Newsletter 9 - May 2000
We're sorry to say that after June 2000,
because of changes in our service provider's operations and a host
of other circumstances, we were forced to discontinue publication of
what -- we thought -- was a information packed digest. We hope to be
able to resume sometime in the future
Contents
1. Our Apologies
2. Events
3. Cabaret & Jazz
4. Street Fairs & Feasts
5. Parades
6. Music & Dance
7. Coming Up
8. "New York's New Yorkiest Place"
9. Good Eats Cheap - Cafe Habana
1. Our Apologies
We haven't been able to get a newsletter out
since our St Patrick's Day issue. It seems like we've been plagued
by problems. The company that handles our mailing list activities
was beset by gremlins for an extended period and we were unable to
e-mail the newsletter. That would have been somewhat of an excuse if
we had even gotten the newsletter written
In the past couple of months some of the major
search engines have been changing the way they rank pages in their
results. A large part of our traffic was lost and we had to go in
and change all of our pages. The changes won't be readily
noticeable, they've entailed changing a few words here and there,
adding some text and fiddling with the HTML code behind the pages.
We had to play with over 1,000 pages so it was quite a time
consuming task. Hopefully it will pay off in increased site visitors
and maybe enough money to pay the rent!
That brings us to the "New and Improved
Jim's Deli New York City Guide Newsletter." Why new and
improved? Each week we will deliver to your mailbox a compilation of
New York City events. The newsletter will focus on activities for
the coming week and preview major events in the coming months. We
think this will make it a more immediately useful tool. We'll also
throw in anything else that grabs our fancy and think might be of
interest to newsletter readers. For an example of our new
format, just read on
2. Events
Thru Jun 4th The Chinese Peony Show
continues at the New York Botanical Garden. This is one of Susie's
favorites! See peony varieties such as Tipsy Imperial Concubine,
Better Than Jade With Triple Magic, and Great Winged Butterfly. All
even better than their names
May 27th thru May 29th The Japanese
Hill-and-Pond Garden at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden reopens
You can find details, last minute listings and
info on what's coming up at our New
York City Events Guide
3. Cabaret & Jazz
Lanie Kazan appears thru May
27th at Feinstein's at the Regency. The weekend is big for jazz
fans: The Eliane Elias Trio is at Iridium; Paquito
D'Rivera and his Quartet are at the Blue Note; the Joey
Calderazzo Trio is at Sweet Basil; Victor Goines, Farid
Baron, Rodney Whitaker & Winard Harper are at the Village
Vanguard; and David O'Rourke and Lewis Nash's Celtic Jazz
Collective are at the Jazz Standard
Set sail with Angela Bofil
on the Seaport Music Cruise, May 25th and catch Buster Williams
& Something More at Birdland May 25th thru May 27th
We don't as yet have a separate Cabaret &
Jazz Guide (like much else it's in the works), but you can find all
the details about who's playing where when at our New
York City Events Guide
4. Street Fairs & Feasts
Find details of all of your favorite street
fairs, feast, festivals and carnivals at our Street
Fair & Feast Guide
The streets are alive! Thru May 29th the Feast
of St Anthony of Gioviazzo is on Mott Street in Little Italy. The
Carnival of the Bronx Puerto Rican Day Parade & Festival
runs from Thursday thru Monday on 182nd Street in The Bronx
Saturday festivals include the Caring
Community Street Fair at Washington Square North and the Safe
Haven & Two Bridges Neighborhood Council Festival on 3rd
Avenue
The Kiwanis Club of Sheepshead Bay holds
forth on Emmons in Brooklyn Saturday and Sunday, while the downtown
art crowd gather in Washington Square for the Washington Square
Outdoor Art Exhibit
One of the places Susie is sure to hit on Sunday
is the Turtle Bay Association Street Fair on 2nd Avenue
between 43rd & 55th Streets. Also on Sunday are the Safe
Haven West Side Basketball League & Coalition for a Liveable
West Side POB Street Fair, Broadway between 72nd Street &
86th Street; the CONO Street Festival, 8th Avenue between
39th Street & 49th Street in Brooklyn; and the Loisaida
Carnival on Avenue C between 4th Street & 12th Street
The holiday weekend ends with the Innovative
Community Enterprises Street Fair on Madison Avenue between 42nd
Street & 57th Street; and the Broadway Merchants &
Professionals Association Festival, on Broadway between Crescent
Street & 47th Street in Queens
Get all the times and details for your
favorite street fairs, feast, festivals and carnivals at our Street
Fair & Feast Guide
5. Parades
Only one parade this holiday weekend, the Brooklyn
Memorial Day Parade on Monday. The parade starts at 11:00A at
3rd Avenue and 80th Street in Bay Ridge
For more details and to preview upcoming marches
check out our New
York City Parade Guide
6. Music & Dance
The New
York Philharmonic performs its Shostakovich's Heroic Leningrad
Symphony program Thursday, Friday and Saturday, then tops the
holiday off with a free Memorial Day Concert at the Cathedral of St
John the Divine
The New
York City Ballet performs each day except Monday. Highlights are
Dance Theater of Harlem Tribute ( Thursday, Saturday & Sunday);
the All Ballanchine Program on Friday; and Glass Pieces on Tuesday
The American
Ballet Theater performs each day except Sunday. Starting Friday,
the company showcases its ever popular Romeo and Juliet
7. Coming Up
Broadway is slow at the start of a new season as
it gets ready for the Tony Awards June 4th at 8:00P. Are the Drama
Desk Awards harbingers of this year's Tonys? You be the judge.
You can find this years Drama Desk Award winners and all the Tony
nominations at our Broadway
Theater Guide
Also coming up in June:
Rosemary Clooney is at Feinstein's at the
Regency and Bobby Short opens his summer run at Cafe Carlyle.
The Bell Atlantic Jazz Festival 2000 riffs from June 1st thru
June 11th
Award Winning Roses
is at the New York Botanical Garden. The Harley-Davidson Bikers
Ride for Cancer through Queens & Brooklyn and Penn &
Teller make magic Again! at the Beacon Theater
Don Henley's Inside Job
Tour runs at Radio City Music Hall and everybody runs in the Avon
Women's 5K Mini Marathon June 10th. Audra McDonald
headlines a benefit concert for Gay Men's Health Crisis at Town Hall
on June and The Boss rides into town with the E Street
Band for a string of shows at Madison Square Garden
The bad, old boys of tennis come to
town. Watch as John McEnroe, Bjorn Borg and Jimmy Connors
take to a court in Central Park's Wollman rink
Find all the details and more good
stuff coming up at our New
York City Events Guide
8. "New York's New Yorkiest
Place"
"I WANT ALL THE EMPLOYEES, WHO ARE
STUBBORN, TO KNOW THAT I OWN THE STORK CLUB AND HOW I WANT THINGS
DONE, MUST BE DONE THAT WAY. I WILL NOT STAND ANYONE WHO BUCKS ME.
WHEN ANYONE THINKS THEY CAN DO THINGS THEIR WAY AND NOT MINE, THEY
CAN DO THEIR THINKING ELSEWHERE. EVEN IF I'M WRONG -- I HAVE A RIGHT
TO BE IF IT'S MY WISH. I WANT MY ORDERS CARRIED OUT"
That's how Sherman Billingsley addressed his
employees in a memo posted in the pantry of the Stork Club
Billingsley, an Oklahoma native who had served
time in Leavenworth Penitentiary for bootlegging, came to New York
in the 1920s to seek his fortune. After assembling a nest egg from a
drug store he owned (with bootleg booze going out the back door) and
various real estate deals, Billingsley opened a speakeasy on 58th
Street to capitalize on the windfalls available during Prohibition
With repeal came a move to new quarters at 3
East 53rd Street. Over the next 30 years the club would epitomize
New York's Cafe Society, attracting names who drank and dined on the
cuff and the suburbanites and tourists who paid the bills and
supplied the club's profits. In Stork Club: America's Most Famous
Nightspot and the Lost World of Cafe Society, New York Times
arts reporter Ralph Blumenthal regales readers with a
behind-the-scenes account of the rise and fall of America's most
enchanting night spot. Dropping names -- we lost count at more than
100 in just the first few pages of the book -- Blumenthal highlights
the club's glamour heyday during the war years of 1940 through 1945
against a backdrop of dubious connections with the mob (through
Frank Costello), the feds (J Edgar Hoover), and assorted fascist and
Nazi sympathizers (Errol Flynn, Ernst Hanfstaengl)
Walter Winchell put the Stork Club on the map
with his "New York's most New Yorkiest place" blurb in his
newspaper column. Attracted by Billingsley's largesse with free food
and drink, the glitterati of the day used the club as a private
retreat, a place to wine and dine friends, associates and romantic
interests. The advent of World War II brought an inpouring of titled
folks escaping the strictures on the Continent. Tight purse strings
and a chance to hobnob with American theater and film royalty soon
had the sparkle from family jewels bouncing among the mirrors of the
club's main room. The War also brought men in uniform, welcomed by
stars like Joan Blondell, Lana Turner, Peter Lorre, Claudette
Colbert, Greer Garson, and Gertrude Lawrence, who bought them drinks
at the bar (in exchange for publicity shots).
Blumenthal's sets his very entertaining work
firmly into the evolving social situations of the changing decades:
The domestic politics and Fiorello Laguardia's attempted reforms of
the '30s; Roosevelt's foreign policy and debates leading up to
America's entry into World War II; the nascent civil rights movement
of the '50s; and the disillusionment of the '60s, following the
assassination of JFK and the US's involvement in Vietnam
Bottom Line Heartily recommended. Stork
Club can be read as a light entertainment filled with
entertainment history and gossip, as a chronicle of New York City's
Cafe Society, or as a history of the social changes during the
decades spanning the middle of the 20th Century
[Old link] to go to Barnes & Noble and read
a sample chapter of Stork Club. Good news for Manhattan
residents! Barnes & Noble now offers same day delivery for
orders placed online. We ordered our copy of Stork Club in
the morning and it was waiting for us when we got home at 6:30P. And
Stork Club is now discounted 30%.
Note The brownstones that housed the
Stork Club were purchased by CBS and destroyed. 3 East 53rd Street
is now the home to Paley Park, the City's first pocket park and a
quiet oasis amidst the hustle and bustle of Midtown
9. Good Eats Cheap - Cafe Habana
Last week the New York Times reported on
the rapidly rising prices of Manhattan restaurant prices.
Highlighted were a 26 ounce strip steak for $49.95 at Del Frisco's
steak (and that is just the steak), and a Dover sole for $46
at the Four Season (again, just the sole). Della Femina offers a
veal rib chop for $44. Two persons can enjoy a rack of lamb at
Limoncello for an almost reasonable sounding $72
It doesn't have to be that way!
There are plenty of reasonably-priced places in
Manhattan to chow down without having to take out a second mortgage.
We happened to stumble across one last week.
Cafe Habana is a cramped, always crowded
diner-style eatery on Prince Street, one block off the Bowery.
Offered is some of the freshest Cuba-con-Mexican food in town -- and
everything at good prices. The not very long menu contains a
selection of Mexican-style appetizers, including yummy taquitos with
char-grilled as ordered flank steak inside; moist, nicely spiced
shrimp croquettes; and soposetos, little round corncakes topped with
three varieties of sauce. Judging by the number of orders leaving
the tiny cooking space, the most popular item on the menu is grilled
corn, two ears char-grilled, sprinkled with salt, chili powder,
Mexican cheese and served with wedges of lime. Throw in a Dos Equis
and that's dinner for Susie!
Entrees are equally fresh and good. The skirt
steak, grilled Cuban style, tastes like beef, juicy beef. Shrimp are
prepared in a couple of the usual Latin ways, sautéed with chili,
sautéed with garlic or baked in a casserole; good, fresh, priced
right. The only soup we tried was the gazpacho and it was a winner
-- nicely seasoned tomato broth with right-sized chunks of
vegetables. Another winner. Burgers are hearty and cooked just the
way you want.
And then we come to Cafe Habana's Cuban
sandwich. It's filled with ham, moist, garlic-tinged roast pork and
a layer of cheese then grilled in a sandwich press. Kind of like an
adult grilled ham and cheese sandwich. It's a killer, one of the
best we've eaten. Don't ask for mayo or mustard with this
The tab for good food? Appetizers are mostly
priced under $5; portions are ample enough for two, three might make
a light meal or hearty snack for two people. hearty sandwiches are
$6 to $8; entrees are generally priced under $15 with a couple
just under $10. Cafe Habana carries a full line of Mexican beers and
a large selection of Latin beverages and sodas
Bottom Line The best dishes are as good
as in the best Mexico City restaurants. The grilled corn reminds Jim
of noshing his way through the food stands in Chapultepec Park.
Authentic, good, cheap
Cafe Habana | 17 Prince Street | at Elizabeth Street
212-625-2001
Mon thru Fri 7:00A thru 12:00M | Fri Sat 9:00A
thru 12:00M
See you next week,
Susie and Jim
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