Rocco's & Bill's
Recently, New York magazine featured a story about the Torrisi restaurant team going "old-school." In the photo, the entrepreneurs smile and toast their new endeavor, "Carbone," under the stripped neon sign of vanished Rocco Restaurant.
New York
For those with short memories, the 89-year-old Village restaurant was pushed out last year, even though business was thriving. Torrisi signed a lease, with a massively hiked rent. Third-generation owner Antonio Da Silva fought and lost.
As one commenter says at the online article: "How can you write that they are paying tribute to the 'vanishing relics' when they are the reason one of the real relics (Roccos) vanished? I am very close with the former owner, and they were pushed out only to be replicated and paid homage to? I find it to be so distasteful."
On the next page of the magazine, there's a featurette entitled "History Buffs," about how trendy, monied restaurateurs "seem to be in a race to acquire New York’s oldest, most storied properties."
They write about the Beatrice Inn, which was already Vongerichtified years ago, and about the recent tragedy of Bill's Gay 90s.
Bill's landlord denied a new lease to the 88-year-old business, and handed it over to John DeLucie, who hoped to obtain the wonderful interior details. But owner Barbara Bart took the memorabilia with her--after a fight with the landlord who wanted it all for his new tenant. As New York wrote, "When chef-restaurateur John DeLucie took the space, he kept part of the prior tenant’s name, but was less successful hanging on to all the furnishings and artifacts that gave the place its character."
Minetta before and after (you can't get in)
We've been watching this trend for a few years now--the "race" to snatch the city's classic places and claim them for the new guard. We witnessed the redo of Fedora ("fauxstalgia joints are tres chic these days," said Grub Street) and the cleansing of Minetta's (much of the city has become "like a theme park of the past, as these restored standards offer a vision of a lost bohemian New York--albeit with a well-heeled clientele and prices to match" said the Times), the "preservation" of CBGB, and much more.
It's bad enough that we lose our classics through death by natural causes, but now they're being hunted.
Previously:
Rocco
Bill's Gay 90s
Fedora
Minetta
New York
For those with short memories, the 89-year-old Village restaurant was pushed out last year, even though business was thriving. Torrisi signed a lease, with a massively hiked rent. Third-generation owner Antonio Da Silva fought and lost.
As one commenter says at the online article: "How can you write that they are paying tribute to the 'vanishing relics' when they are the reason one of the real relics (Roccos) vanished? I am very close with the former owner, and they were pushed out only to be replicated and paid homage to? I find it to be so distasteful."
On the next page of the magazine, there's a featurette entitled "History Buffs," about how trendy, monied restaurateurs "seem to be in a race to acquire New York’s oldest, most storied properties."
They write about the Beatrice Inn, which was already Vongerichtified years ago, and about the recent tragedy of Bill's Gay 90s.
Bill's landlord denied a new lease to the 88-year-old business, and handed it over to John DeLucie, who hoped to obtain the wonderful interior details. But owner Barbara Bart took the memorabilia with her--after a fight with the landlord who wanted it all for his new tenant. As New York wrote, "When chef-restaurateur John DeLucie took the space, he kept part of the prior tenant’s name, but was less successful hanging on to all the furnishings and artifacts that gave the place its character."
Minetta before and after (you can't get in)
We've been watching this trend for a few years now--the "race" to snatch the city's classic places and claim them for the new guard. We witnessed the redo of Fedora ("fauxstalgia joints are tres chic these days," said Grub Street) and the cleansing of Minetta's (much of the city has become "like a theme park of the past, as these restored standards offer a vision of a lost bohemian New York--albeit with a well-heeled clientele and prices to match" said the Times), the "preservation" of CBGB, and much more.
It's bad enough that we lose our classics through death by natural causes, but now they're being hunted.
Previously:
Rocco
Bill's Gay 90s
Fedora
Minetta
Comments
Post a Comment