Who Shops at Park East Kosher

As a dedicated defender of unique New York, I am not one to knock indy NYC businesses. And certainly not one to knock old indy NYC businesses. And certainly, certainly not one to rap old, ethnic, indy NYC businesses.

But I have to say: Park East Kosher Butchers exasperates me.

The butcher and grocery was founded more than fifty years ago on Madison Avenue, and moved to Second Avenue near 85th Street a decade ago. It is one of the last surviving kosher butchers in Manhattan. It is family owned, and the connection between the staff and the customers is impressive. Regular clientele are called by their name as they totter it. (Many of the regulars are elderly.) "How are you, Mrs. C?" someone will call. "Same as usual, Mrs. K?"

Whoever Mrs. C and Mrs. K are, however, they must be rich. And not just because they live on the Upper East Side; lots of people of various incomes have hung on in this area by their fingernails for years. They're rich because they shop at Park East Kosher! In the annals of exorbitant pricing, I know of few stores that match Park East in gaul. A piece of kosher meat bought in this shop will run you anywhere from twenty-five to one hundred percent more than it will in any other kosher meat market in town. I know this because I regularly buy kosher meat and know how much it costs. Every time I walk into Park East, full of good will and willing to buy, I walk out empty-handed and angry. You can't look at the prices without feeling you're being gouged. A simple eight-pack of Empire kosher turkey hot dogs that costs $2.50 or so anywhere else in town will cost you $4 here.

So who puts up with such prices? Well, the wealthy. My most memorable experience with Park East involved a Brooklyn acquaintance. This person did not want for anything. They had a brownstone in Brooklyn Heights and a summer house on the Long Island Sound. Eating kosher in Brooklyn, they had any number of choices where to shop. Aside from Fairway and Trader Joe's, there are the countless kosher butchers in Borough Park and Williamsburg and Crown Heights. Yet this person drove specifically to Park East for their kosher meat needs. I guess if you can afford it...

Lost City Asks "Who Goes to Lexington Candy Shop?"

If I lived in the neighborhood, I'd go to Lexington Candy Shop three times a weeks. As it is, I live about an hour's subway ride away. But still, I'm glad it's there, and that there is still a living yardstick in the city for how shakes, malteds, Cokes, lime rickeys and million other soda fountain staples are supposed to taste.

Here's my Eater "Who Goes There?" column:

Who Goes There? Lexington Candy Shop

I got to thinking about the Lexington Candy Shop after I heard recently that its longtime neighbor, Lascoff Drugs, had closed over the summer. The two businesses had operated a block apart on Lexington in the lowers 80s for 87 years — Lascoff was founded in 1899, Lexington Candy Shop in 1925. The drug store's death made me want to hop the 6 train to make sure the old luncheonette was doing OK.

The place was as I remembered it, a classic New York soda fountain frozen in the 1940s; a shotgun diner with a long counter lined with stools and a L-shaped row of cozy booths, the formica tables sometimes separated by wooden partitions or metal coat racks. The menu was spelled out in white plastic letters behind glass at the top of the wall behind the counter. The walls were covered with old framed menus and shots from films and ads that had used the candy shop as a backdrop ("Three Days of the Condor," "The Nanny Diaries"). The waitresses were dressed in pink blouses, and third-generation owner John Philis was dressed humbly in a white jacket and apron. Philis is always there, as far as I can tell. With his kind, doughy face, full head of graying hair and slightly world-weary expression, he looks like a soda fountain owner from central casting. He's a comforting presence.

Lexington Candy Shop was started by John's grandfather Soterios and Tami Naskos. Soterios' son Peter joined in 1930. In 1990, John entered into a partnership with Bob Karcher. Though it serves the sort of diner food you'd expect, the owners fuss over its quality and authenticity and want to make sure you know it. The menu tells you all the juices are fresh squeezed daily; the chicken and egg and other salads are homemade every morning; the ice cream has been brought in from the same age-old Philadelphia maker, Bassetts, for decades; the bread come from nearby Orwasher's Bakery, which is older than the luncheonette; the Cokes are made with seltzer and a real shot of pumped cola syrup; and, perhaps most importantly of all, the malteds are made the old-fashioned way, with real malted milk powder (out of a malted milk dispenser). They are whipped up for a good long time in a vintage 1940 Hamilton Beach mixer and brought to your table in the metal tin. The contents of the tin easily fill your glass at least three times. If you want an idea of how New Yorkers used to eat 60 years ago, this isn't a bad place to start.

Though I have heard that the place swarms with privileged UES parents and their progeny on the weekends, on a weekday it seemed to act as a port in a storm for the neighborhood's less well-heeled. At both breakfast and lunch, several solitary old men parked themselves at the counter for a leisurely meal, and read the paper or chatted with the staff. Some came in just to try their luck at Lotto. The same sort of men probably patronized the joint back in the 1940s. They were evident regulars. One fellow I saw was there at both breakfast and lunch (as I was). Maybe he never left. At lunch, local businessmen talked shop over sandwiches, and an elderly couple tottered in. The youngest patrons were a Belgian couple who posed for pictures with the waitress. (The restaurant closes at 7 p.m., so it doesn't have much or a dinner crowd.)

"We get people from the local area," that waitress told me, "and tourists from all over the world. And our local 'celebrities' come in. People who came here in high school with their parents now come in with their kids."

Oh, any candy? Yes, they sell candy. It's the kind you can buy most anywhere, Lifesavers and such. Ironically, candy is probably the least important thing about the Lexington Candy Shop. 

—Brooks of Sheffield

Lascoff Drugs Closes After a 113 Years

I thought upper Lexington Avenue had a special force field surrounding it (i.e.—influential rich people) that allowed an inordinate number of old businesses to survive. But, alas, I was wrong. If the bluebloods couldn't save the iconic Upper East Side pharmacy Lascoff Drugs, what can they save?

Lascoff closed last July after 113 years in business. I don't know how I missed that. I guess lately I've unconsciously learned to avert my eyes when beautiful landmarks shutter. I just can't bear the pain. 

Lascoff, along with Bigelow and one or two others, was one of New York's great, classic pharmacies. It opened in 1899, when McKinley was President, and was the first licensed pharmacy in New York State, according to the New York Times. It was a store so majestic and solemn, you felt like you were entering a church when you went in. High ceilings, high shelving, a balcony, ancient Pharmacuetical relics, and silence. No music. You could find many old and classic brands there that you couldn't locate elsewhere. And the vertical sign on the corner building was one of the grandest in the city. 

The enterprise was founded by J. Leon Lascoff. He was born in Vilna, then in Russian Poland, and came to New York in 1892. His first drug store was at Lex and 83rd. He then moved across the street and then, in 1931, moved to 82nd and Lex—Lascoff's final location. He died in 1936. His son Frederick took over the business and ran it until his death in 1970. During Fred's time, the store had a reputation for odd cures. It sold leeches to boxers and catnip oil to lion hunters. He once sold a mixture of phenol, valerian, asafetida and iodoform to a colleague who had complained that his own pharmacy didn't smell enough like a drug store. 

After Frederick died, the business fell out of the family. It was purchased by Phil and Susan Ragusa. I assume they were still running it when it closed.

The Miracle of 86th Street

For reasons I do not understand, the intersection of 86th Street and Lexington has managed to fend off the plague of crappy, modern, anonymous Cemusa newsstands that have swept the city in the last three years, thanks to Bloomberg signing a contract with an urban architecture firm—in Spain.

There are three newsstands at this crossroads, and each of them is gloriously old school. Messy, real, gritty and very New York. The rest of the intersection is awful—modern apartment and office towers and chain stores (Game Stop, Barnes & Noble, Best Buy, H & M) everywhere. (There used to be a wonderful little donut shop on the southeast corner which I still mourn.) But the newsstands almost save it.