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.

The Marquet Building

Across from Cinema Village on E. 12th Street—a very nice block on the Middle Village—are a trio of old brick buildings. The one in the middle, 15 E. 12th Street, is particularly handsome, having retained its original lintels and cornice. Particularly earning my notice was a carving in the middle of the cornice indicating the building had been erected in 1873. Pretty old, even by Village standards. It has been home to the Marquet pastry shop since 1993.

The large central window on the second floor would indicate that this was a commercial building of some sort, and that there was a business on the second floor. I've seen other similar display windows on old building in other parts of the city. The date in the cornice would also point to an early mercantile life for this building; private residences rarely proclaimed their erection date on the facade.

I cannot find any evidence as to who built the thing or first occupied it. But old Certificates of Occupancy from 1933 show a store in the ground floor space, but apartments on the floors above. In 1955, there was a luncheonette here. In the 1970s, the ground floor was used for storage. In the 1980s, there was a custom print shop here. And then, of course, Marquet.

A Good Sign: Cinema Village

Cinema Village, on E. 12th Street in the Village, is one of the last great, small, movie theatres left in the city. It typically shows foreign and indy films, and retains a distinctly movies-as-art-conscious aesthetic. The movie house was built in 1963. I don't know how it's hung on all these years. It's wonderful neon sign—currently only half lit up—dates from its founding. I find the aquamarine hue very soothing.

Le Figaro Cafe Replacement Replaced

Back in 2008, we all had to watch and grit our teeth as Le Figaro Cafe, one of the last survivors of the days when Macdougal and Bleecker was the center of creative and bohemian life in New York, went under and was replaced—in exquisitely apt New-New York form—with an outpost of the Qdoba fast food chain.

Well, that lasted all of four years. Qdoba has called it Qdits. A fine illustration of how worthless and evanescent the things we're replacing our landmarks with are.

Lost City Asks "Who Goes to Arturo's?"

From last week's "Who Goes There?" column on Eater. Wish their pizza was better. (People: better quality tomatoes and a pinch of basil and salt in your sauce, and your problems are solved!) But I have no complaints about the ambiance.

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Lost City Asks, "Who Goes to El Charro?"

El Charro, in Greenwich Village, is the definition of a hidden gem. So hidden that I didn't even know it existed until someone at El Parador—the city's oldest Mexican restaurant—told me or a family connection between the two old restaurants. The small, basement place is so quiet and secluded, I recommend it as an escape from reality any time you've had a bad day. Here's my column:

Who Goes There? El Charro

I had a moment of déjà vu as I walked down the few steps into the restaurant tucked into 4 Charles St. Quiet Village street; basement space; tiny room; low ceilings; small bar to the left. Was I in Fedora? The real Fedora, I mean, not the impostor currently sailing under that name on West 4th Street.

Of course, I wasn't Fedora has gone the way of other fine New York institutions who have discovered the hard way that the brutal economics of 21st-century New York have no place for them. But El Charro Español is that kind of place. It's what pops into your mind when you picture the typical, side-street Greenwich Village eatery of old: cozy, slightly hidden, tradition-bound, attentive to its regulars, and offering the diner not a raucous jolt of energy but a relaxing respite from the world. 

El Charro's exact age is hard to determine, but it's probably been here for about 60 years, gathering minimal press attention, but a faithful clientele that it made almost entirely of locals. This is a neighborhood joint. It began as a Mexican restaurant, a culinary rarity in those post-WWII days. It was run by Maria Garcia. (Her daughter married Carlos Jacott, who went on to found El Parador on East 34th Street, which still stands and is today the city's oldest Mexican restaurant.) El Charro remained a Mexican place at least into the '80s, but today, under its current owners, it is a Spanish restaurant, and a good one.I ordered a sangria when I saw that the bartender was mixing them separately, constructing each in the glass, rather than pouring the potion out of a pitcher. The Shrimp Ajillo, sauteed in olive oil, garlic and hot pepper, was beautifully done: simple, tender and subtly spicy. For my entree (which came with one of those comforting—but not necessarily good — side salads slathered in French dressing) I had Pollo Villaroy, two breasts of chicken coated with bechamel sauce and bread crumbs and deep fried. It was tasty, but perhaps too filling. Though I liked it, I could have done with a half order.

The restaurant seems to have been recently spruced up; the exterior is in picturesque, pristine condition and the signage is small and classy. But the room's age is betrayed in the details: the old cash register; the old-fashioned punch clock for employees; and the thin, narrow staircase to the tiny bathroom. (Please take note of the oil painting of a sad clown as you pass.)

The ratio of staff to patron was about one to two the night I was there. So it's no surprise that service was attentive. Or maybe I should not take that for granted. I've been in plenty of contemporary restaurants stuffed with waiters and still had a hard time getting anyone's attention. Old friends were catching up at one table, a mother and a daughter at a second. Making the most noise were two men having a convivial business meeting, the larger, older one a longtime regular feeling very at home, the younger, thinner one a newcomer who seemed to want to be in a steak house. He ordered a filet mignon ("Can you butterfly that?") and called out for A-1 Sauce. "Are you complaining about this place?" his hefty friend asked in comic disbelief. "Are you COMPLAINING about this place."

I was sympathetic. I mean, seriously, dude, are you complaining about this place?

—Brooks of Sheffield

Lost City Asks "Who Goes to John's Pizzeria?"

As the number of artisanal pizza options has risen in New York City over the last decade—as well as the pitch of the debate as to which serves the best and most authentic pie—I've come to rely on, and cherish, old standbys more and more: Totonno's, Arturo's, Patsy's, Sam's, and, of course, John's in Greenwich Village. Here's my latest "Who Goes There?" column from Eater:

Who Goes There? John's Pizzeria

John's Pizzeria doesn't get the respect accorded to other old New York pizza institutions, like Patsy's, Totonno's, or Di Fara. Nor does it get its due as a Greenwich Village icon the way places like the White Horse Tavern, Village Vanguard, or Cafe Reggio do. This, I imagine, is because it's a tourist magnet and perpetually filled to the gills with regular (i.e., uncool) people.

But, for me, John's holds up. The plain pie is not the city's crowing achievement of the pizzaiola's art. But it's good enough to be a standard bearer. The tang of its sauce and the char of the crust are remarkably consistent; the coal-fired brick ovens are still doing their job. I've never had an unsatisfying pie there. And, unlike Lombardi's—another landmark in New York pizza history, but one that is now a theme-park shell of what it once was—John's has retained its character. The main room—with its high, red tin ceilings, twitching ceiling fans, vintage concert posters, and battered wooden booths etched with the names of decades of whittling patrons—is simply one of the greatest, New Yorkiest spaces in the city. One can imagine the Italian denizens of Bleecker Street eating here in the 1930s and '40s; the jazzmen and beatniks of the '50s; the folkies and flower children of the '60s. History lives here.

Despite its reputation as a fave of the weekend bridge-and-tunnel tribe, John's still gets plenty of locals. It also attracts a lot of families, because no one blinks at kids being kids here. I recently dined here with eight tweens, and they couldn't have felt more at home. They inhaled the slices and happily poured themselves glass after glass of Coke from plastic pitchers. They also found the ancient bathrooms an infinite source of fascination.

John's was founded in 1929 by John Sasso, who reportedly learned his trade at Lombardi's (as did the founders of Totonno's and Patsy's). The original pizzeria was on Sullivan Street. When Sasso lost his lease, he dismantled the brick oven and moved it to the present location on Bleecker. There it has stayed. Sasso sold the pizzeria to his brother in 1955. It was eventually taken over, in 1973, by Sasso's great-grandnephews, Peter Castellotti and Robert Vittoria. It's still run by Peter (who was born in a building directly across the street from the restaurant) and his children, Peter Jr. and Lisa. During the Castellotti reign, John's began to expand. There are now three other restaurants, including a massive one in a former church space in Times Square. The latter is always swamped, with 45 minutes waits, because it's one of the only affordable eating options in the Theatre District. The pizza, however, doesn't match what's served up on Bleecker Street. You can't duplicate the effects of an 83-year-old oven. 

—Brooks of Sheffield

They Got the Number Right

The world is still waiting for Greenwich Village's classic speakeasy, Chumley's, to come back from the dead. But here's a good sign. The joint's iconic address is back up!

Many theorize that the term "86"—as in scram, nix that, lose that, get rid of that, cancel—derived from Chumley's address of 86 Bedford Street. Whenever the cops would raid the speakeasy, the bartender would get a heads up, and the patrons would quickly file out the back door into a courtyard that led to Barrow street. The customers were "86"'d.

I spoke to the new owner a few weeks ago. There had been various reports that the bar would open this fall. He told me the reports were inaccurate and that there was no guarantee that he's open for business by Dec. 31, although he wished he would. I could tell by the tone of his voice that he was doubtful he would, though.

However, seeing the old number 86 back where it belongs warms the heart.

El Faro Indefinitely Shuttered

According to Eater and various sources, El Faro, one of the oldest Spanish restaurants in the City, and one of the oldest period, will be shuttered indefinitely followed a visit by the health department that forced it to temporarily close its doors. The owner, Mark Lurgis, said he has to raise $80,000 to make the necessary changes and will stay closed until he does so. (No doubt, the DOH charged its usual ludicrous inflated fees.) The restaurant's kitchen is 150 years old.

Ironically, this is the restaurant I had planned to visit for my most recent "Who Goes There?" column. The night I scheduled to visit was the night it closed. I changed my plans and visited El Quijote, another Spanish standby, instead.

Lafayette French Pastry Closes

I'd noticed recently that Greenwich Village's Lafayette French Pastry looked closed, but I thought perhaps the owners were on summer vacation. I learned today from Eater that the longstanding baker had shuttered for good. Taking over the space will be the irrepressible New York culinary world loudmouth Michael Bao.

This was actually Lafayette's second location in the Village. It used to be on Bleecker Street near Seventh Avenue. It moved about 15 years ago, replaced by a Burritoville which has since vanished. In that guise, it epitomized, for me, the Greenwich Village small business, full of effortless local character. Lafayette was around 85 years old, run by three generations of the same family, a real relic of the old Village. According to their Facebook page, the owners got a letter of eviction in June.

The "Incredibly Good Idea" of La Groceria

Here's a nice picture. A reader sent it to me asking if I knew anything about this Greenwich Village restaurant, which sat at the wedge-like space where Sixth Avenue meets W. 4th. (There's a Grey's Papaya there now.)

I did find something out about it. It opened in 1963 and was hailed by Craig Claiborne, the New York Times restaurant critic, as "an incredibly good idea...The restaurant is modeled after an Italian trattoria, and is a combination espresso shop and dining establishment with antipasto, pasta dishes and main courses." Imagine a New York foodie world in which that sort of thing would have been novel.

The place earned its name because it also sold Italian products from its shelves. Though Claiborne liked the "idea" of La Groceria, he was disappointed in the execution. The antipasto was "trite," the pasta "overcooked," the sauce "amateur." The espresso, however, was "excellent."

La Groceria was opened by Vito A. DiLucia, a restauranteur who seemed to favor theme joints. His other restaurants were O'Henry's Steak House and the English Pub. Formerly, he had been a travel agent. He died in 1970 at the age of 67.

La Groceria was still there in the mid-'80s. Not sure when it closed. But it wasn't there in 1988, when I hit town. 

Star Shoe Shop, Village Survivor

I have walked by the Star Shoe Shop on Bleecker Street, near Crosby Street right by the Two Boots pizza, for decades and not quite grasped how old it is until I went in recent and got my shoes shined. Ready? It's been there more than 70 years. Unbelievable.

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Harry Chong Laundry Sign Comes Down

Harry Chong, an old-school laundry man, closed up his shop on Dec. 31, 2005, after 60 years in business. But the sign remained, despite the businesses that took up residence there. Until yesterday, when a sharp-eyed reader caught these two men in the act of cultural vandalism. Sad

Curious Window Hardware on Grove Street

I was in the West Village the other day when I paused in front of this handsome old Federal Style house on Grove Street. Admiring the obvious age of the building's facade, my eye was caught by some metal prongs which protruded from the side of each window. There were two on each side, four to a window in all, and had long since been painted over. What were they? What purpose did they once serve?

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Gonzalez y Gonzalez to Return; Big Neon Hat, Too

Gonzalez y Gonzalez—the Mexican restaurant that was for many years a local landmark on lower Broadway, near Houston, but which closed in August—is on its way back. And so is the giant neon sombrero that marked its entrance.

A reader, whom I have to assume is connected to the restaurant, wrote me to say:

Many people might already know, or soon will find out, that Chipotle is opening next week at the Broadway entrance of the old Gonzalez y Gonzalez.

What many people might also not know, is Chipotle only took half of the original space, and that 2 of the original bartenders from Gonzalez y Gonzalez were able to secure the name and the other half of the space, entrance on 192 Mercer Street, down the block from the Angelica Theatre, and will be reopening, with bands, liquor license, giant sombrero and all, by the end of the year.

Hears hoping they actually replace all the burnt out bulbs in that hat. I want to see it blazing in all its glory.

Fedora Donato, Owner of Famed Village Restaurant, Dies

JVNY reports the sad news that Fedora Donato, the owner and hostess of his self-named Greenwich Village Italian basement restaurant, died yesterday. She was 91.

Fedora ran her homey eatery, which didn't change much over the decades, until last year, when she sold the space to restauranteur Gabe Stuhlman, who now runs it as a chi-chi place using the same name. Fedora was the subject of my second "Who Goes There?" column, back in March 2008. Here's an excerpt:

Fedora is a refuge for Village lifers who want to be reminded how the world below 14th Street looked in the 1950s. As one three-decade regular informed me, "You don't come here for the food. You come for the ambiance." That cozy atmosphere includes small tables; a low tin ceiling; NPR on the radio; a rotary pay phone; and a framed napkin signed by Lauren Bacall. Also, a communal greeting for every familiar face that passes through the door; the warm presence of the white-haired, Italian-born Ms. Dorato herself; and a sassy, youngish waiter named Georgie who knew one diner would want a Bloody Mary right away and let the lone lady at the bar pour her own vodka and tonic (into a huge brandy snifter filled with ice!).

Village Emigrant Saving Bank for Lease

The building that holds the Emigrant Saving Bank in Greenwich Village, on Sixth Avenue, is for lease. I would have to imagine that this means Emigrant is on the way out. I've passed by this stark gray building for decades and have grown fond of its sort of charmless charm, its Soviet-like austerity, not to mention is very, very, very subtle Art Deco touches. These days, I like it because its not a glossy piece of cheap, chain-store claptrap on an avenue full of such junk. Nobody today would knowingly build a structure like this.

The listing at Walter & Samuels says the space is available immediately.

Emigrant Savings Bank is the oldest savings bank in New York City and the largest privately owned bank in the country. It is owned by the Milstein family.  

White Horse Tavern Under Wraps

I walked by the historic White Horse Tavern in the West Village the other day and found the old watering hole all but obscured by a girdle of scaffolding. It's a shame to have the beautiful old building unavailable to the admiring eye, but I'm thinking (hoping, guessing) it's all to the good. DOB sheets posted outside say work is being done on the exterior including "scraping, priming and repainting the cornice and window lintels white; scraping, priming and repainting the masonry facades gray; resurfacing the deteriorated brownstone windowsills at the second floor...; removing and replacing all of the wood clapboard on the Hudson Street elevation from the southern building and repainting gray," and much more along those lines. So it seems like the place will look as good as new when all is done. I have to admit, on recent visits to the White Horse, I have surveyed the building with a worried eye. It was in bad shape.

The DOB papers also reveal a nice bit of history. The White Horse building is "a frame house built c. 1817, and was altered for use as a tavern; and that the small adjacent unnumbered building was built c. 1846-7 and later incorporated into the tavern...the cornice and storefront were altered in the mid-19th century."

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Chumley's Looking Like It Might Actually Return Someday

I kinda, sorta, secretly gave up on the idea of Chumley's rebirth sometime in early 2010. The collapse of the historic, wonderful old speakeasy in 2007 tore my heart in two, and the subsequent indifference of the City and the utter perfidy of the scurrilous landlord killed me. Then the 19th-century brick building was torn down and a horrid pile of cinder blocks started rising from the ground in fits and starts. We were supposed to pretend this pretender was Chumley's back from the grave? I didn't even believe the ugly facsimile would ever see the dawn of day. Chumley's was gone. That was that.

Still, I have to admit I was surprised and hopeful when I turned the corner at Bedford Street and found this. It looks rather like a building, doesn't it? The cornice is plastic and crappy, the windows no great shakes, and it's half way to disguising itself as a brownstone. But it's something; enough to make me partly believe that a functioning building will actually one day soon stand on the site where Chumley's was. It still won't be Chumley's, even if they stuff the joint full with the original booths and pictures and bric-a-brac that used to make up the interior of the original bar. It will be a fake. But it will no longer be a complete failure, a despair-inducing hole in the ground.

I noticed something else cheering while I was checking out Chumley's. The building to the right of it—which was also in bad shape after the collapse, and under construction for a long time—now seems to be up and running. There's a light in the window, a newly refurbished doorway (albeit padlocked and covered in plastic), a fresh look to the old bricks. It's been brought back from the dead.

Charles Pfaff Died Broke

I had read many a yarn about the great hosts, dandies, swells, bon vivants and society men of New York's history prior to World War II. And one thing they all seem to hold in common is this: they die broke. Or in debt.

Charles Ignatius Pfaff was a jolly German who set up one of the first—or certainly one of the first famous—bohemian gathering places in New York City. Pfaff's was located at 653 Broadway near Bleecker. He ran a couple of places before that, and one after, but this was the famous one, the basement space that attracted, from 1860 to 1875, the likes of Walt Whitman, William Winter (the leading American dramatic critic of the 19th century), George Clemenceau (French statesman and journalist), Artemus Ward (humorist and editor of Vanity Fair), Fitz-James O'Brien (a writer of early examples of science fiction) and Henry Clapp, Jr. (a publisher of the Saturday Press—for which almost everybody else at Pfaff's wrote—promoter of free love and "Leaves of Grass" and the "King of Bohemia"). Also writer and actress Ada Clare, one of my favorite bohos of all time because of her bizarre death: she died of hydrophobia after being bit by her favorite terrier while visited her agent's office.

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