Reflections on Steak Row

This blog has occasionally reminisced about Steak Row, the gone-forever strip of utterly male, red-meat-and-strong-booze eateries that once lined East 45th Street between Lexington and First Avenue in Manhattan. They had names like the Pen and Pencil, The Editorial, and Danny's Hideaway. They were—it would seem obvious—favored by journalists and magazine people, as well as a smattering of celebrities.

Because of my posts, I occasionally get an odd e-mail from some odd Steak Row habitue taking a tour down memory lane. (I have made contact with the son of the owner of the Pen and Pencil this way.) Recently, a former customer of The Press Box contracted me, looking for information on the year and reason why the restaurant closed. 

The Press Box, at 139 E. 45th, was run by Henry Castello and Harry Storm, both former Pen and Pencil bartenders, along with former Voisin waiter captain Fred O. Manfredi. By 1973, it was owned by Michael Wayne. Max Klimavicius, one of the current owners of Sardi's, began his restaurant career at a dishwasher at The Press Box. Unlike many of former mainstays that once help the Steak Row chow houses, the Press Box building still exists. It's a Chinese restaurant today.

I had little help to offer this reader, but he shared a number of scintillating details with me.

The place seems to have been rather rakish, in a "Mad Men" sort of way. This eye-witness said the staff used to hand out "press cards," which permitted ladies to visit the men's room. What the women did when they went there is left up to our imagination.

More unbelievable is what the women would see when they got there. According to the source, the urinals were affixed with magnifying shaving mirrors which hung at about waist level. This, I guess, ensured that every booze-soaked newshound left the loo feeling like a big man.