Postcards from a Lost City

A gallery of lost New York storefronts is preserved in old promotional postcards, given out by restaurants and other businesses in decades past.  Even as an avid collector of stuff like this, it never occurred to me that such an accidental archive might be out there.  Until one day, I chanced upon an old postcard featuring the neon marquee of Paddy's Clam House, formerly housed in the old Penn Terminal Hotel on 34th Street.  It dawned on me there might be more where that came from.

Paddy's Clam House / 215 W34th Street, Manhattan

Now after a few years of hunter-gathering, I have compiled a decent collection of these remnants from New York's lost neon past.  They fill an album that sits on my bookshelf as a sort of companion volume to my book New York Neon, and to James and Karla Murray's book Storefronts.  Intended to traverse intervals of space, today these cards more potently span distances of time.  Every single one of the shops and restaurants in this album is gone now, leaving behind just these postcards from a vanished city.

Horn & Hardart Automat / 57th Street and 6th Avenue, Manhattan

 

Solowey's Restaurant & Bar - "Never Closed" / 431-433 7th Avenue, Manhattan

Solowey's again.  It's a McDonald's now.

Topps Cafe & Bar / 42nd Street, "Largest and Friendliest Bar in Times Square" / 145 W42nd St., Manhattan

 

Toffenetti Restaurant - "1,000 seats for breakfast, lunch, dinner and after theatre" / 43rd and B'way, Manhattan

Drake's Restaurant Bar, "Opposite Gimbel's" / 116 W32nd Street, Manhattan

The Brass Rail, "An Eating Place of International Fame" / 7th Avenue at 49th Street, Manhattan

 

Lindy's Restaurant, "Favorite Eating and Drinking Spot of the Theatrical World" / Broadway at 51st St., Manhattan

Lou G. Siegel / 209 W38th Street, Manhattan (see last week's story on Lou G's)

The Center Theatre / 1236 Sixth Ave., Manhattan

Sal's Italian American Restaurant,  "An Eating Place of Distinction" / 751 Sterling Place, Brooklyn 

 

Chez Ami Furniture / 8402 18th Ave., Brooklyn 

Murray's Restaurant, "Radio Artists' Rendezvous" / Sixth Ave opposite Radio City, Manhattan

 

Ho-Ho Restaurant - "The Most Famous Chinese Restaurant in Times Square" / 789 7th Ave., Manhattan

Roth's Grill & Restaurant / 1599-1601 Broadway, Manhattan

 

Jimmy's Chop House & Clam Bar / 1973-75 Flatbush Ave., Brooklyn 

 

Harvey's Sea Food House / 409-411 3rd Avenue (at 34th Street), Manhattan

 

Fanny Farmer Candies / 50th Street at "Avenue of the Americas," Manhattan

Kelly's Stable, "At the Gateway to Swing Lane" / 137 W52nd Street, Manhattan

 

Hector's Cafeteria - "New York's Most Fabulous Self-Service Restaurants" / Times Square vicinity, Manhattan.

 

Luchow's Restaurant / 110-112 E14th St., Manhattan

Canton Village / 163 W49th Street, Manhattan

Lignan Restaurant / 2512 Broadway at 94th St., Manhattan

Roth's Grill - "The Most Famous Eating Place in Times Square" / 725 7th Avenue, Manhattan

Jack Delaney's, "Now Air-Conditioned" / 72 Grove Street, Manhattan

"The World Famous" Reuben's Restaurant, 6 E58th Street / Manhattan

Raymond's Fashion Shoppe - "Smart Dresses, Coats, Suits" / 14 Graham Ave., Williamsburg, Brooklyn

 

Queen of the Sea Restaurant "and the Excelsior Cocktail Lounge" / 45-12 Queens Boulevard, Sunnyside, Queens

 

Harvey's Chelsea Restaurant / 108 W18th St., Manhattan

NEON NEIGHBORHOOD WALKING TOUR: 

• My next Neon Walking Tour will take place on Sunday, Feb. 1, 2015.  New West Village itinerary!  Tickets available at the Municipal Art Society via this link (scroll down to "Neon Neighborhood").

IN OTHER NEON NEWS: 

• From downtown LA, a bit of a post-facto news item here on the re-lighting of the Globe Theatre marquee on South Broadway.  A really nice neon restoration story.

• Meanwhile, back in New York, the anticipation drags on regarding the fate of Smith's Bar on 8th Avenue in Midtown.