Sal Dell'Orto

Sal Dell'Orto, patriarch of the great, lost Manganaro's Grosseria of Hell's Kitchen, has passed away. He was 84. My warmest condolences go out to his family, especially to his daughters who made dining at Manganaro's such an unforgettable treat (no matter what some people have to say about that--and I don't want to hear it--I still miss the place terribly).

From his obituary, it's clear that Mr. Dell'Orto and Manganaro's Grosseria will always have a place in local New York City history:

"Sal was born in Manhattan and earned a scholarship to Fordham University. He graduated Cum Laude and went right to work at his family’s business; Manganaro Grosseria Italiana; purveyors of premium Italian specialty foods. His family started the famous eatery on New York’s Ninth Avenue in 1893 and Sal proudly carried the torch until 2010. Manganaro’s was truly a New York City landmark during his tenure, and Sal was the charismatic owner that all of his customers came to love.

He became personal friends with the likes of Jackie Gleason and Shecky Greene, had coffee every morning with Burt Lancaster during the filming of Tough Guys, and Frank Sinatra would request that his Prosciutto be personally sliced by Sal. The Ninth Avenue Food Festival was traditionally started with the sitting New York City mayor enjoying a meal at Manganaro’s followed by an opening ceremony on the sidewalk right out front. Sal has had lunch with Jacob Javits, Ed Koch, David Dinkins and Rudy Giuliani, just to name a few. Sal enjoyed many ‘firsts’ at Manganaro’s: first family to import Salami from Italy shortly after World War I, GQ magazine featured him in the late 1990’s wearing fine Italian suits, and he is credited with inventing the 'Six Foot Hero' sandwich in 1956. The six foot hero earned him a spot on the TV game show What’s My Line? where Sal successfully stumped the panelists. The Hormel Meats Company also used his grosseria as the set for many of their TV commercials over the years.

Needless to say, he enjoyed a lengthy career and was blessed with many wonderful and dear friends throughout the years."

Read more here

At an UWS Diner

At a non-descript diner on the Upper West Side, enjoying the quiet until a young couple walks in and sits in the booth behind me. They are loud-talkers.

He: I like to come to a diner every once in awhile to have a Seinfeld experience.

She: Do they have latkes?

He: Sure, they have hashbrowns.

She: I want latkes. I've had a very stressful day!

He: Latkes, hashbrowns, what's the difference?

She: Come on. I've had a very stressful day.

He: Look, they have something called the Colossal Meatball.

She: Colossal balls sound good to me! Ha ha! I've had such a stressful day. Seriously, don't they have any fruit on this menu? How about some organic greens? All they have here is crap.

He: I need a drink.

She orders a fruit, "no melon," and he gets a glass of Sauvignon Blanc. They continue to wish out loud that they were dining someplace else. I wish the same.

Kentile Sign

VANISHING? (No.)

Over at New York Neon, Thomas Rinaldi got this alarming note about the Kentile sign from an anonymous commenter:

"The sign is coming down during the week of February 18th 2013. Hurry and take your last pictures."

Could this be true? The sign is a Brooklyn landmark--it's even "a place that matters." It has its own Facebook page. It's on t-shirts.

Can anyone confirm or denounce this rumor that Kentile is about to vanish?

*Update: Thanks Andy Newman and Gothamist for tracking this one down and letting us know the Kentile sign is here to stay.

*Everyday Chatter

Target the Coney Island cat and his owner's arcade are forced out to Las Vegas. [ATZ]

Emerald Inn likely to close after 70 years on the Upper West Side. [WSR]

Go see Su Friedrich's "Gut Renovation," on the hyper-gentrification of Williamsburg, in March at Film Forum. [FF]

Arthur Avenue gets a "glossy...chic" beer hall that "aims to change." What will this mean for the old neighborhood? [NYT]

The Brooklynizing of Sweden. [Grub]

Sign the petition to save NYC's public libraries from Bloomberg. [OMFS]

Check out Karen Lillis' new short story--"Set in Greenpoint and the East Village, and on the L train in between." [TC]

Meet Mike Bakaty, East Village tattoo artist. [EVG]

What is a New York Dive? [youtube]

El Sombrero (The Hat)

Recently, we've been hearing about a flood of losses on Ludlow. Places that came up in the 1990s--early gentrifiers certainly, but before the hyper-gentrification of the Bloomberg era--are dropping like flies. The Pink Pony closed, then we got the news about Motor City, the Living Room is leaving, and we know Max Fish is on borrowed time. Many people are asking, "What's left?" And answering, "The Hat."

Now we hear from the grapevine that the Mexican restaurant is "on its last legs" after serving the Lower East Side since 1984.


1988: Michael Horsley, flickr

I reached out to Regina Bartkoff, an actor, artist, writer, and a waitress at The Hat since 1988. She gave me the scoop:

"They are not closing yet! They are trying to stay open! The rent has been steadily going up and they have a lease for a few more years, but in 2012 we took a nose dive. We have been losing our regular customers steadily, due to them not being able to pay the rents on the LES and being forced out. It just keeps going down.

Most Mexican restaurants on the LES are very chic now with a smorgasbord of a million kinds of tequila and fancy appetizers. El Sombrero was famous for their frozen large pints of margaritas that packed a wallop. They are still $8. A big burrito with rice and beans, heavy with cheese is still $9. It was cheap and you could get wasted quick. We waitresses were never told to sell anything and we never hurried anybody out, even if people were lined up and waiting outside. Everybody was relaxed. The waitresses would dance with the customers at any given moment (to the annoyance of some tables waiting for their orders). Working class, artists, gang bangers, and their families mixed together. Writers would write there. Actors and directors met and worked on their plays. I put everybody's posters on the windows and walls. I gave out cards to my shows and got asked into shows all the time.

As the neighborhood started to change around me, I thought the NYU crowd coming in would still want good cheap food. But the character of these new people coming in was weird. They didn't come in curious or wanting to find a place to call their own. They didn't try to fit into the neighborhood. They were rude and obnoxious. They would not leave a tip, and I can't tell you how many times we had to run down the block after them for trying to run out on a check. This had never happened before. Then even they started to disappear. (I guess after we would catch a lot of them, they weren't coming back.) They are probably finding places were you can down a $2 shot and not have to tip the waitress. The others want those chic places. El Sombrero doesn't fit either one. It was a working class/poor neighborhood place. I think that's the sad fact, we don't fit in any more."


Today: furcafe, flickr

As we're all asking "why Ludlow Street's last bastions of Bohemia are closing," and finding the answer in skyrocketing rents and a vanished culture of artists and outsiders, The Hat remains--but likely not for long. So go get some burritos and knock back a few of those powerful margaritas. Put some salsa on the jukebox, dance with the waitresses, and tip them well.

It's not too late to keep something real and alive on glassy, gasping Ludlow Street.


New York Magazine

80s Deuce

Awhile ago, photographer and illustrator Mitch O'Connell posted to his blog a plethora of photos he took of 42nd Street in the 1980s. He writes, "Wish I had taken 1000 photos (and gone back at night), but at least I got a handful of snapshots of the long gone cool decaying seediness of that bustling stretch of real estate!"


Mitch O'Connell

Thanks to Jim Linderman at Vintage Sleaze and to Mick Dementiuk for sending in the links to this amazing work.

You can see all of Mitch's 42nd Street photos by clicking: here and here and here and here and here and here.


Mitch O'Connell

Wait a minute, is that Jon-Erik Hexum in that fake ID photo? No, it's that other guy. What's his name?


Mitch O'Connell

Eagle's Nest Update

A few years ago, at the once-desolate edge of far-west Chelsea, we went inside the former gay leather bar Eagle's Nest when it was being used as a temporary art gallery. This past summer I went back to 21st and 11th see what, if anything, had moved in since the High Line opened here.


Eagle, circa 1980s

Shuttered since 2000, the Eagle had become 21st Twenty-First, the home of "limited edition furniture." Much of the facade's graffiti art was left in place, but the windows with their sleek wooden trim, and the door punched through a once-barred window told a different story.



Inside, the ornate pressed-tin walls and ceiling were as they were--from the Eagle and the Eagle Open Kitchen before it, a longshoreman's bar from 1931 - 1970. White walls and platforms were added to showcase furniture that is more art than furniture.



The chairs are the sort that no one sits on. The end tables are signed and numbered. According to the catalog, each piece of furniture in this gallery "has a 'soul'--a personal 'voice' manifesting in a relationship between the 'artist' and collector."

There are no price tags.



It's hard to imagine crowds of sweaty, leather-clad men humping in the corners of this gallery. As Colors of Leather put it, this is where you'd "find the hunkiest, butchest, horniest, most handsome guys in the world. And they're at the Eagle for one reason--a good fuck, a hot suck, or whatever else the wonderful telltale system of keys and hankies announces they're into."

(Believe it or not, they also came for brunch.)

When it closed in 2000, the Eagle's employees found a new spot for a new Eagle--on West 28th Street. Today, with the High Line and a bunch of massive new condo towers moving in, we wonder what will happen to the Eagle--and if, one day, we'll see another gallery there filled with furniture meant only to be looked at, never put to use.

It's getting closer. Since writing this post, the furniture gallery has moved to W. 29th Street, another block rapidly transforming. I don't know what has taken its place at the old Eagle.

*Update: Looks like it's being demolished to make room for yet another High Line-hugging luxury tower.


Previously:
Eagle's Nest
Eagle Under Siege
Folsom East and Eagle