Still alive and kicking between 44th and 45th, don't miss the Poseidon Bakery. As far as I know, it is not vanishing. Yet.
The Poseidon has been in town since 1923 and is the last bakery in the city where they still make their own phyllo dough by hand. Opened by Demetrios Anagnostou, a baker from the island of Corfu, the Poseidon is run by family, including Lili Fable, third-generation baker and one of the founders (in 1973) of the Ninth Avenue International Food Festival, which is coming up in May.
The inside of the Poseidon, with its blue and white paint job, feels not unlike walking onto a fishing vessel. There's something very "seaside" about it. It also looks like it hasn't changed in several decades. Let's hope it keeps its New York Character in this sea of radical change.
NYers take for granted the variety of good breads. Out of the city, it's wonderbread culture! Tasteless, absent nutrition and substance, phony. Basic white bread, with food coloring and shaping, is cosmetically turned into wholewheat, rye, whatever. Awful. It is these neighborhood bakeries with their long hours and hard work that have fed NYers so well. People who bake bread go to heaven, an old woman once told me.
ReplyDeleteJ, if the NY Public Library is going to be renamed, why not name it after a baker? Bakers have fed the city, the world. To name the NYPL after a Wall St. baron only encourages a condition: creeping normadesmonditis. Perpetuation of ego worship feeds no citizen. People who bake bread keep other people alive.
ReplyDeleteAs much as I love the Poseidon Bakery, I can't frequent it that often otherwise I will become obese. I fear for its longevity as that entire block has become chain-stored. I'm starting to hate the neighborhood I've called home for so many years.
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