Ahoy New York Tours and Tasting: Little Italy

On a gorgeous day in April, my assistant and I had the pleasure of joining a New York City Food Tour of Little Italy and Chinatown. We could not have ordered a more perfect weather day. Sunny, no humidity and no jacket required. I have taken a few walking tours, and I must say, I highly recommend them. The owner of Ahoy New York Food Tours, Alana, told me locals have been known to take her food tour. It is a great way to spend your time while in the city.  

This was my first food tour, so I was very eager to check it out. I have visited Little Italy before, Chinatown was a place I had not explored that much on my own. There was so much to see in this tour, I am breaking it into 2 posts, one showing the Little Italy section and another showing the Chinatown section. Please click HERE for the Chinatown post of the tour.

A few words to describe this tour to me would be: fun, informative, organized, classy, unique, and of course, tasty!! Here we go, make sure you have some comfy shoes on, this is a good 3 hour walking tour: 

We begin at the infamous, Mulberry Street 

There is our group with Alana across the street learning some history about how the Italians came to New York. I love the light pole in Italy colors, Red - White - Green !! 

I loved this little smart car parked in front of one of the restaurants in Little Italy. The best type of car to have if you live in New York City for parking alone. 

Our first stop was Alleva Dairy which has been in business for over 100 years. 

A true italian superstore, the smells alone will drive you insane! We have a few of these types in my hometown and my mom has quite a field day when we visit!! 

Everything you find in here is homemade which makes it about as authentic as you can get. Our sample here below was the Fresh UnSalted Mozzarella and Prosciutto. You will never buy any cheese from a plastic enclosure again once you try this. It was pure heaven. Everyone on the tour was just so amazed at the flavor of the fresh mozzarella. 

If the NYPD stops in here for a bite, you know it has to be good!! 

Our next stop was DiPalo's, similar to Alleva, a true italian superstore. As you are being shown these wonderful places, Alana gives you a fabulous history of the foods you are sampling. She tells you the background stories behind neighborhoods that are over 100 years old.

The inside of this shop, well you can just imagine. We sampled 2 kinds of italian cheeses here. I apologize but they did not make it for me to photograph them. Plus it is kind of hard to photograph cheese. There is nothing like fresh, homemade cheese. Period. If you use cheese in a green canister, any italian will say, Shame on You! Grate your own when you are going to use it, you will notice such a difference.

My assistant, Jean, found this wonderful jar of Nutella. It was huge and cost $65.99, size was 5 kil or 4.4 pounds. Would be great if you baked with it, as well as right off a spoon, like many people do. Hail to Nutella!! 

The next stop is Ferrara. Started in 1892. Cannoli. Lobster Tail. Biscotti. I hope you are not reading this on an empty stomach. Just remember, I warned you!! 

There is seating available here as it is a full cafe. You can order panini for lunch but I would highly suggest some type of pastry. Baba Rum with cannoli filling would make you a very happy person.

Alana is here with the pastry of all pastries.....mini cannoli. We were treated to one of Ferrara's most famous desserts. The filling is amazing, thick and not too sweet. The shell is crisp and has a crunch when you bite into it. It is the ultimate decadence. Ahoy New York Tours and Tasting knows how to run a food tour.

We will now take a bit of a break and a new post will be coming up with the rest of the tour of Chinatown. This tour was enough food for your breakfast and lunch for the day. Bringing a bottle of water is a good idea and is suggested on their website. You are also given a map of the area, a list of the places you visited if you wish to go back on your own, and coupons as well. You are not allowed to purchase items in any of the shops while on the tour, as it may slow down the tour time. Having your map makes it easy to walk back to the places you really enjoyed and make some purchases. 

I want to thank Alana at Ahoy New York Tours and Tasting for the 2 complimentary tickets for this tour. It was a pure pleasure of 3 hours and you will be so thrilled at the end of the day. What I also really liked about this tour is the maximum people on the tour is about 12. It is nice to have a smaller group with you, easier to keep everyone moving on a timely basis. You can also ask the tour guide questions much easier than when you have a bus load of 45 people. Ahoy New York Tours and Tasting can also put together a tour for your group, which I think is fun, whether is a group that works together or family on vacation in NYC. A really fun way to experience New York City in a very unique way. 

You can order tickets HERE for your tour. 

Don't forget to enter the Ultimate Mad Men Cookbook Giveaway HERE 

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Grablicks Ice Cream Parlor

Upon dining at a local seafood restaurant, loved these vintage items from a ice cream parlor which has since closed named Grablicks. These photos were taken with my cell phone, but just wanted to show you how wonderful these vintage pieces were. I just love the old-fashioned idea of an ice cream parlor, like in the 1950's (which I unfortunately was not able to enjoy, a bit early for me) as so much fun. I love the old fashioned ice cream scoop.  

The vintage bottles of milk are fabulous, and we actually have a local dairy who sells their milk in these types of bottles. There are so many places closed in my area that were just amazing, What do you miss in your town? Wouldn't it be great if we could get in that DeLorean from Back to the Future, and visit our favorite places again!! 

above wonderful photo from Family Images.com

Today's Words of Wisdom: Fond Memories Make Growing Older More Pleasant

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Photo Gallery Thursday "Cheap Jack's Vintage"

These great windows are from Cheap Jack's Vintage on 5th Avenue and East 31st Street. They were really so creative and fun. This shop has any type of vintage you may be looking for, and their clients can be famous people, fashion editors or costume designers. It is quite a unique experience just walking around the store to view the amazing vintage items available. 

Please be sure to check out the new Pages on the blog. The Unique NYC Tours will feature all tours I have taken, and will show links so you can review each post. The Must Read Blog List has moved to it's own Page from the sidebar, showing some of the many blogs I read daily and just so admire. I hope you enjoy these new additions to the blog, as hoping to make it easier for you to navigate while you visit. 

Have a most fabulous Thursday!! 

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Tiffany and Rachel Zoe 2012 Window Collaboration

photo of Rachel Zoe from tiffany.com website 

I was thrilled to be in the city just when the Rachel Zoe windows were open for viewing by the public. Here is some background from Tiffany themselves along with my photos to follow. I think they all really capture each decade pretty well indeed. 

In honor of the 2012 Academy Awards®, Tiffany unveiled its window collaboration with Rachel Zoe on February 16 at its flagship store in New York City. On view through February 27, the five displays brilliantly capture Hollywood glamour with exquisite Tiffany jewels.

THE 1930'S OPULENCE AND GLAMOUR IS TIMELESS  

THE 1940'S FILMS WERE FULL OF FASHION, CULTURE AND CHARACTERS  

THE 1950'S RED CARPET WAS A TIME WHEN MOVIE STARS WERE BORN  

1960's GEOMETRY OF HOLLYWOOD 

               THE 1970'S GLAMOUR WINDOW  

Each spectacular showcase evokes a particular decade, from the classic elegance of movie stars from the 1930s to the eclectic style of the 1970s. Rachel Zoe’s windows were also launched around the world and are on view at Tiffany flagship stores in Beverly Hills, Hong Kong, Singapore and London through February 27, 2012. They will unveil in Tokyo the week of February 27, 2012.


I hope you enjoyed these wonderful treats! I loved the touch of Rachel's personal message for each window with her signature as well. A really nice touch. My faves were the 1940's and 1950's. What are yours? 

Today's Words of Wisdom: Dream in Color 

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Photo Gallery Tuesday " An Awesome Bed"

This fabulous bed was found at the 2012 Architectural Digest Home Design Show. I think the price was something around $30,000.00 US Dollars. And there was a discount that day. To those who say what would you do if you had money, this is the bed for you! What an amazing luxury this would be. I hope that everyone has a most fabulous Tuesday. 

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Hugh O'Neill Dry Goods Store Chelsea

This gorgeous gold dome really catches your eye when walking in Chelsea. I just feel in love with this building and tend to always take photos when walking by. You just cannot help yourself. I come to find out it was a former store, Hugh O'Neill's, many, many years ago. Here is some of the history along with my original photos while admiring a gorgeous historic building: 

HUGH O'NEILL'S giant store, built in 1887 on the east side of Sixth Avenue between 20th and 21st Streets, was the first full-blockfront building on a strip of popular department stores below 23rd Street. Its fanciful domes are long gone, but now a developer is converting the building to condominiums and plans to put them back — and he has received permission from the Landmarks Preservation Commission to enlarge the cast-iron structure. 

Born in Belfast in 1844, O'Neill arrived in New York as a child and began work at age 16. Just after the Civil War, he established a dry-goods store on Broadway just north of Union Square, a section that began attracting New York's elite stores as they began migrating up from the principal shopping district, Broadway below 14th. 

The Broadway section — with Tiffany and, later, Brooks Brothers, Gorham silver and other companies — evolved into a very exclusive area, with lower priced stores locating west on 14th Street toward Sixth Avenue. So in 1870, O'Neill decided to pursue the middle of the market and moved his operation to Sixth Avenue and 20th Street. It was a fortuitous move, as the new elevated train system began operating on Sixth in the same decade. 

A telling advertisement for O'Neill's store appeared in Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper in 1871: "50 doz. French chip hats, just received, $3. Sold on Broadway at $6. Just received 500 cartons of French flowers, finest imported. 50 percent below Broadway prices." 

O'Neill had taken over several modest buildings, and in 1880, The Real Estate Record and Guide noted that instead of "the ordinary red, he has given his store a coating of yellow with black lines and brown trimmings, which is certainly very attractive and striking." 

The same article noted that "an apartment house of yellow would, we think, be a pleasing novelty and will prove attractive." Six months later, the architect Henry Hardenbergh filed plans for the Dakota apartment house at 72nd Street and Central Park West, and its buff-yellow brick facade was an unusual departure. 

In 1887, O'Neill built his blocklong store, on a stretch of Sixth that soon became a thoroughfare of giant emporia. His four-story iron front, deeply modeled, ran from 20th to 21st Streets, and The New York Times noted that "the dingy yellow, which for years seemed to be the ruling color for large places on Sixth Avenue, has disappeared, and in its place is dazzling white surface." The Times called the new building "tasteful and handsome." 

There were — and still are — few full-blockfront cast iron buildings in New York, and the O'Neill store had something unique: a pair of huge beehive domes at each end, 100 feet high, set on top of one-story circular rooms. 

Early photographs show the domes with some sort of ball or finial on top, and the roof looks like metal of some sort, perhaps gold-painted galvanized iron. Even with the elevated tracks obscuring much of Sixth Avenue, it was hard to miss the huge new building, and impossible to avoid the great domes. The building's architect, Mortimer Merritt, also put raised letters with the founder's name in a triangular pediment in the center of the building. 

THE first floor had silk, laces, ribbon, perfume, feathers and other items; the second floor, ladies' and children's clothes; the third, rugs and upholstery; the fourth, workshops and stock rooms. 

The millinery department, on the second floor at the 21st street corner, was a showpiece, with gilded columns. The ceiling and walls were finished in Japanese paper, and there was a cornice of ebony latticework with colored glass. In the corner, a banquette ran around the circular window — the nook was partly secluded by hangings of silk tapestry. 

The Times reported that a popular item was the "Princess Louise," "an imported wrap of Sicilian silk embroidered with cut jet beads and a fish-net sleeve." Another item was "a London walking jacket" with turned seams — "the shade in greatest demand, because it is regarded as most fashionable, is the coachman's cream color," the account said. 

Such goods were attractive, in some cases too attractive. In 1888, Julia Hershey of Philadelphia was detained by a store clerk for shoplifting an umbrella. The clerk said he had caught up with her outside, but she said that he was near-sighted and that she was just inside the door, inspecting the umbrella in better light. It is not clear how the case turned out. 

By the early 1890's, O'Neill employed 2,500 people, and in 1895 he called back Merritt to add a fifth floor, and rebuild (or perhaps reinstall) the domed turrets, with the circular rooms below them. From the street the addition appears indistinguishable from the original building. 

O'Neill died in 1902, leaving $8 million, just as retailing on Sixth Avenue began a rapid decline, as some of the stores, including Macy's and B. Altman, relocated to 34th Street and even farther north. In 1906, the O'Neill store merged with Adams Dry Goods, a one-time competitor on the block to the north. 

But the merged company closed in 1907, as garment-manufacturing firms invaded the side streets and drove out retail patronage. By the 1920's all the giant stores had been converted to lofts and manufacturing. A 1940's photograph shows the old O'Neill store occupied by the Central Time Clock company, a machinery exchange and similar businesses. By that time, the domes had been demolished. 

In recent years, that stretch of Sixth Avenue, now the Avenue of Americas, has been revived, as retailers like Bed, Bath and Beyond and Barnes and Noble have moved in. The O'Neill store was given a coat of very light gray paint a few years ago, and now the developer Miki Naftali is about to begin a $5 million condominium conversion, with a two-story roof addition, all designed by the architects Cetra/Ruddy. 

The building is within the Ladies' Mile Historic District, and the Historic Districts Council supported the plan, saying that the renewed Hugh O'Neill building would become "a showcase for the continuing revitalization of the Ladies' Mile Historic District." That is principally because Cetra/Ruddy's designs include the restoration of the domes and the circular rooms at either end — the rooms will be connected to new penthouse apartments. 

Three decades ago, the big stores along Sixth Avenue from 14th to 23rd were ghostly dinosaurs from another age, occupied by light industry and warehouse operations; the section was largely empty by day, and silent at night. The prospect of new domes on the O'Neill store demonstrates the astonishing changes that have swept over New York City's older neighborhoods in less than half a lifetime. 
By Christopher Gray 
Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

I hope you enjoyed this piece of history today. New York City is just a wonderful place for taking a walk and finding some vintage treasure you never knew existed. That is one part of it that makes it oh so special for me and why I write this blog.

Today's Words of Wisdom: Improve with Age 

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The Winner of the New York Gourmet Coffee Is ....

The winner of the Fabulous New York Gourmet Coffee is :

DARYL FROM THE FABULOUS BLOGS "Out and About in NYC " and "All through my eyes"

Congrats to Daryl who will just so enjoy this coffee! A big Thank you to New York Gourmet Coffee for this giveaway and hoping to do another one with them in the future!! 

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