New in New York: Alexander Berardi Brings Springtime to Soho

By Mitch Broder

When you see the crowds gathering outside the Alexander Berardi boutique, you figure that either Berardi makes swell clothes or else he has bunnies hopping in the window.

Well, he does. Make swell clothes. And have bunnies hopping in the window. But he’s the first to accept that the crowds are drawn less by the clothes than by the bunnies.

Alexander Berardi is a rising star in fashion. The bunnies are rising stars in downtown window dressing. They are Jack and Miss Cooper, Holland lops, and lately each has been appearing separately. But alone or together they bring a warm wink to Soho, a place that could use more than one.

They live in a 3-by-4-foot pen with glass walls and fake grass, which they share with two headless models wearing the clothes that pay their rent. Throughout the day they get fresh vegetables, water, Sunaturals Timothy Hay, and more attention than a fashion star gets no matter how high he rises.

Their attention comes mostly from people, but their most dedicated admirer is an off-white, wiry labradoodle by the name of Rubio. He shows up each weekday at 4:15, plants himself in front of the window, and stares at the rabbit du jour for fifteen minutes straight.

All the photos are of Jack. This one is also of Rubio.

“It’s like Rubio’s ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s,’” said his walker, Wonderly White. “Honestly, he’s in love. That’s all I can say. He wishes no ill will to the bunny. He just wants to make friends and play, but rabbits don’t play with dogs. It’s an unrequited love. But he keeps hoping.”

Less tragically, the rabbits are admired by myriad little girls, many of whom bounce in to do what Rubio can only dream of. Two eight-year-olds arrived on their way home from school with a woman named Michelle Jassem. Michelle noted: “I’ve never bought anything here. We just come to visit the bunnies.”

Alexander Berardi had rabbits before he had a store. So he decided to create a store that was designed to accommodate rabbits. “I just thought it would be a good idea to bring them to work,” he told me. “Otherwise they’d be home alone all day. They’re our store sidekicks.”

Rabbit duty is shared by Christopher Kulukundis, the store manager, who appears to know as much about rabbits as he does about ready-to-wear. He gives them Brussels sprouts, broccoli, arugula, and carrots, along with the hay for their teeth, and regularly vacuums up the tangible evidence with a Dustbuster.

Originally, Jack and Miss Cooper shared the window, Christopher said. “They were inseparable. They would sleep on top of each other and clean each other.” But they took to quarreling, so now they take turns at the store, while undergoing marital counseling in the privacy of their home.

Some fans are disturbed by this. On a recent Jack day, a little girl worried that Miss Cooper might need her. “You get some characters,” Christopher said. “I’ve had some people come in just to sing to the bunnies. One woman couldn’t get Jack out of her mind and wrote him a pop song.”

So far, it’s hard to tell whether the rabbits are selling any clothes. But Alexander and Christopher foresee a payoff from those little girls.

“We have a joke,” Christopher said. “We’re going to be the most popular New York fashion line for Prom Night 2020.”

Look into Alexander Berardi, 174 Prince Street, near Sullivan Street, in New York City.

Strangely New York: Leghead Knows What to Do With the Body

By Mitch Broder

I saw a man with four legs, and two of them were on a skateboard.

The other two were growing out of his head.

Actually, they were growing out of the butt growing out of his head. Of the two likely nicknames for himself, he was wise enough to choose Leghead.

His lower legs were on the skateboard because he’s been skateboarding since he was nine. His upper legs were growing out of his head because he is an artist. He makes art using fiberglass female body parts as his canvas. He sells his works on the street. He is always symmetrically leggy.

He made other kinds of art until about a year ago, when he found discarded mannequins outside the Prada store at Broadway and Prince Street. He did what any of us would do: Take them home and enrobe them in comic-book pages, subway maps, paint, and wheatpaste.

Mysteriously, he discovered that a leg unit fit his head. “I did a collage on it,” he writes on his Web site, “and it was my new hat.” He skates with it, and people photograph him. He told me that it isn’t heavy. He didn’t offer to let me try it on. I was disappointed and yet grateful.

Leghead is usually on Prince, near the scene of his rebirth, along with an alfresco gallery of his creations. His pieces range in price from around $100 for a leg to around $4,000 for a body. Torsos are in the middle.

That makes him high-end. And in that sense, you could say that he’s no different than neighbors like Ralph Lauren, Michael Kors, and J. Crew.

But Leghead revives the street theater once so common in New York. He’s a character, a breed that seems headed for extinction.

He’s fun to look at. He’s nice to talk to. His art is skillful, if gruesome.

And though he’s expensive, at least Leghead is not another mall chain store.

Yet.

Have some kicks with Leghead, on the street.

Emilio's Ballato Restaurant: His Signatures Are His Signature

By Mitch Broder

Every restaurant in New York City has an autograph from Ernie Anastos.

Emilio’s Ballato Restaurant has an autograph from everyone else.

Actually, Ernie’s pretty trim for a guy who’s eaten at 25,000 places, but that’s a topic for another post. The point here is that Emilio’s is a place where celebrities can hide from the world — after which they can see to it that the world knows they were there.

It makes sense if you’re a celebrity, and it makes sense if you’re Emilio Vitolo. He’s proud of his clients, so he serves them, then takes their names. On his walls are four giant canvases covered with the signatures of famous people from assorted disciplines and assorted eras.

The canvases are about five feet high and two feet wide. Two are behind glass; two are exposed. The exposed ones are the works in progress. Among the signatures are those of Tom Hanks, Meryl Streep, Denzel Washington, Whoopi Goldberg, Brad Pitt, Kiefer Sutherland, Drew Barrymore, and Alex Rodriguez.

“These people, they come here, they eat,” Emilio says. “Nobody bothers them. Nobody cares.” The canvases, he says, are “a memory that when I go, I leave to my kids, to show that I met these beautiful people. They could go anywhere in the world, but they come to me.”

One reason is that he’s not so easy to come to. Emilio’s is a single restaurant that’s in at least six different neighborhoods. New York magazine says it’s in the East Village, Time Out New York has it in both Little Italy and Chinatown, Citysearch calls it NoLita, and Yelp puts it in NoHo, while Emilio himself maintains that he’s in SoHo.

Wherever it is, it’s hidden and homey, with distressed walls and mirrors, and soothing song from the likes of Sinatra and Roselli. While I was there, Emilio insisted I eat. I had Tagliatelle alla Bolognese and warm prosciutto bread. The food was so good that it made me forget my planned lunch of Katz’s hot dogs.

 

Emilio has given the restaurant its current old look, but it really is old; John Ballato opened it in 1956. Emilio is the third owner, and he takes his stewardship seriously. That’s why he didn’t ask me to sign one of the canvases.

I understood. It didn’t hurt my feelings.

 Much.

And anyway, I know that my status will change after my post about Ernie Anastos.

Sign in at Emilio’s Ballato Restaurant, at 55 East Houston Street, between Mulberry and Mott streets, in the neighborhood of your choice in Manhattan.

Fanelli Café: Can a 164-Year-Old New York City Bar Survive Me?

By Mitch Broder

I recently had my first lunch at Fanelli Café. I like to give a new place a century and a half to settle in.

If the findings of Richard McDermott are correct, there has indeed been lunch of some sort at the site of Fanelli since 1847. McDermott made it his hobby to pinpoint the ages of the city’s old bars. He put Fanelli second after Bridge Café, born in 1794, the year of the Whiskey Rebellion.

When I got to Fanelli I saw seven doors, which made me feel welcome. I chose the two under the transom that faces the street corner. The glass bears the name of Nicholas Gerdes, who sold the bar 110 years ago. I was too late for his food. Also for the Fanellis’. They sold the bar 30 years ago.

My corner. I'm not in the picture.

Nevertheless, I’d heard that the place still has a great burger. I sat in a room with yellow tin walls and wooden chairs that could predate Nicholas. It was cozy. I ordered the burger. It came, and it looked just fine — except that the bun was riddled with pulverized onion.

I don’t like onion. Even pulverized. I told the waitress, and she offered to exchange my bun for a lobster-roll bun. I accepted. She also assured me that I was not the first with this problem, which was a surprise, as was the lobster-roll bun, since Fanelli doesn’t sell lobster rolls.

The burger was delicious, though for a while I was craving lobster. I wondered why they serve everybody onion buns without asking. I spoke to the owner, Sasha Noe. He was sympathic, but he appeared to think that I actually was the first with this problem.

And yet he was troubled. We spent some time talking of the bar’s history. McDermott’s research shows that Fanelli began as a grocery, but it points out that there was a fine line then between “grocery” and “saloon.” A succession of people became the saloon’s keepers, including Gerdes from 1878 to 1902. Michael Fanelli took over in 1922. Sasha’s family replaced the Fanellis in 1982.

But as we talked, Sasha kept coming back to the onions. I felt bad. I’d had my lobster bun. I tried to reassure him. He had the second-oldest bar in New York City, I reminded him. But he still seemed wounded. If you happen to make onionless burger buns, this might be the time to pitch him.

I said goodbye to Sasha and again mentioned that I loved his burger.

“Now you got me thinkin’,” he said. “I’m not gonna sleep tonight.”

Choose your bun at Fanelli Café, 94 Prince Street, at Mercer Street, in Manhattan.

Strangely New York: Our Loving City Still Has Its Flower Children

By Mitch Broder

You probably don’t expect to be welcomed to New York City by perky girls handing you flowers. And you shouldn’t.

That is, unless you happen to emerge in New York City from the Spring Street subway station. Then you should.

If you step around the railing and face 65 Spring, at least one girl will give you a flower and say, “This is for you.” She will not ask for anything in return. You, though, can ask for whatever you want. Curb your expectations.

The first time I got a flower I imagined I’d been specially chosen because the perky girls saw in me what so many others had missed. Then I noticed the baskets stuffed with hundreds of other flowers and realized that anyone who shows up gets one, whether he’s special or not.

The scene of this unconditional love is a store called Tierra, which was born on the Canary Islands yet found its way to SoHo. It’s a woodsy little place dripping with gaily colored accoutrements including jewelry, bags, and scarves, made by presumably perky artists.

Diana Moreno, the store manager, told me that the flower idea came from the store founder, Francisco Javier Rahim Gil. “His philosophy is that to be able to get anything back, you have to give,” she said. “The flower is a welcoming gift. It’s easy to connect with somebody when you’re gifting them for no reason.”

It worked for me. Even though I knew that Tierra would prefer something back, getting a flower from a smiling woman made me feel better. 

The flower was a fake daisy, but within hours, I swear it wilted. I also swear it smelled, and Diana later confirmed that it did. “It’s dipped in an Asian fragrance,” she said. “It’s top-secret. The smell lasts over three months. You can always smell it and remember us.”

It’s just the kind of thing I would do.

Sniff out Tierra at 65 Spring Street, between Crosby and Lafayette streets, in Manhattan.

Signing On: Is This Bakery Trying to Be Something It's Not?

By Mitch Broder

Some New Yorkers are still disturbed that Vesuvio still says “Vesuvio” when it’s been almost three years since it was Vesuvio.

I’m more disturbed that it sells chocolate-chip cookies for $2.50 and doesn’t fill them with enough chocolate chips.

Vesuvio was an Italian bread bakery that opened in 1920. It got famous for its Italian bread but more famous for its façade. It had the cute little storefront you imagine every little store in New York City once had. It still does. Except that the façade is now a façade.

In 2008 Vesuvio closed; in 2009 it reopened as a Birdbath Neighborhood Green Bakery. The people inside tell you it’s Birdbath. The window outside tells you it’s Vesuvio. Needless to say, this confuses tourists. Needful to say, it confuses New Yorkers.

Small clues to the new identity await the keen observer. For one thing, Birdbath doesn’t sell Italian bread. For another, what it does sell isn’t particularly Italian. But it doesn’t exactly go out of its way to set the customers straight. The confusion, as played out among patrons, is sometimes comical.

Yelp, for instance, lists Vesuvio as closed, but the “reviewers” are perplexed. One wrote: “I work right around the corner, and not only are they definitely NOT closed, but they still have the best cookies ever.” Another wrote: “Why does it say closed? I don’t understand. I had a cookie here on Friday.”

Some people commend the bakery owner for preserving the vintage storefront. Some people vilify him for exploiting the vintage storefront. Jeremiah Moss of Jeremiah’s Vanishing New York distills the conflict: “… in the presence of these preservations and simulations,” he writes, “we’re not sure what to feel.”

He’s right. I like seeing the old store the way it was, but it mocks me because it doesn’t deliver what it seems to promise.

Just like the cookie. Sure, it’s crunchy outside and chewy inside. But without the imagined load of chips, it leaves you a little empty.

Evaluate the Birdbath Bakery at 160 Prince Street, between West Broadway and Thompson Street, in Manhattan.