You can't anymore, at least not the yeasty kind. Silvercup bread, baked at Long Island City's Gordon Baking Company, was a household name for decades, from the ’20s up through the ’70s, but the bakery closed down in 1974 due to a Teamster's strike. They left their sign up, however, and when the bakery was taken over by a film studio in 1983, the studio adopted the name and changed the sign to fit. Even if you've never been to Queens, you'll know the Silvercup Studios sign if you've ever seen “The Highlander”—the movie's final epic battle took place around it, but luckily its destruction at the hands of the Kurgan was all just special effects.
The flagship Jamaica Gertz Department Store is where my mom bought her wedding dress, and I guess a lot of other people bought a lot of stuff there, too, and at the Flushing, Hicksville, Massapequa and Bay Shore branches as well. No one’s bought anything there for quite some time, though, as they all converted to Stern's in the early ’80s before becoming Macy's in the ’90s.
Genovese's no longer pushing drugs on Queens street corners. This pharmacy chain, founded in Astoria in 1924, spread rapidly throughout Queens. Eventually it grew to include stores throughout the tri-state region, but after the company changed hands in the late ’90s, the stores were rebranded as Eckerds. When that company was sold in turn, the former Genovese stores changed once again, this time into Rite Aids. I hear, though, that one maverick store in Astoria is operating under the CVS flag.
Jerry Rosenberg began with one appliance store in Bayside, but soon grew it into the 40-store chain Jamaica Gas and Electric, a self-described "$100 million empire." He was kind of a precursor to Crazy Eddie, best known for his commercials which all began with someone asking "What's the story, Jerry?" He'd go on to hawk refrigerators or air conditioners or whatever, and after he was done, the same someone would chime in with "So that's the story, Jerry?" and he'd reply "That's the story!" Unfortunately, he also foreshadowed Crazy Eddie when it came to having legal troubles, too, since he was sued by the city in 1974 for deceptive advertising (guess he wasn't telling the whole story), and by 1977 all his stores had ceased to exist. Jerry later opened a disco, but disco's been dead for ages and so, apparently, has Jerry.
This theater, which predates Keith's by one year, was actually screening movies up through 2005, although by this stage in its evolution it went by the name El Teatro Plaza and the movies it showed all had Spanish subtitles. It's now a Walgreen's.
That is the question, and the answer is decidedly “not.” The Scobee Diner in Little Neck, home away from home to Little Leaguers and Lions Club members alike, as well as a few celebs like Telly Savalas and Alan King, closed its doors in 2010. They razed it to the ground last year, and construction's already begun on a new building which will take its place. Evidently it's to be yet another Citibank branch, with a dentist's office on the second floor. Be still, my heart.
Fast food joints close down every day, and it seems like two of them spring up for every one that goes down. However, the passing of the Queens Boulevard Wendy's would have gone entirely unremarked but for one thing—this restaurant had a star turn as McDowell's, the place where Eddie Murphy's character worked in the movie “Coming To America.” Seems like it's going to be replaced by a luxury apartment building...huh, wonder if those apartments will be home to any African princes?
The Harbor Light, a Belle Harbor fixture for over 30 years, was known to its regulars as Rockaway's answer to Cheers. After the owners' son was killed on 9/11, they turned the bar into a living memorial to all those killed in the World Trade Center. Two months later, American Airlines Flight 587 crashed just blocks away, and they opened the bar as a makeshift disaster center. The Harbor Light didn't suffer too badly from Hurricane Sandy itself, but the subsequent fires burnt the building to the ground, leaving little more than an awning and a star-spangled banner.
Did you know that Queens was once considered as the site for the original Disneyland East? Yeah, the one they later decided to call the Magic Kingdom and open in Florida, instead. (Curse you, year-round sunshine!) Yeah, the 1964 World's Fair, which was held in Flushing Meadows, was the testing ground for Disney's brand-new audio-animatronics, including “It's A Small World.” Eek. I don't know about you, but personally I'm glad they took all those horrible little screeching puppet-people far, far away. Now if I could only get that darn song out of my head!
No, now it's impossible. OK, you can still hitch a ride to Rockaway Beach, but it ain't the same without Rockaways' Playland, which closed down in 1985.
Starting in 1981 the Queens-Midtown Tunnel used to shut down for a few hours one evening each spring while the Ringling Brothers circus elephants marched through it on their way to Madison Square Garden. Last year marked the end of the free fertilizer, however, since it turns out PETA protestors are more than a match for clowns when it comes to scaring the crap out of people (and elephants).
Ridgewood was once a largely German neighborhood, so, natürlich, this was the place to get the very best wurst. While Queens still has a few old-fashioned “pork stores” left, Forest Pork Store closed its Ridgewood retail operation in 2007 after more than 60 years in business. Karl Ehmer Quality Meats, despite 50 plus years of excellent service, soon followed suit, shutting down their Ridgewood manufacturing plant and butcher shop in 2010.
The Steuben Parade, one of the nation's largest celebrations of German culture, started out in Ridgewood—in fact, the first-ever one in the whole U.S. was held here in 1957. Over the years the crowds grew bigger, and it even spawned spin-offs in Philly and Chicago. Finally, the parade left Queens entirely, and is now held on Manhattan's 5th Avenue between 64th and 86th streets (the latter being known as “Sauerkraut Boulevard”).
The pasta's still around, but it's no longer local. Genoan immigrant plant Emanuele Ronzoni started his pasta company in 1915, but the family sold the company to General Foods in 1984 and the two Long Island City manufacturing plants shut down in 1993.
The Ideal Toy Company, maker of childhood memories like ya know, the teddy bear and the Rubiks Cube once house its executives in our borough however in 1982, it left taking its 1,500 jobs with it to New Jersey. If only we had a Magic 8-Ball (also an Ideal creation) we might have seen it coming.
Yes, well, you're old. Don't worry, you're in good company, seems to be a lot of that going around these days. This historic (1928) theater is still standing, but they showed their last movie in 1986, and the interior was gutted shortly thereafter (and also used for a spot of toxic waste dumping). Although, rumor has it that it's now going to be turned into apartments.
But no-one's eins, zwei, g'suffa-ing there now. (What, did no-one else learn classic Deutsche Trinklieder in high school German class? Just what are they teaching you kids these days, then?) Anyway, the Triangle Hofbrau was, like, the hot place to hang out back in the 20's, all the cool cats like Mae West and Babe Ruth could be found tossing back a few brewskis at the bar. The building itself still stands, but the restaurant served up its last schnitzel in 1999.
Cinco de Mayo won't be the same without Garcia's Mexican Cafe. After 25 years on Austin Street, Garcia's—which, according to the “New York Daily News,” made the best margaritas in Queens, was put out of business by competition from a neighboring Chipotle. Seriously? Chipotle? They don't even sell margaritas! What is this world coming to?
Robert's Lounge was an Ozone Park bar owned by “Jimmy the Gent” Burke, real-life counterpart of the character played by Robert De Niro in “Goodfellas.” The bar closed down shortly after the Lufthansa heist, and when Henry Hill (Ray Liotta) rolled on the Lucchese family, he disclosed that the bar's basement and bocce courts had been used as a cemetery for the victims of numerous mob hits. Today it's the location of Jamaican /Guyanese restaurant GT & Mobay—perhaps they've got some kind of Obeah juju to keep away the goodfella ghosties.
The Beggar's Opera was a cool ’80s club known for kamikazes, Alabama slammers and Monday night mud wrestling. Oh, and Twisted Sister used to play there about once a week back before they hit it big. Guess they've made the transition from the profane to the sacred, since the building now houses the New Greater Bethel Ministries.
Or rather, c'etait L'Amour, since L'Amour is no more. L'Amour East was a short-lived (1983-88) spinoff of the better-known (and longer-lived) Brooklyn club of the same name, minus the “East.” They specialized in metal bands like Queensrÿche and Motörhead, but finally succumbed to a surplus of superfluous umlauts.
Breezy Point, aka the “Irish Riviera,” started off as a community of summer homes in the early 1900s, but today about half of its homes are occupied year-round. This was a major bummer for the residents in late October of 2012, when the area was slammed by a one-two punch of Hurricane Sandy and a six-alarm fire. Hundreds of homes were ruined by one or the other of these near-simultaneous disasters, and while some residents were able to rebuild, others just threw up their hands and moved to New Jersey.
Once upon a time there was a sanctuary where wild graffiti artists were free to roam and to do as nature intended them to...i.e. spray painting the hell out of the side of a building. First established in 1993 as the Phun Phactory, this Long Island City establishment later changed its name to the 5Pointz Aerosol Art Center or the Institute of Higher Burnin'. Like all good things, however, it came to an end when its owners decided to knock it down and put up condos instead.
OK, not sayin' Citi Field developers necessarily hit a home run with the Mets' new home, but Shea Stadium had to be one of the least-beloved of the recently-vanished ballparks. It opened just days prior to, and right across Roosevelt Avenue from, the 1964 World's Fair, and, like the fair, it had a few...issues. I mean, it had its moments, like, I guess it ushered in the whole Beatlemania thing. And yup, the Mets did win a few World Series’ there. But, face it, it was pretty ugly, and it smelled kind of funky, and then there was all that noise from LaGuardia. Well, that's neither here nor there now. In a few more decades, surely Citi Field will develop a little character of its own.
How can three out of the four original Ramones be dead? Please, please, hang in there, Tommy. I don’t know about you, but I for one don't wanna live in a world totally devoid of Ramones.
