Version of McHale's to Return?

McHale's, the timeless bar at the corner of 46th and Eighth, closed more than six years ago. And it still hurts. You can go visit the neon sign at Emmett O'Lunney's pub on W. 50th Street. But otherwise, not a trace of it remains outside the memories of a few hundred Broadway stagehands. Me, I now go to Jimmy's Corner for my beer and the Edison Cafe for cheap Times Square eats.

Now, JVNY reports the words of tipster who says this: "This past Friday I was walking with friends in Midtown and we stopped by the gin mill on West 50th St that has the old McHale's 'BAR' sign. The lady standing in front told us that 'McHale's is re-opening on 51st St.' We immediately walked over to investigate. There is a bar under construction on the north side of 51st St between Broadway and 8th Ave, real modern looking, no sign up. We yelled in to what appeared to be the owner or at least manager who was going over blueprints or something. We asked 'is this place McHale's?' and he said yes. We cried that 'how can you name a place after a former business?' and he said 'why can’t I?' then backed off when he heard our outrage and came up with what I think is a story. He said 'I bought the name' and when we asked about 'Jimmy' he said he’d be there once a week and that they hired the old chef from McHale's."

This news may be so. But it cheers me not at all. Listen, I can open up an eatery and call it Toots Shor, but it doesn't it make it so—any more than Gabe Stuhlman's Fedora has anything to do with the original Fedora; the current Hurley's is a patch on the original bar on Sixth Avenue; or John DeLucie's upcoming restaurant in the Bill's Gay 90s space will have any real connection with Bill's.

McHale's outside the original McHale's space and location would not be McHale's. McHale's without Jimmy McHale would not be McHale's. Recreating burgers, however good, does not reconstitute a 70-year-old bar. Sorry.

To find out more about what I thought about McHale's and its shuttering, see here and here and here.

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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Lost City Asks "Who Goes to L&B Spumoni Gardens?"

Never know what "Who Goes There?" subjects are going to get people excited. My account of L&B Spumoni Gardens in Bensonhurst/Gravesend pulled down more comments than any other WGT since Sarge's Deli. Here it is:

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Lost City Asks "Who Goes to Colandrea New Corner Restaurant?"

It's my hunch that the footbridge above the Fort Hamilton Parkway was built expressly for the convenience of the Colandrea family and their patrons. Here my "Who Goes There?" column from Eater:

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Lost City: Asheville Edition: Little Pigs Bar-B-Q

When I'm down south, I look for barbeque. Recently, I was in Asheville, North Carolina. I was told that Asheville was not a big barbeque town. Nonetheless, I looked for barbeque. I had heard of an old roadside place called Little Pigs—a name that is hard to resist. So I asked after it. I was warned off it, told it wasn't very good.

But I've got a hard head, so I went anyway. Little Pigs was founded in Asheville by Joseph Carr Swicegood Sr. in April 1963. In January 1986, he hired Bob Conner, a former district manager for Burger King, as the general manager. Conner still runs it. According to the website, he embraces "the philosophy that Little Pigs must maintain a clean and comfortable environment with great food and superior customer service. Little Pigs offers personal service and we recognize our regulars on a first name basis."

Lot of stuff on the site about cleanliness and customer service and value for your dollar. Which is great. But I go to barbeque places for the barbeque. And, while I love the Little Pigs sign and the building and general ambiance of the place, the barbeque was disappointing. Perhaps the most lackluster bbq I've had in the south, with next to no flavor. It tasted of "I don't care." The beans were a little better, and the hush puppies were good. But those are side attractions. I hope Little Pigs remains in business. The potential there is huge. But I also hope they start putting some effort into their product.

Lost City: Asheville Edition: Mountaineer Inn

Asheville, North Carolina, is a beautiful town. Though a boho center of liberality today, it came into being through the efforts of millionaires like George Washington Vanderbilt III, Edwin Wiley Grove and George Willis Pack, who fell in love with the remote area enough to fill it with some of the most beautiful art deco architectural monuments in the country, as well as a few mansions for themselves. (Vanderbilt's Biltmore Estate is the largest private home in the United States.)

The Mountaineer Inn is not one of those monuments. But it is a marvel in its own right, mainly due to its wonderful use of old-school neon. The shotgun-toting neon hillbilly seen above stands about 30 feet tall, and keeps watch over Tunnel Road, a strip of hotels and restaurants on the other side of a mountain to the east of Asheville.

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Recently, I reported that Leske's, the old Scandinavian bakery in Bay Ridge that closed last year, would be reopening soon, using the same bakers as before. In response, I got this comment from a reader:

I live across the street from what used to be Leske's, and according to the new managers its going to re open with same recipes and bakers... that is a FALSE and a poor fake!!! All the bakers found new jobs and they are stable. One of the bakers is baking most of the stuff at Jean Danet bakery across the street from Leske's and there kringler and black and whites taste REAL good. It's similar to Leske's.. Please dont believe that fake sign! The new owners are lying to every one! 

I have no idea who's telling the truth here. But the timing of the comment was a coincidence, because I had been thinking about Jean Danet bakery in recent days, and wondering about its history.

Jean Danet is just a couple blocks to the north of Leske's on Fifth Avenue. It has an old-looking vertical sign on the side of the building, but a shiny new facade and interior. I expect the bakery's been renovated recently. Ironically, the redo's specific intent was obviously to make the facade look old! Look at the fake-ancient-ruin mix of bricks and plaster.

Anyway, here's the story according to the Danet website: "Originally started as a french pastry shop forty years ago, Pat Giura decided to keep the original name of Jean Danet and use the owner’s original recipes when the Giura family bought the business back in 1998. It was a natural fit for the graduate of The French Culinary Institute and certified Wilton Cake Decorator who grew up working at Savarese Italian Pastry Shoppe, owned by his parents, Cathy and Mario Giura."

Interesting pedigree. If the Leske's bakers are indeed employed there, the pedigree just got even better.

Roof Message

I've passed by this old building at Broadway and S. 6th Street, which houses the Williamsburg Art and Historical Center, hundreds of times. I must be blind, because, until the other day, when approaching it from the west during a lovely sunset, I did not notice the spectacular roof tiling. It spells out, in red tiles, K.C. Savings Bank—that is, Kings County Savings Bank.

The building was erected in 1868 by the firm of King and Wilcox. King was none other than Gamalial King, the carpenter who created Brooklyn's Borough Hall. As the AIA Guide points out, it looks more like a millionaire's mansion than a bank. It was built in the French Second Empire style. The building operated as a bank until 1989. A restoration of the structure began in 1999.

Looking at past pictures of the building, I realize I may not have noticed the roof because it was sometimes covered with a billboard. 

The Fool With the Huge Obelisk

Think someone's overcompensating here?

Green-wood Cemetery has a lot of grandiose monuments erected by a lot of self-important people. But this one may take the cake. This obelisk marking the final resting place of Stephen M. Griswold may be the tallest in the cemetery. It's certainly the tallest I found during a recent tour of the western end of the famous burial ground.

So who was this grandee? Well, Griswold was famous in a way. But probably not in a way he would have liked.

A few weeks back I took a tour of the landmark Plymouth Church in Brooklyn, the one where Henry Ward Beecher was pastor. There I learned that a number of the parishioners were among the pilgrims that Mark Twain made fun of in his bestseller "Innocents Abroad." Apparently, Twain traveled to the Holy Land with the group in 1867—it was the first trans-Atlantic American cruise—and later used them as the models of the uncouth boobs featured in a series of articles, which were then collected into a book.

Griswold and his wife were in that group, and they were not portrayed in a favorable light. Maybe that indignity was what Griswold was trying to correct when his family commissioned this mile-high tombstone. Griswold was a jeweler otherwise, and the president of the Union Bank of Brooklyn, though he was a New York State Senator from 1886 to 1887. Guess his voters didn't read much Twain.

Leske's Bakery in Bay Ridge to Reopen

Last May, Leske's, the last Scandinavian bake shop in the one-time Norse stronghold of Bay Ridge, closed. And so the Brooklyn neighborhood lost one of oldest businesses, and one of the last vestiges of Swedish Brooklyn.

Now, it seems, Leske's is getting a new lease on life. I was in the area the other day and saw some workers hanging outside the bakery. Investigating, I found a couple articles and notices taped to the windows saying that the shop was due to reopen. Signs said Leske's would have new management, but the same bakers it had before. It will reopen in May.

I'm glad it's reopening, but the fact that it will have the same bakers is a matter of some concern. When I first posted something about Leske's, a received a few comments from old timers saying how the quality of the baking had gone done in recent years. Yesterday, I even received a message from a descendent of the founder: "Being the granddaughter of the founder of Leske's Bakery, nothing is like it use to be back then. My mother constantly raves of the donuts and black and whites, but everytime we've gone back, they were never like they use to be." Perhaps the previous management wasn't letting the bakers bake the way they wanted to. We shall see.