Harts, Keen’s, WIsconsin

Kevin Hart of harvest.ink shared a photograph of a letterhead from his father’s correspondence. It was 1973, and Keen’s English Chop House still had its WIsconsin exchange name.

[Click for a larger view.]

Kevin’s father was a newspaperman and a member of Keen’s Pipe Club. When Kevin sent me a link to a page with Keen’s history, I realized that I’d read about the restaurant somewhere. And I could think of only one possibility.

[Harold H. Hart, Hart’s Guide to New York City (New York: Hart Publishing, 1964). Click for a larger view.]

There seems to be no family relation, but the synchronicity of Hart and Hart is not lost on me.

Keens has lost its apostrophe, and though the restaurant still serves mutton chops, it now calls itself a steakhouse. And though the restaurant has dropped the WIsconsin, the telephone number remains the same: 212-947-3636.

Thanks, Kevin, for letting me share this piece of history here.

More 14th Street

Robert Caro’s mantra is “Turn every page.” I think that for browsing the 1939–1941 tax photographs of New York City buildings, the mantra ought to be “Walk every block” — at least figuratively. Because who knows what you might find?

I posted this photograph last week for its retail density. Please notice, among other details, the sign for the Gypsy Den:

[106 East 14th Street, Manhattan, c. 1939–1941. All photographs from the NYC Municipal Archives Collections. Click any image for a much larger view.]

A sharp-eyed reader went further down the block. What do you notice here?

[108 East 14th Street.]

You are correct: at some point between these photographs, a sign either came down or went up for the N.Y. Freiheit Mandolin Orchestra. The orchestra was founded in 1924 and continues today as the New York Mandolin Orchestra. Here’s an article with some history. Thanks, Brian.

Other small differences make it fairly certain that these photographs were not taken on the same day: the FOR RENT sign between the top-story windows of 106 disappears; the open window below is now closed; the vertical pivot windows are open at different angles; the BASEBALL sign has been replaced by JANTZEN, and the clamp that holds the upper part of the tripod shaft in place is at a different height.

I went farther down the block and found a further surprise:

[112 East 14th Street.]

It’s Lüchow’s, a New York landmark for many years. I’ll let Harold H. Hart’s Hart’s Guide to New York City (1964) do the talking for me.

Nostalgia, noise, and food are all served up here in equally huge helpings. Lüchow’s, established in 1882, was once the favorite dining spot of such celebrities as Lillian Russell and Diamond Jim Brady. Since the turn of the century this vast landmark has accumulated a hefty reputation.

The several enormous rooms are separated by lofty, carved archways. Festooning the dark, oak-paneled walls are beer seidels, stuffed moose heads, ship models, and huge, ornately framed oil paintings of formidable sentimentality. Add the black iron chandeliers, the many mirrors, and the blue-and-white checked tablecloths, and you’ve got something reminiscent of a gemütliche Munich beer-hall.

Lüchow’s always seems to be mobbed, and there’s a general air of frantic festivity. Evenings, from 7 to 10 o’clock, a small string orchestra valiantly pits its schmaltz against the din, and is rewarded after every selection with lusty, beaming applause.

If you seek subtlety in your victuals, don’t come here. The food, like the atmosphere, is robust and heavily Teutonic. Sauerbraten with potato dumplings, Boiled Beef, various kinds of Schnitzels are all on the menu, along with something called Drei Mignons à la Berliner, which consists of filets of beef, pork, and veal. There are goulashes, ragouts, and chickens-in-the-pot galore.

For lovers of tartar steak, Lüchow’s Schlemmerschnitte combines raw tenderloin with a side helping of Russian caviar. Sausage lovers have a good assortment of wursts to choose from, mit sauerkraut if desired. Hunters, real or vicarious, can gorge on venison or pheasant when these are in season.

And for dessert, there are Flaming Pancakes. This tour de force is a huge pancake flavored with lemon, cinnamon and sugar, then filled with lingonberries, and finally rolled up and doused with Kirschwasser, which is then set aflame.

A tall steinkrug of dark, imported beer is $1.10; and a glass of German Moselle or Rhine wine is 80¢ (with seltzer, 15¢ extra).

An average dinner will come to $5; lunch will run about $2 less.

Here is a 1951 menu.

Did the WPA photographers break for lunch at Lüchow’s? Were members of the N.Y. Freiheit Mandolin Orchestra eating there? Were Flaming Pancakes being brought to someone’s table? Some mysteries are meant to remain so.

Notice that there are different cars parked in front of Lüchow’s in the second and third photographs. Perhaps the three photographs were taken on three different days.

Winter Carnival (dir. Charles Reisner, 1939), a comedy-romance, starred Ann Sheridan (Ann “Oomph” Sheridan, the marquee calls her) and Richard Carlson. The cast of She Married a Cop (dir. Sidney Salkow, Cal Dalton, and Ben Hardaway) a comedy with music, has just two names I recognize: Jerome Cowan and Horace McMahon. Both films were released in July 1939.

Today 106, 108, and 110 house tall buildings, one of them an NYU dorm, University Hall, aka UHall.

I realized only yesterday that I have a 2022 post celebrating the retail density of East 14th Street.

Related reading
More photographs from the NYC Municipal Archives (Pinboard)

Zippy’s Tad’s

[“Red Meat.” Zippy, May 10, 2019.]

There is but one Tad’s Steaks left in Manhattan. The address is 761 7th Avenue, though the restaurant is on 50th Street, flanked by a Tim Horton’s and Bobby Van's Grill. If Zippy is at the Times Square Tad’s, it really must be 1962 all over again.

Here’s an article on the history of Tad’s Steaks, once a coast-to-coast chain. (Remember “coast-to-coast”?) The Yelp reviews for the remaining Tad’s are interesting. “This is the absolute best steak in the city”: well, okay.

Years ago I would have said to Elaine, We have to go there. Today I would say, No, we don’t.


[From Harold H. Hart’s Hart’s Guide to New York City (New York: Hart Publishing, 1964). Click for a larger view.]

Related reading
All OCA Zippy posts (Pinboard)
More from Hart’s Guide

Asti’s

A reader left a comment on a post about West Fourth Street and Naked City recalling Asti’s Restaurant. Like Bianchi & Margherita, a restaurant mentioned in that post, Asti’s offered opera-centric dining. From Harold H. Hart’s Hart’s Guide to New York City (New York: Hart Publishing, 1964):

ASTI’S
CAPACITY 150
13 E. 12th St.
(bet. Fifth Ave. and University Pl.)
AL 5-9095

5 PM–2:30 AM, TUES. THRU SUN. CLOSED JULY, AUG.

MINIMUM: $3, FRI. AND SAT.
NO CHARGE AT BAR.

If you like opera, you’ll like Asti’s. The hired hands provide the diversion. Whenever the bouncer, barmaid, bus boy, or barkeep feels an aria coming on, the warbler just passes a signal to the pianist and lets go.

And what you’ll hear is surprisingly good, for most of the staff has had professional operatic experience. The singing of the Anvil Chorus from Il Trovatore is a sure-fire tour de force . Accompanying the chorus, there is a tintinnabulation of clinks coming from the glasses on the bar as they are struck rhythmically by the attendants.

Everything here has an Italian accent — the strains from Verdi and Puccini, the cuisine, and the gusto which which with which the staff discharges its chores. The food is adequate. Suffice it to say that it’s worthwhile to come here for the singing which is lusty, continuous, and thoroughly exhilarating. A table d’hote dinner, averaging $6, is served till 10, after which an à la carte supper menu takes over.

Asti’s, or Asti, began as a speakeasy in 1924 or ’25 and closed on December 31, 1999. By the end of its life, the restaurant had 1,200 photographs of opera singers on its walls. The building now houses Strip House, a steak place.

As much as I love the idea of an Asti’s or a Bianchi & Margherita, the relentlessness of it all would leave me exhausted. (I am a highly sensitive person.) This short documentary gives some idea of what an evening at Asti’s might have been like.

Thanks, Jeff, for pointing me to Asti’s.

Related reading
An Asti’s menu (eBay)

[I would have scanned the entry from Hart’s Guide, but I didn’t want to risk damaging the book’s spine.]

Old-timey dream

I was talking with local missionaries, missionaries of a musical sort, each dressed in black and white. They had traveled to New York City to proselytize for old-timey music. Where did they go? The airports. (They must have modeled themselves on proselytizers of the recent past.)

No, no, I told them, they needed to go to the coffeehouses. That’s where they would find people to interest in the old-timey stuff. Some of the coffeehouses, I told them, are original. I was in earnest, and they recognized that.

Related reading
All OCA dream posts (Pinboard)
Greenwich Village and coffee house (From Hart’s Guide to New York City, 1964)
Positively Naked City (A walk down West Fourth Street)

[Some of the coffeehouses are “original.” For instance.]

Ratner’s (Naked City)

[“The Face of the Enemy,” Naked City, January 3, 1962.]

I like the awning: “1½ HOUR FREE PARKING.” Very practical: two hours would be way too much for a meal.

Ratner’s was a celebrated dairy restaurant. That is, no meat:


[From Harold H. Hart’s Hart’s Guide to New York City (New York: Hart Publishing, 1964).]

The theater next door was to become the Fillmore East. Here’s a photograph of worlds colliding, or merging.

There are eight million screenshots in the naked city. This has been one of them.

Also from Hart’s Guide
Automat
Chock full o’Nuts
Greenwich Village and coffee house
King Karol Records and The Record Hunter
Le Steak de Paris
Mayflower Coffee Shop(pe)
Minetta Tavern and Monkey Bar
Schrafft’s

Le Steak de Paris

[From Harold H. Hart’s Hart’s Guide to New York City (New York: Hart Publishing, 1964).]

One more from Maeve Brennan’s Manhattan: Le Steak de Paris. Brennan writes about this restaurant several times in The Long-Winded Lady, more than about any other. In a 1967 piece, she stops in for dinner and learns that the building has been slated for demolition and that the owner, unable to find a new location in the city, is planning to move Le Steak to Long Island. Brennan then describes the restaurant:

Inside, Le Steak has hardly changed in all the years I have been going there. The walls were once covered with printed-paper murals of rustic eighteenth-century scenes. Later there was red-brick-patterned wallpaper. Now the paper imitates polished wooden planks — vertical planks — and there is a cigarette machine where the jukebox that played French records used to be. But nothing has really changed there. The menu is much the same as always — Crème Jeannette, Poulet Rôti, Shrimps Cocktail, Artichaut Froid, and so on. Even the atmosphere is the same, as though finality had stayed where it belongs — out of sight and far away.

Le Steak de Paris must have lived a very quiet life in Manhattan: if the New York Times historical index (1851–2007) can be trusted, the paper has not one reference to the restaurant — which would mean no reviews and no advertisements. The 49th Street address, now part of a skyscraper, still houses a restaurant, City Lobster and Steak.

As for the telephone exchange, CI can mean only one thing: CIrcle.

*

May 8, 2017: Bobby Cole, a New Jersey historian, found a photograph of Le Steak de Paris. He’s active in the Facebook group Old Images of New York. Thank you, Bobby, for allowing me to share your find here:


[Click for a larger view.]

This photograph prompted me to take another look at the New York Times Historical Index, which now returns one article mentioning Le Steak de Paris. Here is a photograph of Guy l’Heureux, the restaurant’s owner, from a 1967 article about the many restaurants that were soon to be demolished to make way for another skyscraper. Said L’Heureux, “What can you do? C’est la vie.”


[“If Your Favorite Restaurant Is Near Sixth Avenue and 49th Street, Go to It Now or You May Be Too Late,” The New York Times, September 12, 1967.]

And here is a small ad that ran many times in the Times:


[October 10, 1966.]

“Dinner from $3.50”: I’m there.

Neatening up

[Before and after.]

What I’m about to suggest might be common knowledge, but perhaps not. The paint-can tool in an image editor offers an easy way to neaten up a scan from Google Books (or from anywhere). Choose a color (perhaps with an eyedropper tool) and pour. Digital artifacts, begone.

The image above is from Google Books, an illustration of the Robinson Reminder pocket notebook. I used the paint-can tool in a more elaborate way last week after scanning a page from Hart’s Guide to New York City. When I pressed hard to get the text on a verso page, chunks of the text from the recto page came through. So I aimed and poured, and poured again and again.

[I like Seashore, a free image-editor for OS X.]

Automat beverage section

[“1725 Broadway — New beverage section open to public. Sept. 19, 1949.” From the New York Public Library Digital Gallery. Click for a larger view.]

“For two nickels, a cup of coffee comes spurting from the mouth of an engaging beast, the likes of which Linnaeus never saw”: Harold H. Hart’s Hart’s Guide to New York City (New York: Hart Publishing, 1964). I’m guessing that nothing had changed between 1949 and 1964. A 1914 Automat advertisement (also from the NYPL) shows the same kind of beast at work.

Related posts
“Lunch Hour NYC”
New York, 1964: Automat

[I remember eating at the Automat in childhood. But what? All I can remember is using coins.]

New York, 1964: Automat

From Harold H. Hart’s Hart’s Guide to New York City (New York: Hart Publishing, 1964). I’m following a train of thought.

Hart’s Guide is probably my favorite library-book-sale find of all time.

Also from Hart’s Guide
Chock full o’Nuts
Greenwich Village and coffee house
King Karol Records and The Record Hunter
Mayflower Coffee Shop(pe)
Minetta Tavern and Monkey Bar
Schrafft’s

Telephone exchange names on screen

[Click for a larger view.]

Dawn breaks on Manhattan, in Sweet Smell of Success (dir.
Alexander Mackendrick, 1957). The view is purportedly from an apartment at 1619 Broadway, the Brill Building, between 49th and 50th, where powerful columnist J.J. Hunsecker (Burt Lancaster) lives with his sister Susan (Susan Harrison). Hart’s Guide to New York City (1964) locates the Warner Theatre (just right of center, bottom) at 1585 Broadway, now the address of the Morgan Stanley Building. This shot might not be from the Brill Building, but we’re at least in the neighborhood.

I can make nothing of that Howard on the left: the Howard Johnson Motor Lodge stood at 851 Eighth Avenue (now the address of an Hampton Inn) and bore no resemblance to the building in this shot.

Sweet Smell of Success is a lurid and compelling story of ego and subservience, with an over-the-top screenplay by Ernest Lehman and Clifford Odets and great cinematography from James Wong Howe. Lancaster, Harrison, and Tony Curtis are superb. And Martin Milner does a fine job as a West Coast jazz musician.

Oh, the exchange name. Did you spot it?

A 1955 list of recommended exchange names gives only one possibility for PE: PErshing. PErshing it is.

Sweet Smell of Success is available, beautifully restored, from the Criterion Collection.

More exchange names on screen
The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse : Baby Face : Born Yesterday : The Dark Corner : Deception : Dream House : The Little Giant : The Man Who Cheated Himself : Murder, My Sweet : Nightmare Alley : The Public Enemy : Side Street : This Gun for Hire

Chock full o’Nuts!

Chock full o’Nuts returns to New York!

Related posts
Chock full o’Nuts (Remembrance of things past)
Chock full o’Nuts lunch hour (An Alfred Eisenstadt photograph)
New York, 1964: Chock Full o’Nuts (From Hart’s Guide to New York City)

Minetta Tavern

[Photograph by Elaine Fine.]

                   Neon in daylight is a
great pleasure, as Edwin Denby would
write

Frank O'Hara (1926–1966), “A Step Away from Them”

Here’s a forty-six-year-old description of the Minetta Tavern, from Harold H. Hart’s Hart’s Guide to New York City (1964).

Related posts
Saratoga Bar and Cafe (Neon in daylight)
September 10, September 11 (Frank O’Hara’s poem)

Simulacrum alert

The New York Times reports today on recreations of lost New York City restaurants and nightspots. Here are descriptions of the real things, two of them, circa 1964:




From Harold H. Hart’s Hart’s Guide to New York City (New York: Hart Publishing, 1964). Illustration by Ruby Davidson.

“Risqué palaver” and what looks like a three- or four-drink minimum: that must have been quite a scene.

Also from Hart’s Guide
Chock full o’Nuts
Greenwich Village and coffee house
Mayflower Coffee Shop(pe)
Record stores
Schrafft’s

New York, 1964: record stores

From Harold H. Hart’s Hart’s Guide to New York City (New York: Hart Publishing, 1964). Illustration by Ruby Davidson.

I know: Amazon. But consider a world in which record stores were open until midnight. The Colony Record & Radio Center, also listed in Hart’s Guide, stayed open until 4:00 a.m., every day, or night.

A related post
Record stores (memories of a misspent youth)

Also from Hart’s Guide
Chock full o’Nuts
Greenwich Village and coffee house
Mayflower Coffee Shop(pe)
Minetta Tavern, Monkey Bar
Schrafft’s

New York, 1964: Schrafft’s

From Harold H. Hart’s Hart’s Guide to New York City (New York: Hart Publishing, 1964).

The New York Public Library Digital Gallery has had a Schrafft’s luncheon menu from 1959 — close enough. Liverwurst? Pineapple fritters? Anyone? You can still find the menu here.

The photograph below predates Hart’s Guide by many years, though it does show a “feminine contingent.” Note too the dumbwaiter at the far left and the knickknacks topping the display cases:



[“Schrafft’s.” Photograph by Cornell Capa, 1948. Via the Life photo archive, where there’s a larger view.]

That empty chair awaits the plucky time-traveler.

[This post is for my mom and dad, who sometimes met for lunch at Schrafft’s. They once had a star as their waiter.]

Also from Harold Hart’s Guide
Chock full o’Nuts
Greenwich Village and coffee house
Mayflower Coffee Shop(pe)
Minetta Tavern, Monkey Bar
Record stores

New York, 1964: Chock full o’Nuts

To every food, its adjective(s). From Harold H. Hart’s Hart’s Guide to New York City (New York: Hart Publishing, 1964).

Related posts
Chock full o’Nuts lunch hour
Chock full o’Nuts

Also from Harold Hart’s Guide
Greenwich Village and coffee house
Mayflower Coffee Shop(pe)
Minetta Tavern, Monkey Bar
Record stores
Schrafft’s

Greenwich Village and coffee house

The dog walker is carrying a pencil, I think.



As Tom Lehrer put it, “We are the Folk Song Army,” &c.

Untitled illustrations by Ruby Davidson, from Harold H. Hart’s Hart’s Guide to New York City (New York: Hart Publishing, 1964). Captions mine.

Also from Harold Hart’s Guide
Chock full o’Nuts
Mayflower Coffee Shop(pe)
Minetta Tavern, Monkey Bar
Record stores
Schrafft’s

Mayflower Coffee Shop(pe)

I found a wonderful book at a library sale yesterday: Harold H. Hart’s Hart’s Guide to New York City (New York: Hart Publishing, 1964): “Over 2,200 personally investigated reports. Restaurants, Hotels, Nightclubs, Museums, Cocktail Lounges, Sports, Shopping, Transportation, Art Galleries, Tours, etc.”

With Hart in hand, I thought of lines from Frank O’Hara’s poem “Music” (Lunch Poems, 1964):

If I rest for a moment near The Equestrian
pausing for a liver sausage sandwich in the
    Mayflower Shoppe,
that angel seems to be leading the horse into
    Bergdorf’s

This bit of urban surrealism comes into focus (still surreal) when one knows a little of Manhattan. “The Equestrian” is Augustus Saint-Gaudens’s statue of William Tecumseh Sherman, found in Manhattan’s Grand Army Plaza (at 59th Street and Fifth Avenue). The “angel” is the allegorical gal leading Sherman on his way. Bergdorf Goodman is to be found — in the words of the company website — at “the crossroads of fashion,” Fifth Avenue and 58th Street. All that, I know. As for the Mayflower Shoppe:



Thank you, Mr. Hart.

The Mayflower stood at 777 Fifth Avenue. The Apple Store now stands at 767, next to an empty corner. More from Hart’s Guide to come.

More on the Mayflower
The Mayflower motto (“The Optimist’s Creed”)
A menu page (Alas, no food)

Also from Harold Hart’s Guide
Chock full o’Nuts
Greenwich Village and coffee house
Minetta Tavern, Monkey Bar
Record stores
Schrafft’s