Brooklyn Love and Preservation Stuff
Saw that one or two more buildings that were in Coney Island since the beginning of time have been knocked down to make way for the new Coney Island, which is being portrayed as an amusement area but may include tall residential buildings right in the heart of the traditional amusement area. Thor Equities, which is trying to "develop" the area has released colorful illustrations of what they propose, amusement-wise, with the apartment complexes rendered transparently, as if they are in some overlapping dimension -- not our normal plane of existence -- and therefore won't trouble us none.
The city, still Manhattan-centric in outlook (Bloomberg's a rich East Sider from Massachusetts -- it's probable that anything real he knows about the city, he's only learned since taking office), seems to believe that any time a crane is operated in the outerboroughs, it's a good thing -- no need to worry about details. So, there's good reason to worry that yet another unique part of the city will be swirled into the homogenized New York notion that has, since the Giuliani years, prevailed.
I worried, in this post, that there was a phenomenon potentially establishing itself whereby venerable Brooklyn eateries expand into Manhattan and then both the Manhattan branch and the original go under.
Really, I only know of one example; the one I cited -- Lundy's. And -- as I wrote -- it doesn't seem like Junior's will suffer the same fate. But since I wrote that post, I learned it's been rumored we may soon lose southern Brooklyn's Roll-n-Roaster.
Most New Yorker's only know Roll-n-Roaster from the middle-of-the-night TV ads they used to run:
"We're not so fast -- Roll-n-Roaster
We're not so fast -- Roll-n-Roaster
We're takin' our time, makin' everything just right
Wakin' up your appetite
We give you real roast beef, bigger burgers
Cooked the wa-ay you want
At Roll-n-Roaster, the not so fast
Fast food restaurant.
We're not so fast, Roll-n-Roaster, We're not so fast
Roll-n-Roaster . . . (continues in background)"
(I wrote the lyrics from memory, but I bet I'm pretty close, if not right on.)
That happy song was sung, in the commercial, by uniformed employees -- women mostly or exclusively -- roaming the large, free-standing, classic fast food structure that housed the sole iteration of this restaurant. You'd think it was to look at it but this was not part of a chain. The Sheepshead Bay location was the only place in the world where you could get the delicious, melt on your tongue, roast beef sandwiches they specialized in.
Of course, despite the fact that I lived pretty close to it, I almost never went there. So, I didn't know about the grilled onions or the Italian bakery rolls they used until they opened a branch a couple of years ago in Manhattan, in the East Village.
But boy, once I tasted the tender, rare roast beef prepared in their special way, I was at that there Manhattan branch all the time. (I even knew which table would allow my laptop to access an open wi-fi signal.)
And then one day, as DeNiro's Tribeca Film Festival bustled at the Loew's multiplex across the street (not anywhere near Tribeca, I should add) they were gone. I guess they couldn't cut it in the heart of the city.
But the Sheepshead Bay Roll-n-Roaster lived!!!
Now, I hear the land has been sold and it's cooking on borrowed time. (See? Expands into Manhattan, then closes everywhere.)
I know. It is sitting on valuable real estate in the resurgent old-time fishing village that is Sheepshead Bay. But Lundy's and R-n-R, which represented different eras in the community of shanties and shellfish shacks, for them to both be gone . . .
It's unfortunate.
But lest I be accused of resisting any and all change, let me say that, as long as the Lundy's building is maintained, I think history and justice are served.
Roll-n-Roaster is charming and has good food but it will not be a tragedy of the highest order to see it go.
I would gladly have traded it for the protection of that mid-19th century dry dock in Red Hook that's to be supplanted by an Ikea.
And let's scale back that Ratner/Gehry project in Prospect Heights.
And develop Coney Island in way that respects its glorious history.
For those things, I can give up a Roll-n-Roaster san-a-wich.
(Anyway, I hear there's someplace owned by a cousin or something on Staten Island that serves the same things.)
__________________________________
10 February, 2007 @ 18:23:30 GMT
http://blogs.chortle.co.uk/andrewjlederer
The city, still Manhattan-centric in outlook (Bloomberg's a rich East Sider from Massachusetts -- it's probable that anything real he knows about the city, he's only learned since taking office), seems to believe that any time a crane is operated in the outerboroughs, it's a good thing -- no need to worry about details. So, there's good reason to worry that yet another unique part of the city will be swirled into the homogenized New York notion that has, since the Giuliani years, prevailed.
I worried, in this post, that there was a phenomenon potentially establishing itself whereby venerable Brooklyn eateries expand into Manhattan and then both the Manhattan branch and the original go under.
Really, I only know of one example; the one I cited -- Lundy's. And -- as I wrote -- it doesn't seem like Junior's will suffer the same fate. But since I wrote that post, I learned it's been rumored we may soon lose southern Brooklyn's Roll-n-Roaster.
Most New Yorker's only know Roll-n-Roaster from the middle-of-the-night TV ads they used to run:
"We're not so fast -- Roll-n-Roaster
We're not so fast -- Roll-n-Roaster
We're takin' our time, makin' everything just right
Wakin' up your appetite
We give you real roast beef, bigger burgers
Cooked the wa-ay you want
At Roll-n-Roaster, the not so fast
Fast food restaurant.
We're not so fast, Roll-n-Roaster, We're not so fast
Roll-n-Roaster . . . (continues in background)"
(I wrote the lyrics from memory, but I bet I'm pretty close, if not right on.)
That happy song was sung, in the commercial, by uniformed employees -- women mostly or exclusively -- roaming the large, free-standing, classic fast food structure that housed the sole iteration of this restaurant. You'd think it was to look at it but this was not part of a chain. The Sheepshead Bay location was the only place in the world where you could get the delicious, melt on your tongue, roast beef sandwiches they specialized in.
Of course, despite the fact that I lived pretty close to it, I almost never went there. So, I didn't know about the grilled onions or the Italian bakery rolls they used until they opened a branch a couple of years ago in Manhattan, in the East Village.
But boy, once I tasted the tender, rare roast beef prepared in their special way, I was at that there Manhattan branch all the time. (I even knew which table would allow my laptop to access an open wi-fi signal.)
And then one day, as DeNiro's Tribeca Film Festival bustled at the Loew's multiplex across the street (not anywhere near Tribeca, I should add) they were gone. I guess they couldn't cut it in the heart of the city.
But the Sheepshead Bay Roll-n-Roaster lived!!!
Now, I hear the land has been sold and it's cooking on borrowed time. (See? Expands into Manhattan, then closes everywhere.)
I know. It is sitting on valuable real estate in the resurgent old-time fishing village that is Sheepshead Bay. But Lundy's and R-n-R, which represented different eras in the community of shanties and shellfish shacks, for them to both be gone . . .
It's unfortunate.
But lest I be accused of resisting any and all change, let me say that, as long as the Lundy's building is maintained, I think history and justice are served.
Roll-n-Roaster is charming and has good food but it will not be a tragedy of the highest order to see it go.
I would gladly have traded it for the protection of that mid-19th century dry dock in Red Hook that's to be supplanted by an Ikea.
And let's scale back that Ratner/Gehry project in Prospect Heights.
And develop Coney Island in way that respects its glorious history.
For those things, I can give up a Roll-n-Roaster san-a-wich.
(Anyway, I hear there's someplace owned by a cousin or something on Staten Island that serves the same things.)
__________________________________
10 February, 2007 @ 18:23:30 GMT
http://blogs.chortle.co.uk/andrewjlederer
posted by Andrew J. Lederer at 1:36 PM
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