Diner's Journal | What a Block That Was
What a Block That Was
January 13, 2010 5:43 pm January 13, 2010 5:43 pm
Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times Rye bread in its many forms.
My mother called, reminding me that the name of her First Avenue butcher — where she used to buy tri-tip under a variety of names — was Wertheimer's, long since closed. (It could've been Wortheimer's, forgive me.)
A door or two away was Craig's, a real bakery making the kind of rye bread you can barely find any more, with a tough crust and a not-leaden crumb – it's long since closed. Right there was Vic's, an Italian-American restaurant that served fresh, real French fries in a paper bag, allowing school children to walk around with greasy, ketchup-sodden bags — long since closed. (I must say Vic's Italian food was unmemorable.)
On the other side of Wortheimer's was Jack's, where you could get a ham and cheese hero with real ham, real cheese and real bread, I mean practically a baguette — needless to say that's long since closed. There was another Jack's on that block (the first Jack's was a gentile, this one was a Jew), where you went for "appetizing," pickles in a barrel (five cents each), lox, and so on.
I could go on, but the point is this: First Avenue between 19th and 20th Streets, now not exactly a food desert but a place none of the food bloggers are flocking to, was once a block where you could shop and eat quite happily. (For good pizza, you had to go up a block, north of 20th.) Good food was once everywhere, even in the United States. But this goes back to the time when pigs were kept in Seacaucus.
As a postscript, I'm in touch with a half-dozen childhood friends who may "correct" some of the above details. Don't listen to them.
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You Should Have Seen First Avenue in Those Days