NYC in the 50's/60's/70's

Jim

I'm still here and read the posts every day or so, but haven't had much to say, still designing kitchens and baths etc. but now in St Petersburg, Fl. I just happened to see your post this morning and have been reading of all the good times folks have had in the "Big Apple". What a great city. I had forgotten all about the original post. (Seems I have forgotten a lot of things lately).What do ya mean "Over the hill"? What hill? I don't remember any damn hill !!

I would love to move back and have an apartment close to Madison Square Garden and the Theater District, but I can't afford one. And the cost of shows and games (if you can get seats at all) and dinners have made them luxury items. I once envisioned an apartment equi-distant from Ebbets Field, MSG and Yankee Stadium (for the football Giants, not for the cursed Yankees).

As for something to say---Last Sunday I made a great pot roast in the crock pot and will post that under something other than chicken.

Thanks for looking for me------bad pennys are hard to get rid of. Love to all.

We'll be in St Pete in January and Februaryand would be happy to meet up with the Ancient Mariner to share a deli sandwich one day.

cheers, John

Great to hear from you again, and nice to see a couple of old salts might be able to get together. Keep me informed I just might be in that area also for some winter golf and pari mutual wagering. Chow Jim

I miss Horn & Hardart, 2nd Avenue Deli, Russian Tea Room, Caramba, Death by Chocolate.

A few names come to mind: Whytes on W 57th (another location downtown). The Stockholm. Tad's Steak Houses (as low end as you could get) Schraft's. Child's. Mama Leone's.

Such memories!

Wally

quote:

Originally posted by wallhd

A few names come to mind: Whytes on W 57th (another location downtown). The Stockholm. Tad's Steak Houses (as low end as you could get) Schraft's. Child's. Mama Leone's.

Tad's is still around. 50th between 6th and Broadway. The steaks are as cheap and as tough as you remember.

How can you possibly miss Mama Leones? It was the NYC eqivalent of Lambert's. The food was absolutely vile, but they had great marketing to tour busses.

quote:

Originally posted by wanderingjew

quote:

Originally posted by Scorereader

I'm pretty sure my parents splurged one year and took us to the Top of the Sixes Restaurant, which used to be on the top floor of 666 5th Avenue.

I remember lots of glass and great view of the city.

I used to work in that building 1988-1990!, Right out of college

OK, this is getting weird. WJ, I also worked in that building right out of college, from 89-95. Did your company have a cafeteria known as "Tony's" named for it's Chinese chef????

Seafarer John

Looks good to me. I will get out my dress blues and have them let out a few notches. Maybe more than a few. Or maybe my whites will fit better, this is white country anyhow.

Wallhd and Fabulous Oyster----I remember Whyte's downtown in the Woolworth Building if I am not mistaken and the Stockholm was a wonderful smor-ghes-board restaurant in mid-town. Forget Tad's that place cost me a great girlfriend----she thought I was a cheap skate after just one date. Most girls didn't find out for 2 or 3. Child's, Bickford's, The Brass Rail, Scraft's, Toffenetti's, Jack Dempsey's, Lindy's, all gone but not forgotten.

And Mr Pigiron I worked at 666 5th when is was a 5 story building back in the 40's. The retail candy shop on ground level---candy kitchen on the 2nd----offices and work areas on the 3rd and 4th and the bosses private apartment on the 5th. Mr Benion, the owner of Rosemarie De Paris Chocolates took me for a tour of the place on my first day (I was 16) . He showed me how the chocolates were made and said I could eat as much as I wanted. After a few days of chomping on that delicious stuff I never wanted to see a piece of chocolate again. A smart businessman.
I got a nickel for the bus each way on each delivery, but if I ran all the way I could save the dime. So I ran, and got rich. I should have bought AT&T and some other stock with all the dimes. Say-La-Vee !!!!!!!!

I spent two years (1957 and 1958) in the U S ARMY stationed at Montauk Point Air Force radar site. I worked part time at the Montauk Diner and in a real nice place called Gurneys Inn. We would take off for NYC now and then and would stop on the way and eat at the East Hills Tavern (near Roslyn). They had great ham and cheese on rye that were about 1.5 inch thick. When we made it to the city we spent time at the 49er Bar on 49th st. It was a great time for a 19 year old kid from a small town in ND and my Army buddy from a small town in WY.
I ended up back in NY (Bethpage) in 1970 on the Aerospace program. My wife and I would head for the city for the weekends. I always had to have the Wienerwald grilled chicken with German potato salad. We also like the German Restaurant in the basement of the McAlpine Hotel (sp) located close to Penn Station.

Jack 38

You would have been smart to buy property out there in Montauk or anywhere on the South Fork that you passed on your way to NYC. I know you guys in the Army made lots of money so you should have looked forward and invested in real estate out there. Ah, if we had only known.

I spent lots of days and nights on the beach at Westhampton, drinking beer and having fun, could have bought the whole place for a song, but I was young and stupid and so didn't know what a gold mine LI was. Guerneys was a great place, I guess it is still there. I did work for the Gosman family who owned another great fish place out there. That was loooong, loooong ago on Loooong Island. And you can't go back again. "We get too soon old and to late smart".

quote:

Originally posted by the ancient mariner

Seafarer John
And Mr Pigiron I worked at 666 5th when is was a 5 story building back in the 40's. The retail candy shop on ground level---candy kitchen on the 2nd----offices and work areas on the 3rd and 4th and the bosses private apartment on the 5th.

Seafarer, THAT is amazing. 666 5th Avenue is not exactly a new building! I believe it was erected in 1957. That hood has changed 5 times since then! It's barely recognizable even now, compared to when I worked there 10 years ago. You must have been there when all the hot jazz clubs were along 53rd street! There are still some constants: The 21 Club is unchanged (although the museum of TV and Radio hulks over it), MOMA is still on 53, but has been totally reconstructed, and the great Donnell branch of the NY Public Library has remained.

How incredible is it that THREE different regulars here worked in the same building over the course of five decades???

Sorry, Pigiron, but I've never set foot in 666 5th. The devil would not let me in the door. But, I did spend a lot of wonderful hours on 52nd - mostly in the years when Dixieland and Swing were giving way to Bop, which brings me back to Birdland and Charlie Parker not far from 52nd.

cheers, John

Hey, sweet discussion. I have fond - though somewhat odd - memories of eating at the Horn and Hardart on 86th, and always gazed at 666 while getting my teeth cleaned, but what brought me here was, I was looking for a history of Prexy's. Any suggestions?

I recall a couple of places before I moved out west in 69. I too went to Top Of the Sixes. I remember how I liked looking through the little glass windows to see selection at Horn & Hardart. I liked the crock of baked beans. I was fond of a pizza place on the corner of 42nd & Fifth (I think it was 5th) it is still there, but a recent trip shows that it isn't as good as my memories.
There was a pizza place in Greenwich Village that I liked, I think it was a Ray's or a Ray clone...

Other places were Johnny Johnston's on 3rd. I liked their ribs.
I went to Giambelli's for spagetti with meat sauce. I still remember how good it was.

I do remember playing skeeball at at the various Playlands in Times Square.....

mark

quote:

Originally posted by doggydaddy


There was a pizza place in Greenwich Village that I liked, I think it was a Ray's or a Ray clone...

Or Original Ray's, Famous Ray's, Ray's Original, Original Famous Ray's or...

quote:

Originally posted by Edwaste

Any body remember Horn & Hardart?

During the early 50's we use to go to the one on East Tremont Ave in the Bronx.

John

What a thread! I lived on the lower East Side in 1975...best street food in the world. The only restaurant whose name I think I remember was in Little Italy...Puglia's? Modest decor with trestle tables. I remember being served half a sheep's head which had been cooked on the grill. Was able to handle all of it except the eye...wasn't going there. Wine was served in the old liter glass coke bottles. Great Indian and French restaurants in mid-town...fabulous deli's everywhere. NYC is tough to beat for food...would never live there again though.

Anyone remember a place called Swiss Chalet?

They had fondue and other treats. I think I remember going there in the late 70's - definitely the early 1980's though. It closed years ago. When we went to NYC we usually had one dinner there. It was a nice place. My last name is the same name as a town in Switzerland where the owners had family. They always seemed to remember us even though we went there once a year...

Barry

Table for one?

Once, I was Prince of the City! Ate in all the finest places!... Bickford's, H&H, Tad's (steaks- $1.29), Squire's/Chip's (coffee shops), but never at the top of 6's. How 'bout Child's (1/2 star), maybe an ice cream cone standing inside Schrafft's (5th Avenue) in February.

Very pedestrian tastes, mine, like Romeo's on 42nd Street between 7th (Times Square) and 8th - a plate of Ziti with B&B, 99-cents. They boiled the "pasta" in tilting steam kettles right in the window. This was the 60's don't forget, a few of the restaurants also forgettable. But never Romeo's!

Someone mentioned the Cattleman, they were on East 45th, had a stage coach galloping around picking up tourists (hotel guests). I applied for a job there when I was around teenager-old - if I recall, they were owned by Restaurant Associates.

If I listed all the restaurants I worked in NYC during the 60's we'd run out of room. So, what I remember most are the characters, the madmen (cooks), traveling waiters, the alien dishwashers, plus one manager who wouldn't stay sober. Also the cowboy who drove the stage coach, he grew up in the Bronx.

Anyway, I tripped over this site during a Google search - I was looking for specific info regarding the H&H (Automat) on 6th at 44th(?) Street, I believe this was the first H&H (of many) that converted to Burger King. Imagine!

Back then NYC was the toughest market in the world, but after Burger King (et al) came in, that changed. White Castle was one thing, but a "BK"! Even the phone company had been scared to death of the city, the last metro area in the country to raise the public phones from a dime to a quarter. I mean, if Burger King could get away with it, why not everybody? And to think, Horn & Hardup was the villain - but what should we expect from an outfit out of Philadelphia.

As I read through this thread, I noticed a number of significant omissions regarding the period - such as the slew of pick-up joints along 1st Avenue between 60th and 65th; TGIF, Maxwell's Plum, Noah's Ark, Mr. Laughs (NY Yankee's Phil Linz, owner), and others. "Dangerfield's" (Rodney) was closer down to the 59th Street Bridge, but more of a nightclub (cover/minimum) than a designated pick-up joint.

And what about Junior's out in Brooklyn, at least for the cheese cake. Down in the Village you could eat a "guitar" at the Hip Bagel - everything on the menu was "musical."

What about the original Improvisation (a/k/a "Improv") on West 44th? A lot of big names grew out of there. The place also had a very unusual payphone - anyone remember?

Up in Harlem there was Small's Paradise, on 7th. Down in the Village, the Cookery Lafayette (University and 8th), formerly "Cafe Society," which was NYC's first integrated jazz club - featuring such greats as Billy Holiday, she a bit before my time.

Now I have to get back to my Google search - I'm finishing up a book on the period. Not included is this short story, a little memory of the Automat http://passingtrains.blogspot.com/2004/11/automat.html which you may enjoy as much as I enjoyed reading your posts.

Meanwhile, if you happen to recall... anything else about the period, I'll be back!

PS. If you should visit the Oyster Bar (Grand Central Station), ask about the "acoustical" arches just outside their front door.

When I was a kids we would go to NYC on weekends I remember something called coconut milk or coconut champagne does anyone still sell that

quote:

Originally posted by the ancient mariner

Anyone coming to New York City in the "good old days" ---for a high school prom, a big date, a serious business deal, a weekend, to see a Broadway show, or whatever---probably had a favorite restaurant, you know the kind---shirt and tie and jacket kinda places. I loved the Rainbow Grille, and The Cattleman and Gallagher's-------any others ??? Many are gone, but not forgotten.

Great topic: but what does it have to do with chicken?

Here's the soundtrack:



http://musicradio77.com/

quote:

Originally posted by wheregreggeats.com

Here's the soundtrack:



http://musicradio77.com/

The Saturday Night Oldies show is great with Mark Simone on 77wabc!
http://www.wabcradio.com/goout.asp?u=http://www.wabcradio.com/article.asp?id=166880&spid=

McSorley's for beers and the cheese & crackers platter before going to the late show at the Filmore East.

Luchow's on 14th St. during the Holidays when the big Christmas tree was up.

Scott Muni when he was on WNEW-FM (103.7).

Sorry, I think Mama Leone's was the Italian version of Beefsteak Charlie's.

Does anyone remember a wonderful steak restaurant on 39th Street just east off the corner of Park Avenue? On the North side of 39th. My parents loved that place and always took me there. This was in the early 60's.

Palm Too in NYC. Great.

"Bakeright" in an above post, mentioned Romeo's on 42nd Street. When I worked at The NY Times on 43rd Street back in the early 60's, we would all go to Romeo's for lunch. I think a spaghetti dinner back then was only, .98 cents!

quote:

Originally posted by Twinwillow

"Bakeright" in an above post, mentioned Romeo's on 42nd Street. When I worked at The NY Times on 43rd Street back in the early 60's, we would all go to Romeo's for lunch. I think a spaghetti dinner back then was only, .98 cents!

Chances are we sat next to each other back then, Twinwillow, although I tended to "dine" at Romeo's mostly at night. Pretty late, too, when all the denizens of Gotham were stalking the sidewalks.

My, how things have changed.

When I was a kid, I could go to a 42nd Street movie for a quarter, afternoons 40-cents. And Radio City, first show $1.25. Every kid should grow up in the city. Forget summer camp, pack'em off to Manhattan!

quote:

Originally posted by Bakerwrite

quote:

Originally posted by Twinwillow

"Bakeright" in an above post, mentioned Romeo's on 42nd Street. When I worked at The NY Times on 43rd Street back in the early 60's, we would all go to Romeo's for lunch. I think a spaghetti dinner back then was only, .98 cents!

Chances are we sat next to each other back then, Twinwillow, although I tended to "dine" at Romeo's mostly at night. Pretty late, too, when all the denizens of Gotham were stalking the sidewalks.

My, how things have changed.

When I was a kid, I could go to a 42nd Street movie for a quarter, afternoons 40-cents. And Radio City, first show $1.25. Every kid should grow up in the city. Forget summer camp, pack'em off to Manhattan!

You must be as "ancient" as me.