madison Square Garden in defense of the honor of showgirl Evelyn Nesbit (Thaw's wife, White's former lover). At a New Year's Eve party in 1909, a fire broke out when someone tossed a match near the gown of one Mrs. Charles E. Ellis. It ignited the celluloid trimmings on the dress. Mrs. Ellis ran to the window, causing the curtains to catch fire, and then the ceiling. The fire was extinguished, but the lady died.
For all its fame, Cafe Martin didn't last long. By May 11, 1914, it was closed. Martin had 11 more years on his lease, but he sold it back to the landlord, who in turn sold the parcel to another party. "The departing proprietor," wrote the New York Times of the final night, "had unearthed cases of French caps, fans, helmets, tambourines, drums, dolls, and all kinds of souvenirs, and these were distributed to the guests. The restaurant and cafe and other salons were decorated with roses, lilies, carnations, and palms, while the walls were draped in American and French flags."
I can't be sure, but based on an old map I've seen, this was Cafe Martin's former entrance on W. 26th.
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