La Parisienne

Yesterday, Jeremiah's Vanishing New York reported the disappearance of La Parisienne, a classic New York coffee shop (young folks would call it a "diner") at 910 Seventh Avenue in Manhattan.  Despite its grandiose name, La Parisienne was a bastion of affordability, comfort and normality, hidden in plain sight just around the corner from Carnegie Hall.  

La Parisienne, July 28, 2010. (T. Rinaldi) 

The restaurant is featured in my book New York Neon with the following caption: "La Parisienne offers a haven of down-to-earth hospitality in a part of midtown Manhattan where ultra-high rents leave almost no room for even remotely ephemeral parts of the urban landscape.  Open since 1950, La Parisienne's sign appeared roughly two decades later."


July 28, 2010. (T. Rinaldi) 

The sign featured a jaunty script rendered in tricolor-esque red and blue neon, swaddled in anodized aluminum channel letters; my best guess is that it corresponds to a 1968 sign permit on file at the Buildings Dept, though there are also permits dating from the late 70s for this address.  The manager (when asked by me) had no idea when the sign went up.  The restaurant itself dated its origins to 1950 (though no establishment by that name turns up at this address in my copy of the 1954 Manhattan Yellow Pages).


July 28, 2010. (T. Rinaldi) 

With middle-finger towers of oligarch housing rising all around it, even the most naive among us had to know this place was on borrowed time.  Au revoir, Parisienne: borrowed time expired for a last sliver of New York's New York in a part of town where the city seems less itself than ever.

SEE ALSO: A Parisienne send-off at eater.com.