Jewish Delicatessens

VANISHING

Save the Deli shared this story from the New York Times about a recent panel discussion on "Every aspect of the Jewish delicatessen — from the declining popularity of kishka to the rise of online sales to the gentrification of the Lower East Side"

A few snippets from the Times article:
Food historian Joel Denker, author of The World on a Plate: "You find this sort of yeasty combination of intellectuals, writers, leftists, sitting together over tea and cottage cheese and fruit, talking about the issues of the day at a place like the Garden Cafeteria."


photo from my katz's flickr set

Alan Dell, owner of Katz’s Delicatessen: "''When the Second Avenue Deli closed, we kept getting calls: ‘Are you open? You’re still open?’ The original rumor started when the show ‘Cats’ closed years ago.' Mr. Dell said that rising rents were the greatest challenge in keeping the store open –- not to mention the rising price of meat."


photo credit

Jack Lebewohl, of the Second Avenue Deli, "said his son Jeremy would reopen the deli in Murray Hill — on East 33rd Street, between Lexington and Third Avenues — 'sometime in the fall.' The audience erupted into applause."



Mark Federman, owner of Russ & Daughters: "The type of people who live on the Lower East Side now has gone from the immigrant to the investment banker.... The employees have gone from family acting as employees, to employees acting as family....The Lower East Side has gone from pushcart to posh.”

Jade Mountain

VANISHED: 2007


Photo from warsze

Jade Mountain Chinese restaurant closed earlier this year, soon after the owner was killed while making a delivery. It had been on Second Avenue since 1931. Its CHOW MEIN sign was like a beacon on late nights when I walked home from above 14th Street. When I saw that pink neon, I knew I was almost there.



The Villager this week reported on Jade Mountain's "everything must go" sale. I stumbled across it today. There wasn't much left, a few boxes full of chipped teacups, an empty fishtank, a plaque awarding "Best Egg Foo Young in New York City" (not for sale). I asked if I could take pictures inside, but was told, "We want people to remember it like it was, not like it is, all in shambles." Fair enough. I did get to take home this souvenir book of matches:



For Bright Beacons, A Murky Future
By CASSI FELDMAN
The New York Times, May 13, 2007

For decades, they floated over Second Avenue near East 12th Street like twin stars guiding tipsy East Villagers home: ''Jade Mountain'' in glowing pink bamboo-style letters, and above it, in rosy neon, a smaller, two-sided sign bearing the words ''Chow Mein.''

But these days, the name of the old-school chop suey house is obscured by a giant ''For Lease'' poster. Jade Mountain closed in February, five months after Reginald Chan, its 60-year-old owner, was hit by a truck and killed while making a delivery on a bicycle. As Mr. Chan's family, which owns the building, looks for a new tenant, neighbors fear that the vintage neon signs, like the restaurant, will soon disappear.

Emily Rems, a 32-year-old magazine editor who lives on East 14th Street, is particularly fond of the Jade Mountain sign, and the buzzing sound it made when some of its letters started to dim. ''It just seems like it's been there forever and ever,'' she said the other day, ''and there's something comforting about that.''

The chow mein sign captivates Ed Cahill, a 46-year-old actor and filmmaker. ''It's like something off a Hollywood lot,'' Mr. Cahill said.

The restaurant, which opened in 1931, spoke to a bygone era, serving steaming plates of egg foo yong and moo goo gai pan until the day it closed. Last week, passers-by were still pressing their face to the glass as if willing it to reopen.

Mr. Chan's 25-year-old son, Nick, who lives above Jade Mountain, does not know the history of the signs or what will become of them once the space is leased. ''I don't know who would have room for something like that,'' he said.

But for Ms. Rems, who once kissed her boyfriend underneath the Jade Mountain sign, the image will always have a certain glow. ''I thought it would be lucky,'' she said. ''Now I'll have to do it one last time.''

Text Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

Bobby's Happy House

VANISHING: August 2007

Photo from in8vision

Update: The Times just tuned in to this news.

There was a rally in Harlem this weekend to save Bobby's Happy House, the shop owned by record producer Bobby Robinson. Opened in 1946, it was the first black-owned business on 125th Street. Now, at age 90, Bobby is being evicted--along with other small businesses and residents. Like Copeland's, another Harlem landmark is crushed under the bootheels of gentrification.

I can't find any news about the rally.



From the Daily News:
Robinson himself wants to stay: "I've been on this corner since 1946. I came back from the war, I had some money and I became the first colored man to own a store on 125th St. It isn't fair to make businesses close."

If history counted, he'd stay there forever. His wall is solid with autographed pictures of artists who came over from the Apollo Theater, a half block away: Al Green, Eddie Kendricks, Berry Gordy, the Miracles with Smokey Robinson. There's Jackie Wilson and Fats Domino together, and of course, James Brown.
"Very good friend," says Robinson. Robinson has a lot of those.

"I was the only store to stay open the night of the [1964] riots," he says. "The liquor store near me, 10-15 guys smashed the windows, carried it out by the case. But I wasn't touched. Everybody knew me, respected me."

Our Lady of Vilnius

VANISHING: 2007

The author of Our Lady of Vilnius, NYC recently called my attention to the closing and impending demolition of her church, which has been serving the Lithuanian community in its Soho location for the past century.


Photo by Manzari

One day, the parishioners showed up to find that Cardinal Egan had the doors padlocked and the gates guarded by security. Now, the church is slated for demolition.

What will take its place? It isn't hard to imagine in a city that decapitates houses of worship to turn them into residential towers, that builds condo monstrosities to get closer to the heavens, and where construction cranes, filled with pride and hubris, climb higher than church steeples.


Crane over Grace Church

Moondance Diner

VANISHED: August 2007

UPDATE: Gothamist and Downtown Express report on the final departure of the Moondance.

Lost City has a great report on the happy fate of the Moondance Diner. Like a good old dog that's no longer wanted, it's going out to pasture--way out to pasture, all the way to La Barge, Wyoming, where it will enjoy a long life among snowy mountains, flowing rivers, and the sway of the breeze in the ponderosa pines. Not only that, but the people of La Barge, unlike the people of Manhattan, are really, really excited about this old diner. Reading about how excited they are almost brings me to tears.


Photo from photostroll

La Barge's gain is our loss. Says the director of the SoHo Alliance, "SoHo is getting Starbucks and Wyoming is getting the Moondance Diner. Is this a fair trade?" I think not. But I'm in the minority.

What will be this generation's legacy to the history of our city? What are we leaving behind for future New Yorkers to enjoy and admire? As the Times editorialized in 1963 on the demolition of Penn Station, "Any city gets what it admires, will pay for, and, ultimately, deserves.... And we will probably be judged not by the monuments we build but by those we have destroyed."

Parking Lot at 8th and Greenwich Avenues

VANISHED: July 2007



One Jackson Square, with its "provocative" condos, is coming to the Village. And that means that the parking lot on the corner of 8th and Greenwich is closed. So who cares about a parking lot, you might ask. Aren't we supposed to despise the parking lots that paved over paradise? Well, yes, but I'll take a parking lot over a luxury condo building any day.

Parking lots make great shortcuts, especially at busy times when you really need to break out of the sidewalk traffic. They are empty space and provide openness, sunlight, and sky.



To add insult to injury, the onejacksonsquare website uses the old Village mystique to sell its condos with lines like: "To this day, the birthplace of bohemian culture is still home to an eclectic mix of artists, iconoclasts and cognoscenti."

Of course, this eclectic mix (whatever's left of it) is rapidly dying out. But look, here are some of the remaining iconoclasts who currently inhabit the cruddy park known as Jackson Square, upon which the condo will enjoy "expansive views." I'm sure by the time the new residents move in, these "bohemians" will get the boot:

St. Ann's Church

VANISHED: 2004

NYU's looming new dorm building continues to rise behind the decapitated facade of St. Ann's Church on East 12th Street. At 26 stories, it will be the tallest building in the East Village. (The Green Monster at Astor Place and the Toll Brothers behemoth are both a mere 21 stories.)



Curbed likens the monstrosity to the Tower of Babel. Gothamist shares the mega-dorm's building plans and asks, "what the fuck is wrong with the folks at NYU?" The answer is at NYU Exposed. And The Village Voice makes it quite clear that NYU couldn't care less about preserving the ever-dwindling character of the neighborhood.

The site of the 158-year-old church will now be home to 700 freshmen.