Lost City Asks "Who Goes to The Famous Oyster Bar?"

I thought, by finally dining at The Famous Oyster Bar, I might crack this mystery of a restaurant, which has dumbfounded me for 25 years. Who owns it? How have they managed to hang on to this prime piece of real estate (54th Street and Seventh Avenue) for more than 50 years? Do they own the building? What's their secret? I have been able to uncover little on my own, because it seems that no one has ever written the story of the longstanding restaurant, in either newspaper or guidebook form.

But I left discovering only that the place has been owned by the same Greek family since 1959 and has always been in the same location. There are no framed reviews or stories on the walls that would have told me more. And the waitresses are not forthcoming.

After digging through newspaper archives and finding nothing about the Famous Oyster Bar prior to the 1980s (the results of health inspections, mainly), I begin to doubt the joint's story. Maybe it didn't open in 1959. Since the idea of it's being a "famous" restaurant is obviously a fantasy, maybe the owners also made up the founding date. The only think dissuading me from this theory are the neon signs, the only thing about the Oyster Bar that does look like it's been there since 1959.

I'll get to the bottom of this one if it's the last thing I do. In the meantime, here's my Eater column:

Who Goes There? The Famous Oyster Bar

This year, the Grand Central Oyster Bar has collected pallets of publicity in connection to its 100th anniversary. Meanwhile, the restaurant that calls itselfThe Famous Oyster Bar, which has been sitting on the same Midtown corner for more than half a century, continues its habit of attracting near zero notice decade after decade.

Having lived in New York for some time, I usually enter long-standing restaurants with some basic knowledge of their history and reputation. But The Famous Oyster Bar has stumped me for 20 years. I've often paused outside it to admire the classic postwar neon signs screaming "Oyster Bar" and "Sea Food." But I've never known anyone who ate there; never read a review of the place; never found it written up in any New York food guides, past or present. I've often wondered where they got the chutzpah to call themselves The Famous Oyster Bar (certainly, that wasn't the joint's original name), when the Grand Central is, by any measure, galactically more celebrated.

I have no doubt that many a tourist wanders into the strategically placed restaurant under the misapprehension that they are in the Grand Central Oyster Bar. And you do get mainly tourists here, most of them seemingly happening upon the place by chance. Judging by their unfamiliarity with the surroundings and the menu, there were few second-timers in attendance the night I recently dined there. The joint does get some local traffic, however; a couple of theatre professional were talking business at one table. And one guy at the bar didn't look like he was going anywhere.

With the South Street Seaport institution Carmine's having shuttered in 2010, The Famous Oyster Bar can safely lay claim to the most kitschy nautical decor in the city. A life preserver reading "Oyster Bar" hangs on the wall. There's a Titanic model under glass. Sea shells adorn the ceiling and there's a maritime mural along one wall. The menu is replete with seafood. It's the kind of place that still does Oysters Rockefeller and Lobster Newberg. Prices are typically Times Square: that is, expensive. Seafood is pricey, of course. But this isn't good seafood. The oysters were passable, but the clams were rubbery. And the soft shells crabs only acceptable. On the plus side, the service was unflaggingly friendly and attentive.

I couldn't find out much more about the history of the joint, except this: it has been run by the same Greek family since opening in 1959, and has always been at the same location. According to Internet records, the owner is one Angelo Agnonostopoulo. Finally, I have to point out that, for a place that goes by the name The Famous Oyster Bar, it's odd that they had only two selections: Blue Point and Wellfleet. The restaurant also has no raw bar. So, technically speaking, it's not only not famous, it's also not an oyster bar.

Nice neon, though.

—Brooks of Sheffield

Lost City Asks, "Who Goes to Le Périgord?"

Little did I imagine the love that abides out there for the dusty French midtown mainstay Le Périgord. The comments on this particular "Who Goes There?" Eater column keep coming. (Mimi Sheraton: Whenever you comment on one of my WGT columns, my heart goes all a-flutter.) It's heartwarming that people appreciate such a time capsule. Long may it keep its silent vigil on E. 52nd Street. 

Who Goes There? Le Périgord

Something about the padded, sequestered interior of Le Périgord, the French haute cuisine holdout on east-east-east 52nd Street, turns people into librarians. Nobody at a typical lunch shift at this nearly 50-year-old restaurant talked much above a whisper. And yet the air—which smelled vaguely of your grandmother's living room—is so still (no music inside, no traffic outside) you could clearly hear conversations a few tables away.

"You go to this restaurant to feel like a human being," said a man to his friend. I pegged the speaker being in his late 50s, but later realized that he was a well-preserved septuagenarian. No one in the room, waiter or patron, was under 40. When a pair a twentysomethings came in later, they were so befuddled by the unfamiliar scene of relaxed gentility that they seated themselves, thinking that was OK. The maître d' soon resituated them.

Le Périgord is still owned by Georges Briguet, who bought the place from the original owner two years after the restaurant opened. Without too much mental effort, one can guess the sort of celebrity that came here once upon a time. Truman Capote, Henry Kissinger, Jackie Kennedy, etc. Plus, a regular salting of nearby UN officials. And, of course, your run-of-the-mill, blue-suited moneybags who thinks Kissinger wasn't so bad, and Capote was mean to write that stuff about Babe Paley in Answered Prayers.

My relatively talkative neighbor was certainly a regular—so regular that he asked whether a favored lamb dish that wasn't on the menu was available. It was. "Well, why don't you put it on the damn menu then?" he muttered as the waiter walked away. (Just because the customers look polished doesn't mean they are. My friend dropped an F bomb every other sentence, and talked with great relish about past trysts.) "I have some friends coming into town and they asked for restaurant recommendations," he told his more docile friend. "I thought of sending them here, but thought they might think it too dull. So I told them to go to Le Grenouille."

I took my neighbor's tip and ordered the wonderful Le Buffet Froid—a delicious selection of chilled asparagus, celery, cheese, pâté, cornichons, shrimp, tomato and other tidbits. Almost a meal in itself, it was sublimely satisfying. I followed that with Sole Meunière, grilled with a mustard sauce. Hey, if I'm in a place like this, I'm going to order a dish like that. It was worth the $45 just to watch the waiter expertly bone the fish tableside. Where does that happen anymore in Manhattan? Plus, the fillet was delectable; the veggies perfectly steamed. There was a dessert trolley—of course there was!—but I passed. The espresso was expert.

My neighbor had moved on to the topic of money. Actually, he seldom left it. Most conversations at Le Périgord are about money or old times. The two men reminisced about sitting on stoops in Brooklyn back in the days when they had no scratch. Recently, the guy's house was reappraised at a value of $4 million. He seemed to be in the art game. "25 years ago, I could have told anybody I knew how to get rich. You buy a Hopper etching for $500. Today, it would be worth $150,000." He laughed. "Why didn't I do that, and make myself rich?"

His friend paused briefly over his pâté. "But, you did," he replied.

—Brooks of Sheffield

Gallagher's Steak House to Close After 85 Years

UPDATE: Looks like Gallagher's, thankfully, is changing hands, not closing down. More to come.

*****

Now not even the stalwart steak houses are immune from the forced death march imposed upon New York's culinary and bibulous landmarks by cutthroat real estate values, a sunken economy and indifferent governing from City Hall.

Gallagher's Steak House, born in 1927, a child of the Roaring 20s, will die on Jan. 16.

Up until now, New York's iconic steak houses have seemed fortified against a New York that no longer seems to care about its New Yorkiness. Peter Luger's, Old Homestead, Smith & Wollensky, Keen's—they all still stand. Such places have always been patronized by fat cats with big bankrolls. As long as such luxurious creatures of business (and their expanse accounts) exist, cow palaces such as these have no worries. Such was the assumption. But rhe death of Gallagher's represents a worrisome fissure in the chop house facade.

Gallagher's began its existence as a Theatre District speakeasy, patronized by show folk, sports figures writers and politicians. It was founded by Helen Gallagher, a former Ziegfeld girl who had been married to Ed Gallagher of the famous vaudeville team Gallagher and Sheen; and her second husband, gambler Jack Solomon. When Prohibition ended in 1933, it continued on, business as usual, without missing a beat. When Helen died in 1943, Solomon married showgirl and florist Irene Hayes. Solomon died in 1963, leaving Irene sole owner. Hayes then sold to Jerome Brody, who had been the head of Restaurant Associates, the famous corporation which owned such places as Four Seasons, La Fonda de Sol and The Forum of the Twelve Caesars.

To most New Yorkers, Gallagher's is most famous for its sidewalk display of its wares. Large windows look into meat lockers, where various cuts of red meat sit and/or hang, a tantalized (or revolting, depending on your inclination) taste of the hearty fare that awaits inside.

In 1942, when LaGuardia's City Hall imposed a voluntary "meatless Tuesday" policy on the city, Gallagher's didn't even try to adapt; it closed. A sign in the window said: "Okay, Uncle Sam! We'll cooperate to the letter. We'll ever go you one better. Tuesday is meatless and also is eatless, for we will be closed on Tuesdays." The steak house fought bitterly with the government throughout WWII over meat rationing.

Gallagher's has franchise branches in Newark, Atlantic City and Las Vegas.

The Lost Colony

I passed by the midtown location of Colony Records, the iconic music store in the Brill Building that went out of business last month after a half century in Times Square. The place is empty, but the signs remain. I wonder what will become of them.

The Oddball History of the Hotel Roger Smith

Manhattan has a lot of old hotels with great, storied names. The Waldorf=Astoria, the Peninsula, the St. Regis, the Carlyle, the Edison, the Warwick, the Roosevelt. (I still mourn the fact that the Stanhope converted to apartments before I got a chance to stay in it.) But my favorite of all may be the Hotel Roger Smith, a mid-sized, unassuming structure at 47th and Lex, convenient to Grand Central.

I think I like the name because it's so odd. Who's Roger Smith?, I wondered every time I passed by the handsome vertical, green neon sign. Well, you know me. I don't tend to wonder about such obscure New York historical questions too long before I go off and try to find out the answer.

As is frustratingly often the case in this City, the hotel's website tells you next to nothing about the place's history. Actually, completely nothing.

I discovered that in 1929 a Hotel Roger Smith was built in Stamford. It was erected by the Roger Smith Corporation, a subsidiary of Mayer and Hambur, Inc., of New York City. In 1931, the Behriont Hotel in White Plains was taken over by the Roger Smith Corporation and its name changed. In 1931, the company took control of the Hotel Brittany at Tenth Street and Broadway. OK, so what we seem to have here is an aggressively acquisitive hotel outfit gobbling up rival hotels teetering in the wake of the Great Depression.

By 1934, the Roger Smith boys has added the Brewster Hotel and the Hotel Cameron, both on W. 86th Street, to their roster. Finally, in 1938, we come to the building at 47th and Lex. It was called the Hotel Winthrop. The Roger Smith Corp. bought it, planning to fill it with tourists in town to see the World's Fair. By this time, the company also had hotels in New Brunswick, Massachusetts and Washington, D.C.

The Winthrop was built in 1926 by the firm of Hearn & Erich.

Maybe that's why the Roger Smith website doesn't get into the place's history. It's not glamorous. The Roger Smith was part of an early American hotel chain. How dull can you get?

However, in 1988, the hotel got a lot more colorful. It fell into the hands of a sculptor named James Knowles. (His wife inherited it from her dad.) He displayed his work in the halls, ran a gallery on the ground floor, and invited theatre companies and chefs to come in and do their thing. He also gave out his own annual film awards, called the Rogers. Kooky.

Knowles still runs is. He calls himself the "President, CEO and Artist-in-Residence." Maybe that's why I always got good vibrations off the Roger Smith. It's that weird thing: a family-owned hotel in 21st-century, midtown Manhattan.

The Stamford Roger Smith, by the way, was torn down in 1996. The Roger Smith in White Plains was renamed the Coachman and became a homeless shelter. I think the Manhattan Roger Smith Hotel is the only member of the original chain left.

And who was Roger Smith? I have no idea. Neither of the founders of the Roger Smith Corp. were of that name. Perhaps they made it up, thinking the name sounded "American." Of course, the name Roger Smith has an odd connotation today. Roger Smith was the lampooned and ridiculed auto CEO at the center of Michael Moore's documentary "Roger & Me."

Roger Smith would never have stayed in the Roger Smith.

Lost City Asks "Who Goes to Prime Burger?

I used this week's "Who Goes There?" column on Eater to pay my respects to Prime Burger, which is closing today, Saturday, May 26. Here's an account of my visit:

Who Goes There?

This week, some genius landlord (New York's full of genius landlords these days, you know) decided it was time to boot out the Midtown hamburger haven Prime Burger after three-quarters of a century in business. The end comes Saturday for the diner institution, so during a recent Thursday lunch, the E. 51st Street place was packed with emotional noshers. Every time one of the wacky, grade-school-desk-like, single-seater booths became free, it was quickly reoccupied. The line to pay checks—actually mini-menus on which the waiters scrawl their hieroglyphics—was never less than ten people long. Most paused at the cash register to buy a Prime Burger t-shirt. That would be their last chance.

Everyone was taking pictures. Waiters took pictures of patrons. Patrons hugged waiters as they left. And why not? Most of the regulars have been eating there for decades, and most of the staff has been working there just as long. "How long have you been coming here?" asked the cashier as he gave a sharp-beaked, pear-shaped customer his change. "About 30 years," the man answered. "It was easier when I worked down the block." "I've been here 36 years," said the cashier. "I counted it up the other day. I didn't think it was that long. Time flies."

Signs were posted all over informing diners that Prime Burger had lost its home. The one on the front door betrayed a less-advertised detail of the eatery's history. It said PB was closing after 74 years in business, but if you peeled back the pasted-on "74" you found the number "47." A diner did open here in 1938, but it was Hamburger Heaven. They're the ones that installed the desk-like booths. Prime Burger took over the space in 1965. So saying they're been serving you since 1938 is a bit of a fib. Still, 47 years is plenty old and, bottom line, burgers have been flipped here since LaGuardia was Mayor.

At Prime Burger, the human pageant could be mistaken for one from the 1940s. Neither the eaters nor the servers are beautiful, nor do they seem to feel the need to be so. The crowd looks like they work for a living, and it's no doubt that they do. For Prime Burger is that dying breed of Manhattan restaurant—a lunch joint (it closes early). Wage-slaves come here for a cheap midday repast. There aren't many other sit-down choices in Midtown where you won't go broke. The waiters just look like waiters, not models. They're middle-aged or old. They have high pompadours, Coke-bottle glasses, graying hair, and stooped shoulders. Their formal white jackets are worn and faded. But they lay down a napkin quick and bring your food quicker. If they don't, they apologize. There's a dignity there.

The clientele are mainly from the area, mostly regulars who are employed nearby. Many have been coming for decades. But, given Prime Burger's location right next to St. Patrick's Cathedral, they also get a lot of tourists. The air is filled with a potpourri of languages. While I was there, a group of nine German teenagers came in. They may have been there because they read Prime Burger was closing. But I'm guessing they didn't have a clue. Having just seen the big church, they were hungry. Where there's a line, there must be good food, right? They pointed at the curious booths in wonder and chatted in German, the only English word peppering their speech being "burger."

Menu-wise, most people don't stray far from the burgers and fries. I had two patties myself. I always spoon on some of the homemade red relish found at every table in an odd silver dish, because it's special to the place. Although I'm never sure if it's a good idea. I did so again this final visit. I'm still not positive it was a good idea. But Prime Burger is a good idea. It always was. And that landlord? Well, he's a @#$% genius. That's what he is.

—Brooks of Sheffield 

Prime Burger to Exit as Midtown Integrity Teeters

Prime Burger, the Midtown diner of great longevity and startlingly un-ironic urban authenticity, is going to close. The news comes from Eater, who hears it from a tipster, who said the end may come as soon at Saturday. The reason: the building, owned by the Prime Burger people, has been sold. So I assume this is a decision that they readily invited.

The place, situated opposite St. Patrick's Cathedral, is 74 years old, and has a timeless New York diner atmosphere and wonderful school-desk-like individual tables you won't see anywhere else in town. The burgers are simple and cheap and good. That it is closing is a crippling loss to the City, and to the character of increasingly faceless Midtown, which only a few weeks ago lost the beautiful bar Bill's Gay 90s. The foodies who run the James Beard Awards prized it enough to give the joint a trophy back in 2005. If you want to know more about it, read this.

They haven't announced an exact closing date yet. But it will be soon. So I'd run.

The Subtle Westmore

The Westmore is a fairly typical mid-century apartment building. It's located on W. 57th Street, west of Columbus Circle. It was built in 1936 and is eight stories tall.

I'm sure the apartments inside are mighty fine, but what I love about it is the low-key, Art Deco way the building announces itself. Those stylish metal letters pictures—following the graceful curve of the small metal awning—are no more than six inches tall. And that's the only thing on the building's facade that says Westmore. It's quite beautiful, especially when the morning sun hits the sign, as it does in this picture. I assume the builders were anticipating that effect, and that's why they put the lettering on the east side of the awning.

Inside, the Westmore features a large garden court the width of a city block. Most of the apartments have bay windows looking over either the garden or the street.