1,000 Places to See in the U.S.A. & Canada Before You Die (42 page)

The 1940s and ’50s saw the last bright flashes of New York architectural genius before a long dry spell that continued through the 1990s. At Park Avenue and East 53rd Street, Lever House was an Internationalist-style interloper amid very traditional neighbors when it rose in 1952 on a design by Gordon Bunshaft. Essentially two oblong steel-and-glass boxes—a 24-story tower set in beautiful geometric relation to a low horizontal base that seems to float on supporting stilts—it established the modern European model for nearly every office building that rose in the city for the next 50 years. Across the street, the 38-story Seagram Building extended that model higher, offering an unbroken curtain of bronze and dark glass set back 90 feet from the street and juxtaposed against a granite-paved plaza and reflecting pools. It was designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, opening in 1958 with interiors by Philip Johnson, who also designed the building’s famous Four Seasons Restaurant (see p. 191).

On the East River, the United Nations Headquarters was built between 1947 and 1953 by a design team that included Wallace K. Harrison, Le Corbusier, and Oscar Niemeyer. The 18-acre site is dominated by the rectangular 39-story Secretariat Building and the low, sloperoofed General Assembly Building, where the troubles of the world are debated.

For a glimpse of New York’s architectural future, head to the corner of Eighth Avenue and West 57th Street, where in 2006 the geometric 46-story Hearst Tower sprouted from the top of the original Hearst headquarters, a six-story art deco building from 1928. Designed by Sir Norman Foster, the building’s exterior is a series of interlocking four-story stainless-steel triangles whose corners zigzag in and out as they rise.

For a deeper exploration of the design and history of New York’s skyscrapers, head downtown and visit the Skyscraper Museum, a space dedicated to celebrating New York’s signature buildings through a rotating series of exhibits and public programs.

G
RAND
C
ENTRAL:
www.grandcentralterminal.com
.
When:
tours Wed from the Municipal Arts Society (tel 212-935-3960;
www.mas.org
).
O
YSTER
B
AR:
Tel 212-490-6650;
www.oysterbarny.com
.
Cost:
dinner $43.
N
EW
Y
ORK
P
UBLIC
L
IBRARY:
Tel 212-930-0800;
www.nypl.org
.
Tours:
Tues–Sat.
U
NITED
N
ATIONS:
Tel 212-963-8687;
www.un.org/tours
.
S
KYSCRAPER
M
USEUM:
Tel 212-968-1961;
www.skyscraper.org
.
B
EST TIME
: weekend in mid-Oct for openhouse newyork (
www.ohny.org
), when visitors can tour more than 175 significant architectural sites around the city.

Although it is located in New York City, the United Nations Headquarters is considered “international territory.”

A Slice of Heaven

New York, New York

According to legend, the great New York pizza pie was invented by one Gennaro Lombardi, an immigrant grocer from Naples who began selling lunchtime “tomato pies” to workers around 1905, based on a classic
Neapolitan recipe: fresh tomatoes, melted mozzarella, olive oil, a pinch of garlic, and maybe a smattering of sausage. The decades that followed saw pizza become steroidally supersized and often prefab, adding alternative cheeses and meats, all manner of vegetables, and even fruits. The quality varies wildly among the hundreds of pizzerias dotting the five boroughs, but luckily, there are some gems. Pizza connoisseurs have battled for decades over who serves the best pie in town, but the differences are largely a matter of territoriality. There are only a few places that consistently make the list every time.

Down in what remains of Little Italy, Lombardi’s is still serving the pizza first created here over a century ago, just down the block from its original location. Inside, red-checked tablecloths and friendly service set the stage for beautiful pizza pies baked in a coal-fired oven, their smoky crusts blackened just slightly and daubed with warm blobs of fresh mozzarella, tomato sauce, and basil, plus toppings like homemade meatballs, double-cut pepperoni, and kalamata olives.

Lombardi’s was the first pizzeria in the United States.

Way uptown in Spanish Harlem, Patsy’s first opened its doors in 1933 and was a longtime favorite of Frank Sinatra, whose portrait now hangs on the restaurant’s wall. As for the pizza, its sauce is slightly sweet, its crust is thin and perfectly baked—not too crisp, not too soft—and unlike at Lombardi’s, its cheese is melted evenly across the pie, a style long since adopted by the majority of pizzerias in New York and elsewhere. Because of its location, it’s the least touristy of the great NYC pizzerias.

In 1941, ten-year-old Patsy Grimaldi went to work at Patsy’s for his uncle, founder Pasquale “Patsy” Lancieri. In 1990, nearly two decades after the elder Lancieri’s death, Grimaldi and his wife opened their own pizzeria in Brooklyn, right in the shadow of the Brooklyn Bridge and easy to find because of the big crowd lined up outside. Inside Grimaldi’s things are pretty plain: just a lot of close-packed tables; the obligatory pictures of Sinatra, Pavarotti, and Dean Martin; and one busy pizza-making counter fronting a single coal-fired brick oven. The pizza, though, is probably the best in town, with a thin, smoky crust; pools of fresh, warm mozzarella; chunky yet delicate and savory tomato sauce; fresh basil; and prime-quality toppings like roasted red peppers and sausage. For an after-dinner treat, walk a block to the riverside for an incredible view of the New York skyline.

Back in Manhattan, John’s of Bleecker Street serves a pie with a perfect crust—not
too chewy, not too crusty—with full-spread mozzarella, fresh sauce, and generous toppings. The interior is woody and lived-in, with a tiled floor, muraled walls, and booths and tables completely covered with carved initials and messages going back to the 1920s.

Along with the classic pie and its knock-offs, New York also offers designer pies by celebrity chefs. You’ll be hard pressed to find much fault with the pan-Italian specialties at the late Vincent Scotto’s Gonzo, including his grilled pizzas, a recipe picked up at George Germon and Johanne Killeen’s Al Forno in Providence, Rhode Island (see p. 89). Alternatively, you can visit the ubiquitous Mario Batali at his Otto Enoteca Pizzeria, also in Greenwich Village, part wine bar, part haute pizzeria serving thin-crusted and creatively topped pizzas cooked on a griddle.

L
OMBARDI’S:
Tel 212-941-7994;
www.lombardispizza.com
.
Cost:
large pies from $16.
P
ATSY’S:
Tel 212-534-9783.
Cost:
large pies from $11.
G
RIMALDI’S:
Brooklyn. Tel 718-858-4300;
www.grimaldis.com
.
Cost:
large pies from $14.
J
OHN’S:
Tel 212-243-1680;
www.johnsofbleeckerstreet.com
.
Cost:
large pies from $14.
G
ONZO:
Tel 212-645-4606.
Cost:
pies from $14.
O
TTO:
Tel 212-995-9559;
www.ottopizzeria.com
.
Cost:
pies from $9.

Where the Elite Meet to Eat and Greet

New York, New York

The restaurant scene in New York is a contact sport, fueled by competition (most estimates put the total number of city restaurants at 20,000), high real estate prices, and a demanding and fickle population. Restaurants
open, burn like a supernova for a year, and then are gone. Celebrity chefs come to town like Caesar crossing the Rubicon, only to be knocked off their pedestal by the Next Big Thing. The restaurants here are the ones with sticking power. Like the song says, if they can make it here …

No restaurant personifies New York’s power elite more than the Four Seasons. Virtually unchanged since it was designed in 1959 by Philip Johnson in Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s landmark Seagram Building (see p. 187), it is the place to come and be pampered by top-notch service in a knockout setting. At dinner, out-of-towners fill the restaurant’s stunning Pool Room, with its central white marble pool and canopy of seasonally changing trees, but at lunchtime a certain set of New York power brokers use the Grill Room as their lunchtime cafeteria. The continental and nouveau American cuisine more than holds its own against all the hype.

Celebrity chefs can be found all over. On tony Park Avenue, Daniel Boulud’s self-titled restaurant Daniel proves why fellow chefs and devoted patrons regard Boulud as one of the country’s most brilliant French-trained talents, trailblazing the future of haute cuisine. Refined fantasy describes both the restaurant’s decor and its poetic menu, which features technically complicated, perfectly executed, and artistically presented dishes. You can revel in Boulud’s inventive spirit less expensively at his neighborhoody Café Boulud and the French-American DB Bistro Moderne, justly famous for its sumptuous hamburger.

In bustling Midtown West, French-born Eric Ripert, a permanent fixture among the
city’s lineup of star chefs, heads the kitchen at Le Bernardin, an elegant temple that first revolutionized seafood cooking in the 1980s. Whether lightly sauced, barely cooked, or simply raw, his ever-changing dishes surprise even the most jaded palates. Nearby, star chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten has an eponymous restaurant with a high “Wow!” factor (see p. 171).

Downtown, the New American-style Union Square Café offers a lunch or dinner experience that made it New York’s No. 1 restaurant for several years running. At the helm of the well-oiled operation is the amiable Danny Meyer, who wrote the manual on genuinely warm service, good value, and unfussy, Mediterranean-based comfort food. This surefire formula also explains the popularity of the city’s next-most-loved venue, Meyer’s elegantly handsome Gramercy Tavern, a modern reinterpretation of the classic tavern, serving tasting menus of refined American cuisine in the main dining room and à la carte dishes in the Tavern Room.

Farther south, Bouley is the most comfortable and casual of the eponymous top-notch New York restaurants steered by world-rank chefs. Although Gallic to the max, owner-chef David Bouley absorbs foreign influences and flavors and transforms them into inspired, extraordinary creations. The same impulse led to Bouley’s creation of Danube, an opulent, theatrical interpretation of the imperial cuisine of Austria-Hungary. Its menu takes both classics like wiener schnitzel and more contemporary selections to new heights. Just a block away, the Bouley Bakery and Bouley Market occupy three floors of a small West Broadway building, with its top-floor Upstairs restaurant serving seasonal à la carte dishes from the open kitchen.

Among the new generation of Italian restaurants, television personality Mario Batali’s Babbo is the best known, having introduced New Yorkers to lamb’s tongue and ravioli stuffed with beef cheek, among other previously unknown delicacies. More hesitant palates can enjoy an array of less exotic and equally delicious southern Italian classics. Batali’s newer restaurant, Del Posto, offers a similar menu served in a vast but posh space and is a telling sign that the once-edgy Meatpacking District has been fully gentrified. For more Italian, spend a cozy evening at Beppe, a rustic room modeled on a Tuscan farmhouse, with exposed brick walls, beamed ceilings, and a wood-burning fireplace. Italian-American chef Marc Taxiera worked under founding chef Cesare Casella, perfecting a full-flavored Tuscan cuisine while Cassella has since opened the immediately popular Maremma in the West Village, redirecting his Tuscan talents to showcase the specialties of this little-known corner of Italy.