March 17, 2011

Carnegie Deli @11:39 pm
Midtown
I haven’t been to midtown much since I started this and there’s a reason for that: Midtown sucks! Lots of business and tourist traps and I rarely go there unless I have to. But I want to be hitting all over New York with MAD, so tonight I looked around on Google of possible spots in midtown to go to. I stumbled upon the Carnegie Deli. I’ve never been there and it’s always loaded with tourists, so it might be an interesting MAD stop. It is a slice of New York history, they’ve been on the block since 1937. They have beer and they are open from 6:30 am to 4:00 am, so they get marks for that. How bad can it be? I guess we’ll find out.

The Carnegie Deli is at the corner of 55th Seventh Ave. Twenty five blocks straight up. It's not that cold out so we'll just walk it.

The Andrews Coffee Shop, once a thriving local chain of 15 coffee shops, now reduced to two, thanks to chains like Starbucks. You can read about the Andrews remainders in this fine piece at Jeremiah's Vanishing New York.

Memories of a night out with Fat Al and jco from the Half Empty Glass. Sadly, this too is closed.

If you'd like to open a Starbucks or 7-11 here, just call Jerry Collins. I wonder if he's related to either Phil or Tom? And did you know that Phil Collins announced he's retiring from making music? I heard it and it was so weird, you could almost feel the world stifling a collective yawn. Chilling.

Beauty...

And the Riese. Bah!

And here we are, The Carnegie Deli.

Just in case you forget where you are, it's spelled out in the coleslaw and potato salad as you enter. Handy and a little frightening all at the same time!

Love the black and white cookie!

And of course there's t-shirts here, adorned with a vegetarian's nightmare emblazoned on it.

Some of the people streaming in. The place was doing a brisk business.

I thought there'd be a counter or something I could sit at and just have a couple of beers, but there wasn't and I was told to take a table. Oh well, when in Rome, start roamin' I guess.

I ordered two beers, McSorley's style and this fine gentlemen served them up.

Since I wasn't eating, I took a photo of a neighboring tables sandwiches. A mountain of meat and I think they need to invest in bigger bread slices.

The sandwich kind of grossed me out and I was glad I stuck to a liquid dining option in the deli.

The place has a lot of chatter going on about where people are going and tomorrow's plans on seeing the Empire State Building and The Hershey's Store in Times Square. No one mentioned a Show World trip. Lots of people texting and checking their phones in here. Kind of headache inducing.

There's lots of photos on the walls of known and unknown people.

Once you look at the photo of Raul De Molina and the giant pickle, your Carnegie Deli experience is complete and you are allowed to exit. The forecast for repeated entrance to Carnegie Deli? Karen Carpenter slim to none, son. Goodnight everybody and see you tomorrow, after dark.

Review
Q. How do you get to Carnegie Hall?
A. Practice, practice, practice.

Q. How do you get to Carnegie Deli?
A. Katz’s, Katz’s, Katz’s.

Carnegie Deli
854 Seventh Ave @55th St.
212-757-2245

Further reading and listening: New York Magazine, Wikipedia, Alka Seltzer, Tourist Town.

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The Papaya Dialogues!

Yesterday I introduced this feature showing you my Twitter conversation with none other than New York's very own Papaya King. Here, the Papaya Dialogues continue with The King. Enjoy the banter!

To be continued!

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Some Things I Did Before Work Today
Bought tickets to Charlie Sheen’s Radio City Music Hall show.
Immediately felt a little dirty.
Took shower.
Put on The Raveonettes' Chain Gang of Love.
Checked Charlie Sheen’s Twitter page.

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Nightcap

I'm a five foot mirror for adoring himself,
Here's seven years bad luck (I wanna tell him.)

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