Saturday, November 16, 2024

Minority Report

Saturday, November 9, 2024 
Now that the dust is settling, we can begin to make sense of the presidential election. I believe that it was not an endorsement of Donald Trump so much as a rejection of the Democratic ticket. The University of Florida Election Lab estimates that as of Friday turnout in 2024 will be about 62.3% of the voting-eligible population, down from the record high in the modern era of more than 66.4% in 2020. In 2020, Joe Biden won about 81 million votes to Trump’s 74 million. It is estimated that Trump added 5 million votes, while Harris lost 5 million votes from 2020.

It could be worse. If you are one of those glass-one-quarter-full people, this election overall provided advances for women, Blacks, Jews, Latinos and LBGTQs. 

On the other hand, Ted Cruz won election to the Senate for the third time, proving that God is dead.
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On the night of November 9, 1938, violent Nazi mobs viciously attacked the Jews and Jewish communities of Germany, Austria, and the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia. Leaving behind shattered glass and shattered lives, the event came to be called Kristallnacht, “The Night of Broken Glass.”

Sunday, November 10, 2024
Yesterday was the anniversary of Kristallnacht. Some Americans found an appropriate way to commemorate it. “A group of people carrying Nazi flags demonstrated outside a community theater performance of ‘The Diary of Anne Frank’ in Livingston County, Michigan, in a display of antisemitism.”

This study used data on minimum wages and typical fair-market one-bedroom rents in the 50 largest U.S. housing markets and found that nowhere was rent for a single person earning minimum wage at or below 30 percent of income, the standard of affordability. https://listwithclever.com/research/rent-to-income-ratio-2024/

Buffalo, St. Louis and Hartford are the most affordable cities by this measure, although far from affordable. The Holy Land is tied at 30th place with 84% of the local minimum wage income needed to rent the typical one-bedroom apartment. Nine cities, seven in the Sun Belt, top 100%, an absurdity.
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Jerry Latter’s father’s father and my father’s mother were brother and sister, born in Zuromin, Poland in the 1870s. That qualifies us for membership in the Chevra Bikur Cholim Anshei Zuromin, the Zuromin Society, now 121 years old. We attended its annual meeting today at Noah’s Ark, 493 Cedar Lane, Teaneck, New Jersey, a very Kosher delicatessen. It was a gathering of about two dozen descendants of Polish Jewish refugees (now viewed as the good refugees) who fled pogroms, privation and Nazi terror over decades. Of course, entry to the Home of the Brave was often difficult to near-impossible back then, something that the general public ignores when fulminating against the current generation of “illegals.” 

Lunch was provided. A good salad, coleslaw, nice pickles, excellent French fries, seltzer, Coke and Diet Coke were on the table. I had watery chicken noodle soup with a good matzoh ball and a respectable corned beef sandwich. Tea and cookies followed.
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You might not be satisfied with the results of this election, but the cryptocurrency industry apparently is. It spent more than $130 million on campaigns, resulting in 250 House members favorable, 120 unfavorable, 18 Senators pro, 12 con. https://testing.standwithcrypto.org/races

Might my Monopoly money eventually prove valuable?

Monday, November 11, 2024
Today is Veterans Day, originally Armistice Day since WWI. I just encountered a sad statistic. There are still 72,000 American military service members unaccounted for from WWII, lesser numbers from other conflicts. https://dpaa-mil.sites.crmforce.mil/dpaaOurMissing

Many, many families must be carrying the pain even to this day.
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“Oh, Mary!” is a bawdy farce on Broadway. Its mockery of Abraham Lincoln’s household provided a lift for deflated spirits. Tonight, the role of Mary Todd Lincoln, the center of the production, was played by Hannah Solow, the understudy, a graduate of NYU’s theater program. It was her debut and we got a kick sitting in a section loaded with her classmates, a boisterously enthusiastic crowd.
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Before the show, we had dinner at Utsav Indian Restaurant, 1185 Avenue of the Americas, the quaint appellation of Sixth Avenue unused by natives. It actually sits on West 46th Street, with a bar at ground level and the restaurant one flight up. Except for the background Bollywood music and two stencils on the wall, the very large dining room with a modern beige and brown decor could come from any upscale hotel, while an anteroom with the reservation desk and restrooms has attractive South Asian touches. 

The menu is in three sections — a conventional Indian part, a more focused Bengali part and a Chinese part. Trying to keep our meal simple, we ordered Indian. We started with Tandoori Aloo, baked baby potatoes, bell peppers, and onions marinated in yogurt and spices ($14), emphasis on the spices. We lowered the heat on the main courses. I had lamb saag, 10 or more chunks of fresh lamb cooked in puréed spinach ($27), while my one and only companion had saag paneer, cottage cheese cubes in puréed spinach ($22). With naan and rice, we were filled. Not a bargain, but good food, very convenient for the theater district.

Tuesday, November 12,2024
Bret Stephens, a center-right columnist for the New York Times, writes today: “We got through one Trump administration. We’ll get through another. What happened last week wasn’t the end of democracy. It was its reaffirmation.” I’m not so sanguine. Putting aside my personal disappointment at seeing a good person lose to a bad person, I think of others who might not merely “get through.” What about Volodymyr Zelenskyy and many other Ukrainians who would like to remain alive and self-governing? What about Israelis and Palestinians who yearn to stop killing each other? What about countless Syrians, Venezuelans and Uighurs who seek to flee daily violence and oppression? What will the next four years hold for them? While it is not literally my problem, what do I think has really been reaffirmed?

Wednesday, November 13, 2024
Another day, another doctor. Dr. M is a real brain surgeon who should have fun with the potpourri above my shoulders.
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We’ll get by? Sure, with Matt Gaetz as AG, along with other cartoon characters in important governmental positions.

Thursday, November 14, 2024
Gentleman Jerry and I had lunch at Pho Shop, 141 West 72nd Street, a casual Vietnamese restaurant that survived Covid with takeout and delivery business. Now, it was busy, all the dozen tables occupied.

We growled about the election, inevitably. Jerry had ideas, I merely had confusion. “How could they? Him? Them?” No confusion about the food, very straightforward Vietnamese. I had Cơm, a big bowl of rice covered with sliced grilled beef and a fried egg ($15).  Recommended.
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Tonight, I went to a book club at Stephen Wise Free Synagogue, 30 West 68th Street, once free, now dues of a  couple thousand dollars. The subject was "Jews Don't Count” by David Baddiel, a Jewish British comedian. Written before October 7th, Baddiel maintains that Jews are dismissed as a minority as too white, too successful, too European, even while experiencing persistent anti-Semitism. 

Many of the 15 or so discussants expressed fear about the current level of anti-Semitism in the United States, but, in response to my question, no one had put their co-op apartment up for sale.

Friday, November 15, 2024
I am still recovering from finding myself in a non-ethnic minority, Harris voters. So, I have mixed feelings about landing in a large group of Americans, overweight adults, with very few barriers to entry. 
As of 2021, 172 million adults 25 or older and 36.5 million younger people were obese or overweight. Sadly, this is a group that I may never be able to quit.
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On the other hand, a group that I don’t qualify for is high-level Trump appointees, e.g., Gaetz, Hegseth and Kennedy, because I have never been accused of sexual assault.
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That's it. No more election talk. What I have learned after reading dozens of opinion pieces by a variety of sages is that no one has the answer. Too much of this, too little of that. Shouldn't have moved left, shouldn't have moved right. Every flaw in Kamala's campaign, no matter how trivial, was highlighted, while Mr. Tangerine cursed, lied, insulted, contradicted, was convicted -- it was just Trump being Trump.

One of my favorites was very experienced political reporter Adam Nagourney writing that, at first, he thought that the short campaign "would be a good thing" for Harris, but "it looks like the short campaign was one of the key factors behind her decisive loss."
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MP Taverna was a favorite of ours in Astoria. It closed several years ago, but a grander version opened in Irvington, next to the railroad station along the Hudson River, at 1 Bridge Street. The building was once a textile factory and the 30 tables of varying size sit under a very high ceiling. The decor is a stylized combination of Greek and maritime themes, which reflects the menu. I started with a lobster, spinach, artichoke cheesy dip ($28). It amounted to less than the sum of its parts. My main course was a hit, however, called a Greek paella ($37). It was a very generous serving of shrimp, mussels, clams, chorizo and rice in a rich sauce of tomatoes (more apt calling it tomato sauce), a very good concoction that even I could not finish, a rare victory for moderation.
 
 



Saturday, November 9, 2024

Let the Fingerpointing Begin

Saturday, November 2, 2024 
I can’t wait for the election to be over. The flood of television advertisements is exhausting. Let’s get back to the normal diet of psoriasis and erectile dysfunction.
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Let’s hope that one other result of Tuesday’s election is a reduction in the legislative attacks on LBGQT rights in localities across the country. The febrile response to people who don’t exactly resemble us is too widespread for us to consider ourselves a caring, tolerant society.

Sunday, November 3, 2024
Out-of-towners, please sit down before reading this. An apartment featured in the weekend’s real estate section is listed at $2,345,000, a nice chunk of change. It is located in Gramercy Park, a nice neighborhood in the East 20s — nice, but not exclusive. However, what I want to call to your attention is the availability of a parking space within the building for a mere $385,000. 

I just looked at fares for a ride from Gramercy Park to JFK Airport, one of the longest rides within city limits, ranging from $75 in a licensed yellow taxicab to $129.30 in a chauffeured luxury sedan plus tip in each case. Make that a total of $156.00 rounded up in the latter instance, which translates into 2,467 rides for the cost of the parking space or one ride a day to the airport for more than six years and nine months, half that for a round trip. Oh, by the way, you have to buy the car and maintain it as well.
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In a phone interview with NBC, Donald Trump did not rule out several alarming public health proposals advanced by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. He said he would talk to Kennedy, the former independent presidential candidate who has endorsed him, and others and “make a decision” on banning certain vaccines. Trump added that he had not spoken to Kennedy about his proposal to ban fluoride in water, but said that the plan “sounds OK to me.”
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/trump-banning-vaccines-president-rfk-fluoride-rcna178570

Mens insana in corpore insano.

Monday, November 4, 2024
I hold a grudge against the leadership of a certain organization (is there a better way to express this?) because of an act that I consider unforgivable. But, is there such a thing? Doesn’t redemption or rehabilitation offer a path forward? Do they make the unforgivable forgivable? Must I then forgive?
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The 2023-2024 school year recorded the highest instances of book bans and highest number of unique titles banned in the United States – over 4,000 unique titles were removed in over 10,000 instances of book bans, according to PEN America, an organization for the advancement of literature and human rights. https://pen.org/report/beyond-the-shelves/

That’s the Land of the Free that we are talking about. 

Tuesday, November 5, 2024
At 11:15 AM, my polling place had the longest line that I have ever seen, longer than getting into a concert by The Rolling Stones or Bruce Springsteen. A one hour wait was estimated, so I left to go about my business, intending to return later when the wait might replace my nap.
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While I try to be discreet about certain things, I definitely fly my freak flag when it comes to the New York Rangers. So, when my spiffy Rangers cap got damaged, I sought a replacement. Looking on the official National Hockey League website, I found 79 different men’s caps for the Rangers. 

Greater variety even may be found on the Madison Square Garden website offering 99 styles.  

That’s madness. Even in Greek mythology, the monster Hydra only had nine heads. 
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To usher in a new political era for better or worse, I asked Terrific Tom and Paul Bergman, Esq. to join me for lunch at The Corner, 698 Ninth Avenue, a much better than average Chinese restaurant. There were few other diners at lunchtime, a threat to its existence at this expensive location. Given its proximity to the theater district, I hope that Wednesday matinees and evening performances bring in sustaining crowds.

A $100 Groupon coupon supported our omnivorous efforts. I did the ordering, selfishly, as is customary, but went at least one dish too far, over extending our stomachs and wallets. We each had an excellent filet mignon egg roll ($6) and then shared tasty chicken
soong, coarsely ground chicken stir-fried with soy sauce, rice wine, celery, carrots and scallions wrapped in ice berg lettuce leaves ($16); “Creamy Lobster Noodles in Ginger & Scallion Sauce” good, but not as good as it sounds ($36); very spicy cumin lamb ($28); jumbo shrimp in lobster sauce, more soup than sauce, most disappointing ($28). 
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I returned to my polling place at 3:10 PM, found only 5 people ahead of me and was finished at 3:15. Now the prayers.

Wednesday, November 6, 2024
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Election Day 1994 was November 8, almost exactly 30 years ago. It was not a presidential year, but there were many significant races, the most important to me was Mario Cuomo‘s campaign for a third term as New York governor against George Pataki, an obscure state legislator. I voted and left for the airport to take an overnight flight to Paris.

Weeks before, I started a job selling software for which I eventually proved ill-suited. I had the chutzpah to tell my boss that I was taking vacation just barely after I had located the bathroom. It was not that I had invested so much in the trip. The flight was free under an airline reward program and I was headed for a couch in the apartment Charlotte and John Stanley were renting during a sabbatical from UC Riverside. The trip was planned well before I got the job. It was to be my second trip to Paris and I could not be deterred.

The polls had not even closed when I got on the plane and, to my mind, the results stood:
Cuomo    1
Pataki      0

I got to the apartment in the 13th Arrondissement maybe 9 or 10 in the morning local time. John, professor of politics, was loaded with news. Cuomo had lost, along with many other prominent Democrats across the country. This morning, the parallels shout out to me, although the consequences are far more dangerous now. Also, at least I had Paris then.
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Din Tai Fung, 1633 Broadway, the swanky dim sum place from Taiwan, gets a lukewarm review in today’s paper. 

Several weeks ago, I had the temerity of walking in at lunchtime without a reservation. The woman at the desk was unmoved by my explanation of New York Chinese restaurant protocol and barred entry. The review indicates that I was spared paying too much for inconsistent results. 

Besides raising that caution, the article offers poor advice for a critical part of the dining experience, eating a soup dumpling. “Mindful of the instructions placed on every table to prevent newbies from staining their shirts, I dabbed ginger and vinegar on top, nibbled a hole in the swirled knot [at the top] and blew on it carefully. I slurped, and I understood.” Actually, the most efficient and safest way to eat a soup dumpling is to place it on the ever-present porcelain spoon, nip at the side towards the bottom and slurp, allowing gravity to do most of the work. Go to Joe’s Home of Soup Dumplings, 7 East 48th Street, to save a month’s waiting time for a reservation and about $10 for a plate of dumplings.

Thursday, November 7, 2024
In an attempt to act normal under these abnormal circumstances, I went to New Jersey to have lunch with my brother at LouCas, 9 Lincoln Highway, Edison, an Italian restaurant named for its chef. It's a very big, tastefully, but conventionally, decorated place, loaded with ladies who lunch -- Jersey style.

Service was very attentive and prices were reasonable, especially considering the high quality of the food. There was a long list of daily specials from which I chose a salad with poached pear, baked goat cheese, candied walnuts and tiny tomatoes over greens ($15). ("You had salad?" said my young bride later.) My main course from the regular menu was an excellent crab cake with a side of garden vegetables (French fries were not an option) ($19). The portion of tiramisu for dessert was large, fortunately because it tasted so good ($10). Worth noting is that LouCas has a BYOB policy, allowing festivity with some economy. So, go visit my brother and eat at LouCas.
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No one would know of Karl Plagge except for the prodigious efforts of Dr. Michael Good whose mother survived WWII as a child in the Vilna ghetto. 98% of Vilna’s 100,000 Jews were murdered by the Nazis. Plagge, a Wehrmacht major, sheltered 1,000 Jews in a work camp that he ran, insisting that families be kept with the slave laborers. At every turn, he tried to protect his group, men, women and children, from roundups and deportation. Ultimately, 250 survived, including Good’s mother.

I heard him speak tonight about the underlying events and his five-year search for the story, extending to Germany, Lithuania, Israel and Uruguay. His book, “The Search for Major Plagge: The Nazi Who Saved Jews”, is available  in print from Fordham University Press, Amazon and Barnes & Noble, as well as an audio book and electronic download.

Friday, November 8, 2024
“The world’s 10 richest people got a record $64 billion richer from Trump’s reelection” https://www.cnn.com/2024/11/07/investing/billionaires-net-worth-trump-win?cid=ios_app

Rabbi Harold Kushner wrote “When Bad Things Happen to Good People.” Here we have the sequel, “When Good Things Happen to Bad People.”


Saturday, November 2, 2024

Duty Calls

NB - Delivery of last week's blog was fouled up in many cases. Apparently, mentioning Hamas and Khmer Rouge in the same sentence awakened the opposition. Sorry for the annoyance.

Saturday, October 26, 2024
While I have reasons to dislike both teams in the World Series, the Los Angeles Dodgers and the New York Yankees, they share one unique virtue. Unlike all the other baseball teams, they have no mascot, described by a radio announcer as “some dopey little guy in some costume.” 

I make this profession in spite of the existence of a blurry photograph of Mr. Met and me taken at Shea Stadium very early in this century. It has been preserved by Lord Kennington, in attendance on the occasion of an effort to acclimate him to his surroundings in the former colonies.
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I had lunch today with William Franklin Harrison, destined to be a future President of the United States. We went to Thai 72, 128 West 72nd Street. We shared chive pancakes (8 pieces for $12) and chicken satay with an excellent peanut sauce (3 skewers for $14). Chive pancakes, as they are called, are usually half-inch thick, spongey, dark green triangles, resembling door stops in an ogre’s dollhouse. I found two schools of thought, Korean (buchujeon) and Chinese (jiu cai he ze). Recipes are similar, yielding basically an omelettey pancake. However, presentation in small triangles seems to be a restaurant thing. When was the last time that you cut up a pancake into little pieces before serving to an adult?

Moving on, I had kao soy (“Northern-style noodle curry”), egg noodles, shallots, green apples and bean sprouts with beef, in a big soupy bowl of curry sauce ($18).

Sunday, October 27, 2024
The conflict is intensifying. Stony Brook Steve sends me this list of the city’s best bagels published by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, of all people. 

It resembles the New York Times list from last week, still omitting my favorite, Zucker’s Smoked Fish & Bagels, 273 Columbus Avenue and a handful of other Manhattan locations. Maybe you should buy whitefish salad at Zucker’s and go somewhere else for a bagel. Meanwhile, I am sure that other parties are still to be heard from.
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In New York City, the controversy is about how to get into high school (a single test for admission to a set of selective schools), while in Massachusetts it’s about how to get out. 

Statewide, Massachusetts requires completion of standardized exams in English, math and the sciences to earn a high school diploma, the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS). More than 90% of students pass the tests on their first try. Do-overs are allowed. “Ultimately, just hundreds of students — among more than 65,000 test takers — are annually blocked from a diploma because they do not pass the MCAS. But some 85 percent are students with disabilities or new immigrants still learning English.” 

Massachusetts voters now have a ballot measure that would eliminate MCAS as a graduation requirement. The teachers’ union, Elizabeth Warren and some other liberal politicians favor it, while the Democratic governor and the Boston Globe, the oldest and largest local newspaper, among others, oppose.

Vote No. Turning kids out pretending that they are equipped to handle the challenges of the everyday world is cynically unfair to them and society at large. Maybe alternate educational paths and measurements are needed for those truly marginalized. Invest more, the same approach that I advocate to improve the ethnic balance at Stuyvesant High School.

Monday, October 28,2024
What do New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts and Minnesota have in common other than alphabetical proximity? Only they require real estate agents to reveal paranormal activity in a property for sale.

In the rest of the good old USA, you get your ghost unannounced.
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Speaking of spooky, according to the Census Bureau, the estimated median age of first marriage in 2022 was 28.2 years old for women and 30.1 years old for men, up from 1947’s 20.5 and 23.7.

At this rate, wheelchairs will be standard equipment at wedding processionals.
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“The [Trump] plan for a rally at Madison Square Garden itself deliberately evoked its predecessor: a Nazi rally at the old Madison Square Garden on February 20, 1939. About 18,000 people showed up for that ‘true Americanism’ event, held on a stage that featured a huge portrait of George Washington in his Continental Army uniform flanked by swastikas.” Heather Cox Richardson writes what so many of us have been thinking. Still undecided? 
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This afternoon I took a medical test you-shouldn’t-know-from. The results were good for me and, the best part, there is no follow-up, no more tests, no super-specialists, at least for one part of my larger-than-normal body.

Tuesday, October 29, 2024
Tonight, I went to Roosevelt House, 47-49 East 65th Street, once the home of Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt, now owned and operated by Hunter College as a meeting and conference center.  Jonathan Alter, author of books about FDR, Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama, was discussing “American Reckoning: Inside Trump’s Trial — and My Own,” written after he attended every day of the “hush money” trial.

Alter sees no precedent in our history for Trump’s behavior. Nixon never got into court, for instance. The only other personal encounters with the criminal justice system that Alter found were a summons for Ulysses Grant for driving his buggy too fast and a ticket for Harry Truman for driving his car too slow.

Wednesday, October 30, 2024
My young bride took time off from making the world safe for epidemiology to take me to the theater tonight. We saw “The Hills of California,” the latest work by Jez Butterworth, author of “Jerusalem” and “The Ferryman,” two outstanding plays in my opinion. This wonderful work about a mother anxious for her daughters to succeed in show business has parallels to “Gypsy,” although everyone keeps her clothes on in public. Borrow the headsets, the accents are very thick.

Thursday, October 31, 2024
The New York Times analyzed the voter registration records of more than 3.5 million Americans who moved since the last presidential election. 

The results belie expectations for a future of increased domestic  tranquility. Republicans moved to neighborhoods Trump won by an average of 19 percentage points in 2020, while Democrats chose neighborhoods Biden won by the opposite margin (also 19 points). On the other hand, it might become easier to love thy neighbor.

Friday, November 1, 2024
David Prager, R.I.P.
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I am sure that many of you are attentive newspaper readers, spending time with the New York Times in one form or another. So, you might have imagined that I dropped the ball when Wednesday came and went without me mentioning “The 25 Best Pizza Places In New York Right Now” 

Actually, as soon as I saw the headline, I called Michael Ratner to make a lunch date, aiming at one of the listed joints. First, though, I announce my skepticism. None of my three favorite pizza places make the list:
  • Don Antonio, 309 West 50th Street 
  • John’s of Bleecker Street, 278 Bleecker Street 
  • Zero Otto Nove Trattoria, 2357 Arthur Avenue, The Bronx
In fact, the cover of the section containing the article has the banner “New York’s Best Worthy of Debate.” With that in mind, we headed for the recommended Scarr's Pizza, 35 Orchard Street. It appeared to be almost three separate businesses. A crowd gathered on the sidewalk in front of a normal display of slices. Beyond that was a full bar with seating on stools. Further back was about a dozen two tops with waiter service. The little tables proved too small for the large pizza sparsely covered with chicken sausage ($34). The pizza itself was very good, not great, thin with a blistery crust. It filled us up to the point that we skipped trying Sam's Fried Ice Cream, 37B Orchard Street, a few feet away in spite of its intriguing name.
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I am not asking for any sympathy as a pedantic retiree, but I want to make you aware of my current burden of responsibility. A few months ago, the New York Times published "57 Sandwiches That Defines New York City." Then, in the last couple of weeks, there have been two lists of the reputed 25 best local bagels. Now, we have supposedly the 25 best pizzas. With my duty to you and posterity to validate these assertions, I have very little opportunity to exercise free will. But, I will persevere.