John Jovino Gun Shop

VANISHED

John Jovino, the oldest gun shop in the United States, has closed for good after 109 years in business in Little Italy.

Founded in 1911 by John Jovino, and originally located in the gun center around the corner on Centre Market Place, the store was purchased by the Imperato family in the 1920s and has been run by Charlie Hu since 1995. It's been featured in many films, including Mean Streets and Serpico, and its famous wooden revolver sign has been a landmark in the neighborhood for over a century.


Charlie removed his mask briefly for this socially distanced shot. 
All photos by Stacie Joy.

Charlie, also known as "Gun King Charlie," was packing up the shop this week and graciously consented to speak with Vanishing New York about the end of an era. Stacie Joy visited with her camera and listened to Mr. Hu tell his story. Like many small business people who are forced to close, having a compassionate ear is an important part of saying goodbye.

"I turned away interviews from NBC, CBS, CNN, and the New York Times," Charlie said. "I only want to talk to you. I’m very emotional right now, as you can see, I am having a rough day. Everything is super sad. I'm glad you are here."



Charlie recalled the difficulties of running the shop years ago. The Italian mafia and the Chinese gangs both wanted protection fees, but Charlie refused. When they threatened him, he told them, “If you want to shoot me, shoot me right here,” and pointed to his heart. You had to establish toughness back then and Charlie was tough. “I don’t care," he told the gangsters. "I don’t give a shit, you do what you want.” They left Charlie alone. He outlasted them.

As a Chinese immigrant, and the first Chinese gun dealer in the U.S., he faced racism and hatred on a regular basis. He recalled how people would come into the shop and give him trouble for not speaking English with his wife. They threatened him, spat on him, called him racial slurs, and told him to "go back to China." But Charlie was tough. He outlasted them.



Charlie showed off the gun he keeps holstered at his hip. A Beretta 84 .380 pistol, it was clearly loved, oiled and cared for. He keeps it with him all the time and even featured it on the shop's iconic t-shirt.

“This is my gun," he said, pointing to the shirt. "It’s my design and it’s been the same price from the beginning. The price never increases and never decreases."



Charlie's phone kept ringing, as phones do on the last days of small businesses. Each time, it was another member of NYPD's top brass calling to check on him, ask how he's doing, and thank him for his decades of service.

Over the years, Charlie gained many friends in the NYPD, as he worked hand-in-hand with law enforcement to keep illegal guns off the streets. Charlie is proud of this--and of his dedication to the shop.



"All my life," he said, "I've never taken a vacation or a sick day. I never had any violations. And now this is the end of the world. My whole life went into this."

As he put away the many awards he received over the years, tears rolled down his cheeks and into his mask. It was not his choice to close the shop. This is not how he wanted it to end.



The rent, he said, is the number one reason for closing. And then the coronavirus, shutting down business. There's also the trouble with regulations, the slow-down in shipments of ammunition, and people buying on the Internet instead of from their local shop. Finally, Charlie said, “I’m old, I’m 74 years old, I was born in 1946, I am old.”

He'll be retiring after this. He hopes to travel, once the restrictions are lifted, and he's getting offers to teach and advise for security firms in Asia. He's considering it. But saying goodbye hasn't been easy.

A text came into his phone from his boss, Mr. Imperato.

“You are completing the mission,” he told Charlie.

“Thanks, boss," Charlie replied. "With my tears.”




Post Script:

I always loved seeing the three-dimensional sign and the colorful targets and posters in the windows of John Jovino. Last week, I wondered what happened to the antique wooden gun that hung from the sign.

On Facebook, I read that Charlie sold it to a man who makes gun sculptures.


via Facebook

He was very happy to get it and it's now sitting in a studio in Brooklyn before it is moved to Los Angeles. Another little piece of the city's heart.

For historical photos of the shop and its big revolver, see my previous stories here and here.


via Facebook

Vinny Peanuts

I missed this sad news, until I saw this memorial on a wall of plywood at Mulberry and Grand in Little Italy.



Vincent Cirelli Sabatino, lovingly known as Vinny Peanuts, died on April 13 from complications of COVID-19. He was 68 years old. His family posted the announcement on Instagram.

He ran Vinny's Nut House, a fixture on the corner for nearly 50 years. At the Feast of San Gennaro, the stand was always brightly lit and busy, with Vinny cutting big bricks of torrone with a knife and a hammer. It was a beautiful thing.



Vinny was one of the last holdouts of authentic Little Italy. As he told Pavement Pieces a decade ago, “There’s no more Italians left. There are no more stands like me. Before, there used to be 10 stands down just this one block that sold Italian food, just like mine. Now, I’m the only one left.”



I always got his lemon cookies, which were the best. Just the best.

Jovino's Gun

What happened to the wooden revolver hanging off the sign of John Jovino's in Little Italy? (See my update here on the fate of the sign--and the closing of the shop.)



It was there and now it's gone. Maybe they put it away for safekeeping during the coronavirus shutdown?



Jovino's has been in business since 1911 and used to be around the corner on Centre Market Place, before the block was luxurified by the Novogratz family. (I wrote all about it here.)

I don't know how old this particular Jovino gun is, but an earlier version of it shows up in a photo by the great crime photographer Weegee, who lived in a one-room apartment above the shop from the mid-1930s until 1947.


Weegee

The gun also made an appearance in the 1973 Al Pacino movie Serpico. It makes for a very photogenic antique sign and I hope it returns.

Guys at the Cafetal Social Club

On a warm spring day outside the Cafetal Social Club at 285 Mott Street you might find the filmmaker Paul Stone and his adopted family, including neighborhood guys like Vinny Vella, aka "the Mayor of Elizabeth Street," and Dominick Ferraro.

For over 60 years the Cafetal was a social club. It's been a home-style Italian restaurant for 6 years. The guys hang out on the sidewalk to drink coffee, shoot the breeze, and reminisce about life in old Little Italy, childhoods spent sleeping on fire escapes and showering in fire hydrants with bricks of Ivory soap.



Stone, a half-Italian, half-Irish native of Brooklyn, moved to Elizabeth Street in 1985. He lived in Martin Scorsese's building, played in punk bands, and made movies. In Mulberry: A Gentrification Story, he shows how the neighborhood changed in just a few short years.

"A few years ago," he says, "it went from slow gentrification to hyper-gentrification. The dial got turned way up. It was a combination of what Giuliani started and Bloomberg finished. Giuliani cleaned it up for the billionaires."

Too often now the place is called Nolita, for North of Little Italy, a nickname invented by the real estate industry to raise prices. I ask Vella, "What do you think of Nolita?" He says, "Nolita? I don't know her."

"I'd like to get the guy who did that," says Dominick.

"This is Little Italy," says Vinny. "If you don't like it, go back to Ohio or wherever you came from."

For Stone, living in Little Italy and then on the Bowery in the age of hyper-gentrification was making him cranky. The new people were clueless and rude. He was angry all the time. Then he made Mulberry and it connected him back to his roots. To these guys. "Now I have this family," he says, "and I don't notice the other stuff so much. The movie rejuvenated my whole outlook toward the neighborhood."

That's connection. Community. Something the guys remember as an important part of the old streets. The new people, they say, don't say hello. It wasn't always like that. Vella used to haul out garbage cans and close Elizabeth to traffic. Neighbors would bring out their lawn chairs and kiddie pools. They'd barbecue and play music.

"Now there's no more sitting in front of the buildings," says Dominick. The new owners won't allow it. And you can't go up on the roof either. No more Tar Beach. "That was an important part," he says, about life in the city. "We used to sit out 'til two, three in the morning. Your daughter or your son could walk out and people would watch out for them. In the '70s there was a wiseguy who lived on the first floor. His wife would lean out the window. She said to me, 'The day you guys are not on this corner, that's the day I'm moving out.' And this was a wiseguy's wife. Without people sitting out, it's not a neighborhood."

Vella interrupts, "You know what my mother used to say about people who talked too much?" He says it in Italian, something like mangia il culo del cavallo. "He eats the horse's ass."

Before anyone can figure that one out, the punk poet Patti Smith walks by in a red flannel shirt and jeans, long white hair flowing out behind her. The guys talk about the celebrities they've seen here: Leonardo DiCaprio, Gabriel Byrne, David Bowie. Little Italy has become one of the priciest neighborhoods in America and the old people are being pushed out, bought out with cheap money or just given the boot.

It's safer now, of course, and the guys appreciate not having to run for their lives anymore. "But we sacrificed the soul for safety," says Paul.

"I miss the smells," Dominick says. "On a Sunday morning, every building had a different smell. You could smell the Sunday gravy. Everywhere you went, you felt like you were in your living room. Even now, as soon as I get into the neighborhood, the temperature drops. Like I'm in my living room. It's weird. I guess it's psychological, but it really happens."

They've made the best of it. Vella likes watching the models walking by. Dominick likes the shopping--and not getting hassled anymore by Irish cops.

"Things have always changed in the city," Paul says, "but the hyper-gentrification is the scariest part. That's the stuff we need to fight."


Mulberry - A Gentrification Story. from Paul Stone on Vimeo. Also check out Stone's short film "Tales of Times Square" (NSFW). His latest, "Big Elvis," premieres next week at the Tribeca Film Festival.

Moe's Meat Market

VANISHING

I wrote a piece for the Times this week about the closing of Moe's Meat Market, a butcher shop on Elizabeth Street turned into an artist's studio and gallery in 1977. Back then, Bohemians and working-class Italians mixed on a street once affordable, now taken over by luxury.



Moe’s Meat Market, in Little Italy, hasn’t been a meat market for 40 years. But the floor is still tiled in black and white, the walls covered in porcelain-enameled tin sheets. When the artist Robert Kobayashi, known as Kobi, bought Moe’s and the rest of its building in 1977, he moved in with his wife, the photographer Kate Keller, and installed his studio in the storefront, leaving the walls intact. As a sculptor who worked with tin, maybe he felt an affinity for the sheet metal. Maybe he just appreciated the history.

Read the rest at The Times




the basement wine press

Sile's Gun Sign

Reader Monique wrote in to say: "The Sile sign is gone on Centre Market Place, seemingly overnight. I work on the block in a converted gun shop and was comforted by its sight daily. All of a sudden it is gone, turned into white... nothing."


The white nothing, photograph by Monique

I wrote about the vanished gun shops of Centre Market Place back in 2011--trust me, it's a fascinating bit of history.

The Sile sign was the last remnant of the gun district. These little things. They matter in the psychogeography of the city.


2011

Forlini's at Mid-Century

I'm a fan of the great, but somehow little known, Forlini's restaurant, so I was excited to see they put some vintage photos up on their website of the place back in the 1950s and 60s.



Forlini's dates to 1943. It's a favorite place for judges, lawyers, and other people involved in the justice system, thanks to its location close to the State Supreme Court house.

Tourists to Little Italy seem to be completely ignorant of its existence, and let's hope it stays that way.



About once a month or so, you can go and hear the song stylings of Mr. Angelo Ruggiero, a scene that should not be missed.



Check out the full gallery of vintage photos here.

Elizabeth St. Garden

An affordable housing project may be getting built on uber-luxurified Elizabeth Street. However, its construction could mean the demolition of the Elizabeth Street Garden. Neighbors have been fighting to protect this space--with a Friends of the Elizabeth Street Garden website that provides all the details and info on action you can take.

Now actor Gabriel Byrne offers his support in a new video by Simon J. Heath.



Byrne has a place on Elizabeth--he bought a $3 million condo at the newly constructed 211 Elizabeth in 2010.

The garden has been here since 1991. It's the place where the Elizabeth Street Gallery keeps its sculptures--antique angels, lions, gargoyles. Locked for many years, it opened to the public some time ago, after the gallery took over the space long occupied by La Rosa & Sons Bakery, back when "Nolita" was still considered Little Italy.

Watch the video here, in which Byrne quotes W.B. Yeats:



You can weigh in on the issue at the LMDC Hearing this Thursday, Sept. 17, 4:30 – 7 p.m., at the Borough of Manhattan Community College, Fiterman Hall, 245 Greenwich St., 13th Floor.

#SaveNYC for Adele & Il Palazzo

On Saturday in Little Italy, #SaveNYC held a rally against the eviction of Adele Sarno and Il Palazzo restaurant.


photo: Sandi Bachom. Adele Sarno and #SaveNYC.

The Italian-American Museum is trying to evict Sarno, an 85-year-old Italian-American woman who has lived in the building for over 50 years. She's trying to stay.

Il Palazzo Ristorante has already been forced to close. As the restaurant told WPIX 11 News, "My heart is ripped out, I have aches in my stomach." And "How will I pay $30,000 a month selling $5 dollar pasta?"


photo by Albins Peke Von Mayate. Rallying cry.

New Yorkers have rallied to the cause.

Lately, the sidewalk outside the museum has been the scene of a number of protests, including one organized by Two Bridges Neighborhood Council. More protests are coming.


photo: Ann McDermott. Annabella Sciorra joins the fight.

At the #SaveNYC event, about two dozen supporters carried signs and met with Ms. Sarno.

Italian-American actor and native New Yorker Annabella Sciorra joined the crowd and gave her support, along with Frank "Butch the Hat" Aquilino.


photo: Lee Michael. Butch the Hat and Sciorra.

#SaveNYC group member Sandi Bachom was there with her camera and got Adele on film explaining her situation: "I'm gonna fight this bastard til the end."

Boogers at the Feast

I met Mr. Boogers on a September night in the early 1990s near Avenue A. He was sitting in his van, a rickety contraption with "Mr. Boogers" hand-painted slapdash on the sides and a blow-up sex doll lounging in a chaise strapped to the roof.


Boogermobile, 2nd and 8th, early 1990s

With the van's side door wide open, Mr. Boogers sat on the edge, inserting batteries into light-up roses and filling Weepy the Wee-Wee dolls with water. He invited me to give him a hand. Being young and seeking adventure, I climbed into the van, onto the one chair not covered with cheap souvenirs, most of them of the adult variety--pens in the shape of penises, novelty cigarette lighters from which sprang plastic penises instead of flames.

Boogers instructed me to fill a bag with the "dick lighters" and then put batteries into flashing yo-yos. A homeless man joined us. I think his name was Jim. Boogers told him to fill the "piss dolls." Jim figured out a special method for doing so. He'd fill his mouth with water and then spit it into the doll's base through a plastic straw. A funnel would have helped, but Mr. Boogers didn't have a funnel.



When we had finished prepping, Mr. Boogers invited me to stay with him and Jim, to work the San Gennaro Feast, selling the novelties on the street. He said he would pay me. I agreed--some extra money would come in handy. In the van, Boogers talked about his life selling novelties at race tracks, street fairs, and other such events. Jim talked about his wife and kids in Pennsylvania, and about his alcohol problem that he was trying to get under control.

On Mulberry Street, Mr. Boogers divided the merchandise. Jim got a handful of light-up roses and the bag of dick lighters. I got the yo-yos. Mr. Boogers took the piss dolls. In the sea of feast-goers, we each found a corner and got to work. I yo-yo'd clumsily, the little disks wobbling and flashing neon colors through the lights and fried-food smell of the feast. I probably called out something like "Yo-yo's here, getcha yo-yo's here." Somehow, I managed to sell quite a few. I felt proud of my yo-yo selling skills. It was all going so well.

Then Mr. Boogers came over, panicked and angry. He said, "Where the hell is Jim?"

I looked for the tall man and his bouquet of glowing red roses, but couldn't see them anywhere.

"Find the bastard," Mr. Boogers said. "He's got all my dick lighters!"

We searched the feast endlessly. I followed Mr. Boogers as he plunged through the crowds, keeping my eye out for glowing roses. After too long of this, I was tired, frustrated, and ready to go home. So was Boogers. We never found Jim. He'd taken off with the merch--a dozen or more plastic roses and a bag full of joke penises.


Mr. Boogers by Bob Arihood

Boogers and I climbed back into the van. I gave him the yo-yo's and the money I had earned. He raved angrily about how he should never trust a drunk, about the money he had lost. I felt implicated somehow, and chastised, as if I'd been the thief. I couldn't bring myself to ask him for any pay and I knew I wasn't going to get it anyway. Still, I wanted something for my trouble. So I stole from him, too.

On the seat I found a keychain featuring a copulating couple, the kind where you pull a lever and their pelvises smash together. I closed my hand around it and slipped it into my pocket just before Boogers dropped me back on Avenue A where he'd found me.

That was the last I ever saw of Mr. Boogers. I don't know what happened to the keychain. I kept it for years, and then it vanished, too.

A Night at Forlini's

If you're looking for a good time in the old New York, you have to go to Forlini's on a night when Angelo Ruggiero is performing in the back room.



For one thing, Forlini's is something of a hidden treasure. Cut off from Little Italy by Canal Street, it's tucked away on Baxter, surrounded by Chinatown and unspoiled by tourists. The out-of-towners don't seem to know the place exists.

Established in 1943, Forlini's is pure and authentic. New Yorkers eat there. It's a favorite place for judges, lawyers, and other people involved in the justice system, thanks to its location close to the State Supreme Court house.



The rooms are filled with diamond-tufted, peach-colored banquettes and booths, the walls hung with an odd and fascinating assortment of massive oil paintings in heavy, gilded frames.

The staff -- all family -- greet you with warmth and respect. Don't expect any "fixed-up," "revived" Italian food. Forlini's is old-school red sauce all the way. The food's fine, but I don't go to restaurants for the food. I go for the place itself, for the history and the people. For the emotions that the space generates.

And--especially on the nights when Mr. Ruggiero sings--Forlini's is loaded with history, emotion, and wonderful people.



The crowd of regulars shows up early. Italian-Americans, they come in from the outer boroughs, Jersey, and Long Island. They all know each other, and if you haven't been before, you might feel like you're crashing somebody's Golden Anniversary party. But if you're friendly, unfussy, and have fun, you'll be welcomed.

Ruggiero's wife, who looks a little like Liza Minnelli in a glittering tunic and fedora, sets up the music machine and makes the rounds, greeting each person. Then Ruggiero, as bald as Mr. Clean with a big, bright smile, takes the mike. The crowd goes wild. It's all Sinatra, 1950s doo-wop, and Neapolitan folk songs. Ladies swoon. Everyone sings along. During the Italian songs, people swing their napkins through the air.

By the time dinner is done, everyone is dancing in the narrow spaces between the tables (take a look), and you've made some new best friends.



Ruggiero performs at Forlini's about once a month or so. Next up, he'll be there September 5. Be sure to make a reservation.

Italian Food Center

Since 1954, the Grand Italian Food Center had served Little Italy--sandwiches, breads, pasta, pastries, olives, cheese. Then it vanished. It lost its lease and shuttered either in late 2010 or early 2011.

Now there's a new "Italian Food Center" in its spot.


2011

This new Food Center doesn't look anything like the old Food Center. It's been made to appear old, however, with scrubby bricks and a faux-rusted sign that will likely convince the tourists into believing it's been here since there were actual Italians still living in Little Italy.



The level of decor, with windows vaguely reminiscent of the High Line's colored window art, subway tiled walls, and a ceiling hung with those trendy silver bowl lightbulbs, makes me think this is not a rebirth of the Italian Food Center we once knew.

But I could be wrong.

There's a website. Sort of. I've tried, but I can't find anything out on this one. Any clues?

San Gennaro 2012

The Nolita foodies may be encroaching from the north, but the feast still reigns on Mulberry Street.











This year, the Grand Procession was led by Italian-American sweetheart Connie Francis. The lady once known as Concetta Rosa Maria Franconero rode in the back of a red Cadillac with a beauty queen. She later signed autographs on the Main Stage, greeting a long line of fans with warmth and patience.



I was a big Connie Francis fan as a kid.



Previously:
Gennaro Class War
Nolita vs. the Feast

Red-Sauce Joints

VANISHING

The recent announcements about the coming death by rent hike of Rocco's and Rocky's--along with the closure of Aunt Suzie's in Park Slope--has me wondering if we've been witnessing a mass extinction of the classic "red-sauce joint." Looking back, the answer is obvious.


Rocco ravioli

The Beatrice Inn closed in 2005 after about 80 years. The new owner promised "Monday Scrabble sessions and Italian-food specials will cater to the old regulars." That didn't happen. It became a celeb hotspot that enraged the neighbors and eventually shuttered.

The Minetta Tavern closed in 2008 after 71 years when the rent skyrocketed. Keith McNally took it over, changed the Italian menu to French, fancied it up, and stashed Joe Gould somewhere he may never be found.

Gino closed in June 2010 after 65 years. Once a favorite of Frank Sinatra, it's now a cupcake chain store from Beverly Hills.

Fedora closed in July 2010 after 58 years. The new owner had said it would remain almost exactly the same as it was, but that didn't happen. Like Minetta's, they also serve French-ish food.

Carmine's at the Seaport closed in July 2010 after 107 years. The rent was jacked up.

With Rocco and Rocky's both closing at the end of 2011, counting 90 and 30 years in business, respectively, that makes about 500 years of Italian-American cuisine and culture vanished in just the past 6 years. And I'm sure I've neglected to mention others.


Last meal at Minetta Tavern: Tortellaci Minetta

Interestingly, just as these classic places are vanishing, we're simultaneously seeing the rise of the hipster or foodie faux "red-sauce" joint, run by chefs who aim to "elevate" Italian-American cuisine from its apparently lowly position.

To wit: meatballs. They're everywhere, from the ever expanding Meatball Shops to the Meatball Factories. But they're not mom-and-pop meatballs. They're made by young, hip guys who attended culinary institutes and came up through French bistros and Hamptons clubs. They're made by guys from Top Chef, who top them with BBQ sauce or truffle cream.

The Torrisi team, though mostly Italian-American, caters to the foodie crowd as they perform "gourmet riffs on classic red-sauce fare" and create "upmarket versions of humble Italian-American deli favorites." They will soon plant their flag in Rocco.

Adam Platt called Danny Meyer's Maialino both "authentic" and a "painstakingly rendered facsimile" of a Roman trattoria.

Maybe that sums up the kind of place that is replacing the red-sauce joint--authentic facsimiles. Which is to say: ersatz.


Manganaro's

It wouldn't be so bad, having these upscale places around, if they weren't helping to send mom and pop--or should we say Nonna and Nonno?--into retirement.

For awhile now, there's been something about "red-sauce" that inspires scorn from the foodie elite. A Wikipedist says the term is pejorative, and that the mom-and-pop image of these restaurants is a cliche. Italian-American food has been maligned in this city since at least the 1980s, according to Anthony Bourdain, who writes, "We were almost made to feel bad about any secret appetites we might retain for spaghetti and meatballs" once the gourmets took over.

Call the culprit classism, class climbing, or murderous Oedipal rage, either way, real Italian-American food, made simply and inexpensively, is vanishing from the city.


Last meal at Gino, ravioli and meatballs

For true authenticity, not the painstakingly rendered kind, we still have John's of 12th Street and Manganaro's, which are my two favorites of what remains. We also have Monte's and Villa Mosconi. We have the dwindling fragments of Little Italy. Outside Manhattan, you might have better luck.

If you have a craving for meatballs, or for anything Italian-American, find your way to these places. They survived the 20th century--help them survive the new New York.