Crains New York - August 6, 2012 - (Page 10)

IN THE BOROUGHS BROOKLYN Court Street continuity Continued from Page 3 holding on to some things. “We’re not your typical businesses,” said Francis D’Amico, whose grandfather Emanuele opened the store in 1948. Back then, Emanuele D’Amico offered two kinds of coffee: dark-roast Italian and an American brown roast. Today, Francis cooks up more than 100 gourmet blends, but his wife,Joan,still greets some longtime patrons with hugs and many others by their first names, and casts a benevolent eye on customers stepping behind the counter and helping themselves to oatmeal cookies. “It’s more like a family here than a store,” said Mr. D’Amico, whose family-run business nonetheless now also takes orders for coffee online from customers as far away as New Zealand and Iraq. Changes have also come at pub P.J. Hanleys, which is still going strong 138 years after its first beer hit the bar, and even at Scotto Funeral Home, which has been laying locals to rest for four generations. But continuity also pays dividends—even among the neighborhood’s newer, more affluent residents. Daily meal planning “I had heard about the old-school Italian vibe here,” said Rachel Kash, a writer who moved to the area from the East Village three years ago. “I just had no idea about how many of these places still actually existed.” For Ms. Kash, the area’s momand-pops offer something not found at some of Court Street’s newer retail arrivals, including Trader Joe’s and Union Market.On a recent weekday, she walked over to Staubitz Market, a 95-year-old butcher shop, for marinated skirt steak, stopped off for an Italian ice at 64-year-old Court Pastry Shop, and scored fresh-baked baguettes from Caputo’s Bake Shop, which opened in 1904. “Few areas have this kind of character or heritage,”she said Alex Calabretta feels much the same way. Fifteen years after the Carroll Gardens native decamped to Bay Ridge, he still comes back to stock up on lard bread from Mazzola Bakery and Cafe, and bags of Red Hook coffee blend from D’Amico, where he worked as a teen. “I grew up with these people and know how they make their food,”said KNOWLEDGE IS POWER. PASS IT ON. Con Edison’s Outage Map puts knowledge in your hands. On your smartphone or online, the Outage Map shows you when your power will be restored. At conEd.com Mr. Calabretta, a residential broker with Prudential Douglas Elliman. What many of those old-timers cannot figure out is how many of their new neighbors, like chic clothing boutique Pink Pepper and high-end eatery Buttermilk Channel, survive. “I have no idea how people can pay rent here,” said John Esposito, who, along with his brother George, now runs the eponymous pork store their grandfather founded on Court Street 90 years ago. Today, rents on the strip have soared to as much as $115 a square foot,according to data from CPEX Realty Services. These days, however, a number of Court Street’s mainstays are staring in the teeth of an even more intractable problem than rising rents: their own advancing years. Brothers Joe and Mat Chirico, who run the 72-year-old clothing store Marietta’s, are 90 years old and 84 years old, respectively. Similarly, after more than 40 years of handcrafting cannolis and Sicilian cuccidati,Court Pastry’s Gasper Zerelli is said to be eyeing an exit. And John Esposito has insisted he does not want to still be making sausage three years from now, when he turns 62. “I’ve had both hips replaced, and my brother might need a new knee at some point,” Mr. Esposito said. “I’m on my feet 12 hours a day. I’ve never had a Saturday off.” For many of them, the answer may lie following in the path of the longtime owners of Scotto Funeral Home, who earlier this year sold out to John Heyer, a 29-year-old area resident. He has agreed to keep the family’s funeral tradition alive. “I hate to say this with my kind of work,” said Mr. Heyer, “but I plan to be doing this until the day I die.” FROM AROUND THE CITY QUEENS Borough’s Olympic consolation prize Work on 30 acres of prime waterfront property in Long Island City once proposed as the site of a $1.5 billion Olympic Village is now nearing the end of its first stage. When complete, the project won’t provide temporary housing for scores of athletes—as the Bloomberg administration had hoped during its bid to bring the 2012 Olympic Games to New York. But Queens is getting quite a consolation prize. Plans call for the biggest housing complex to go up in New York since Co-op City in the late 1960s: 5,000 apartments, 60% of them affordable. Sewers and water mains are now in the ground. A waterfront walkway with sweeping views of Manhattan has begun to take shape .The official groundbreaking is scheduled for early October. —shane dixon kavanaugh bloomberg bews Enter your address for a status report. ©2012 Consolidated Edison Company of New York, Inc. Ad: Arnell Group LEARN MORE facebook.com/powerofgreen 10 | Crain’s New York Business | August 6, 2012 http://www.conEd.com http://www.conEd.com http://www.facebook.com/powerofgreen

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Crains New York - August 6, 2012

Crains New York - August 6, 2012
Contents
In the Boroughs
In the Markets
The Insider
Business People
Opinion
Greg David
From Around the City
Report: Business of Sports
Classifieds
Small Business
Real Estate Deals
Helluva Town
Source Lunch
Out and About

Crains New York - August 6, 2012