sandr085

The Parkside Lounge has been lending beauty, grit and integrity to the corner of E. Houston and Attorney Streets for decades. How they stay in business in this climate, I do not know. The owners must one the one-story building.

Louis Zuflacht. What a name. Hard to forget. Especially when it's in large metal letters (formerly lit by neon), in an ostentatious font, on the side of a building. That's the name that has graced the building at the corner of Suffolk and Stanton Streets for many decades now. A clothier, Zuflacht hasn't done business out of this storefront in a generation or two. But subsequent occupants of the address—either out of deference to the lovely signage, or out of laziness—have left Louis' name up there, ensuring that the former proprietor has not entirely passed from public memory. I've passed by the sign dozens of times and never bothered to look up his story, though I've always been intrigued. It seems the right time to correct that error since the shop is unoccupied at present (after being everything from an art gallery to a video gamer hangout), so, it could be argued, 154 Stanton Street belongs to Louis Zuflacht more now than in has in many years. Louis was born...

When voices like mine bemoan an old business going down, we don't always mourn the event for the same reasons. Some businesses are missed because they are classic purveyors of their type (the Stage Deli, for instance). Some because they are part of the fabric of a particularly neighborhood (the Hat restaurant, or Milady's). Some because they did one special thing better than everyone else (Joe's Superette, with their prosciutto balls). Some because they perform a bygone task that nobody else does anymore (typewriter report, for one). And some just because they are remarkably old (Manganaro Groceria Italiano). Take Ben Freedman Gent's Furnish, one of the last old-school garment hawkers left on the Lower East Side. It's been there on Orchard since 1927, which makes it pretty old. But it's not a classic. The name Ben Freedman is not normally on the lips of everyday New Yorkers. It is not a famous store, and it does not carry the best clothes in town. What it does h...

Levy's stood at the northeast corner of Delancey and Essex in Manhattan, where Roma Pizza now is, and sold frankfurters, hamburgers, custard and pizza. You could buy a (non-kosher) hot dog and a glass mug of root beer for ten cents. Though the pizza doesn't get the biggest play on the sign, apparently it was something else. A reader recently wrote in: Levy's pizza was something special, ironic in that a purveyor of a very ordinary pie (Roma) now occupies that location. The Levy pizza was unique in its composition of very thin crust, slightly tangy sauce and relatively light quantity of mozarella. I'd classify it as highly addictive. I lived in the neighborhood but had a friend "hooked on the pizza" who would often travel from midtown to partake of several slices. From my recollection, they served that same recipe from as far back as the '60s into the early '80s at which point they switched over to a more conventional product. Apparently, the Le...

The Lower East Side has lost a great many of its mercantile landmarks over the past 20 years of gentrification. And I'm not suggested that Jade Fountain Liquor Corporation—a grungy little booze shop on Delancey east of Essex—can replace the likes of Ratner's or Gertel's. But, hey, it is nearly a hundred years old! Maybe. According to the patchwork sign—which says, among many things, "As Old As Hills"—the store was was found in 1920-something. (I can't tell what the last number, now fallen off, was.) Which is, of course, absolute nonsense. No liquor store in the U.S. was founding in 1920-anything, because Prohibition was in effect from 1920 to 1933. Nor is it likely that the shop has existed all that time as Jade Fountain. Not in this location, which was solidly Jewish until the 1960s or so. Chinatown didn't start to encroach on Delancey and Essex until the late 1980s So what can we find out about the address of the place, 123 Delancey? In 1901, there was a...

Who goes to The Hat? Well, I do, that's who. Or, I did. Often. I lived on Eldridge Street from 1988 to 1994, when the area was still pretty scruffy. I soon learned of The Hat and it's cheap, hot, nourishing food and inexpensive Mexican beers. Mexican cuisine wasn't as common back then as it is now, and The Hat's kitchen work passed muster. At least with a not-especially-savvy twentysomething, anyway. Over the years I've seen all of the things I associate with Ludlow Street back then disappear: Todo Con Nada, The Pink Pony, Max Fish, Ludlow Street Cafe. The Hat will be the last man to fall. (Aside from Katz's, of course, which I place in a separate, 19th-century category.) Here's my Who Goes There? column : Who Goes There? El Sombrero Restaurant (The Hat) El Sombrero Restaurant—known to one and all simply as "The Hat"—is the last bit of the old Lower East Side to grace the northernmost block of Ludlow Street. Not the old, OLD Lower East Side; that n...

Found among the comments on an item I wrote about the changes on Ludlow Street back in 2008, from the actual owner of the once-popular Ludlow Street Cafe: I owned The Ludlow Street Cafe and The Piano Store. I lived on Ludlow St. since 1967 and Jack Forster worked for me (Hi Jack) and was right about the guns and that it was NOT a job for a guy just out of college! (Hey Gaby we NEVER sold a piano? We sold lots of pianos!) Before gentrification got out of control it was fun. The block is now unbearable--not then. We had 3 bands a night 7 nights a week. The food was good and it was cheap. Girls would bend over garbage cans--we kept the backyard dark. Drug dealers provided something wanted--if they sold in the bathrooms they were fine. We had no C of O--our legal limit was 74. Fri/Sat night we'd have well over 200 people. They never bothered us for it but clocked us $1,500 for selling a beer to a cop who looked 30. The brunch was first-rate. It was all fun and firsts and I feel respon...