The item about the possible passing of Nathan's hot dog stand in Coney Island got me thinking about culinary destinations that are now mere memories. I once read that true New Yorkers live with one foot planted firmly in the past, their idea of the City having as much to do with what was in a particular place as with what's there now (and maybe more). So, I thought it might be interesting to start a list of the culinary hall of famers we have lost.
Here are my first nominees for the list, just the first few off the top of my head, with apologies for the obvious neighborhood bias:
Sutter's Bakery: formerly on Greenwich Avenue and 10th Street, now, and for many years already, a party goods store; I discovered croisssants at Sutter's.
Zito's Bakery: on Bleecker Street, near Murray's Cheese Shop, starting long before there was a Murray's; I think they made just two kind of loaves, an Italian white and whole wheat--that's it, and they were great.
Balducci's: the real one, run by the Balducci family (not the poseur at 14th and 8th), and at the original locaction, not on Sixth Avenue, where it closed, but on Greenwich Avenue, between Sixth Avenue and Christopher Street, where it was, most of all, a produce stand.
Jefferson Market: not in its ill-chosen last location, where it recently died, but when it flourished across the street, in the space now occupied by Sammy's noodles.
The Cookery: decent food and great jazz on the corner of 8th Street and University Place, now an awful BBQ joint.
Luchows: on 14th street, next to what used to be the Academy of Music (also, quite sadly, gone); the food was not so good, but it was an old world experience.
Florent: in the Meat Packing District (which has not been that for years, but once upon a time really was the place of work for hundreds of butchers in blood-stained white aprons); our latest loss.
Horn & Hardart: the automat; I don't recall exactly where it was, but what a gas!
Schraffts.
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