[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:
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgS-rZVrlTeMqc6k1wBmDbBF4jMdYqSxHDoz2Ptx70vgtJSyUr-JxDBCqf6XdZvjwaB_yN1a6EA_h9IJd2gFZdgCX85SUgCbTauS4UdSMF684szeQ05cq3-3HEG6hVwk5OQ2wmh/s1600/Le-Steak-de-Paris.jpeg)
[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.”
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2_wkFkSgLQ_1LOzPLgZDp30PCPgVgqJIx_Fz2XzaD-zIZzRWK34bYarLnpPaH4eTglIvJVkBI4E2E13OwBzbEgrwlFO5U7nqXt1YhBvChj_f1HaH1aFbw-g8q8_sKb63l7_Ob/s1600/Guy-L%2527Heureux.jpg)
[“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:
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWNATaBPtW6sEzt8xZyjgcIUl29MusDPHoPClhUyyhg5DzFAIM0gnv6N6waUwrgU7aJwyd_Ojn4fTsYFV94qNZtdAAe_T94onFRx3B_NJ3z1TK5ohSMWKOerF7nzLU7AnrV_u9/s1600/Le-Steak-de-Paris-1966.png)
[October 10, 1966.]
“Dinner from $3.50”: I’m there.