D'oh, I forgot a few!
Sep. 12th, 2010 12:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
conulyObama Tries to Calm Religious Tensions
President Obama gave an impassioned call on Friday for tolerance and better relations between Muslims and non-Muslims at home and abroad, defending the “inalienable rights” of those who practice Islam to do so freely.
Mr. Obama made his statements as protests and violence continued in Afghanistan, set off by a Florida pastor’s plans, now suspended, to burn Korans on Saturday, the ninth anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, and against the backdrop of the controversy in New York over a proposed Islamic center near ground zero.
With relations between the United States and the Muslim world perhaps at their most frayed since the invasion of Iraq seven and a half years ago, the president sought to appeal to America’s core principles.
Mr. Obama said it was imperative for people in this country to distinguish between their real enemies and those who have the potential to become enemies because of continued vilification of Islam in the United States. At a time when polls suggest that a substantial number of Americans erroneously believe that Mr. Obama is Muslim, the president cited his own Christian faith at one point.
“We have to make sure that we don’t start turning on each other,” he said. “And I will do everything that I can, as long as I am president of the United States, to remind the American people that we are one nation, under God. And we may call that God different names, but we remain one nation. And, you know, as somebody who, you know, relies heavily on my Christian faith in my job, I understand, you know, the passions that religious faith can raise.”
Asked about the wisdom of building an Islamic center a few blocks from the site of the Sept. 11 attacks, Mr. Obama reiterated his position that Muslims have the right to build a mosque on the site, without directly saying whether he thought doing so was a good idea.
“This country stands for the proposition that all men and women are created equal, that they have certain inalienable rights,” Mr. Obama said. “And what that means is that if you could build a church on a site, you could build a synagogue on a site, if you could build a Hindu temple on a site, then you should be able to build a mosque on the site.”
Urged on by their religious leaders, Afghans in many locations around the country poured out of their mosques and took to the streets Friday morning, and in most cases the demonstrations remained peaceful. But two of them turned violent, in both cases outside NATO reconstruction bases, and a total of at least 12 people were wounded, three of them critically, in addition to the one who was killed.
While Mr. Obama cast the issue in terms of American national security and the impact of assaults on Islam in this country on American troops in Afghanistan and Iraq, he also said that security was not the only prism through which the issue should be viewed. “We’ve got millions of Muslim Americans, our fellow citizens, in this country,” Mr. Obama said. “They’re going to school with our kids. They’re our neighbors. They’re our friends. They’re our co-workers. And when we start acting as if their religion is somehow offensive, what are we saying to them?”
This ninth anniversary of Sept. 11 has turned almost into a referendum on America’s ability to coexist with the multitude religions. Mr. Obama will be observing the anniversary at the Pentagon, while the first lady, Michelle Obama, will join the former first lady Laura Bush in Shanksville, Pa., the site where the fourth hijacked plane went down. Mr. Obama said that it was important to remember that Muslims are fighting with the United States in the two wars begun since the attacks.
“They’re out there putting their lives on the line for us,” Mr. Obama said. “And we’ve got to make sure that we are crystal clear for our sakes and their sakes: they are Americans and we honor their service. And part of honoring their service is making sure that they understand that we don’t differentiate between them and us.
“It’s just us.”
While New York City will observe the anniversary with familiar rituals — moments of silence, the reading of nearly 3,000 names — a new rancor will be on hand as supporters and opponents of the planned Islamic center near ground zero hold dueling rallies. The two rallies will unfold at roughly the same time in the afternoon near where the proposed mosque and Islamic center is to be built at 51 Park Place. On Friday night, about 2,000 supporters of the project gathered for a vigil near the site, saying they wanted to avoid entangling the mosque controversy and the Sept. 11 observance, according to The Associated Press.
A day after the pastor in Florida, Terry Jones, suspended his plan to burn Korans amid back-and-forth accounts of whether he had won an agreement to move the Islamic center to a new location — it turned out he had not — Daisy Khan, the wife of the center’s imam, Feisal Abdul Rauf, and another person briefed on the conversation provided an account.
They said they never told Mr. Jones or the Florida imam who was acting as an intermediary, Muhammad Musri, that they would move, and only vaguely agreed to meet — at some point down the road.
Mr. Musri called Ms. Khan in “a bit of a panic,” Ms. Khan said, saying he wanted to give Mr. Jones an incentive not to burn Korans. Asked if they would change the location, Ms. Khan said, “No, of course not.” Her account was first reported by Think Progress and confirmed by Ms. Khan. She said she was a bit surprised when Mr. Jones said he would come to New York almost immediately.
Mr. Musri confirmed most of Ms. Khan’s version in an e-mail late Friday, although he recalled them agreeing that the meeting would be “very soon” and not down the road, as she had said.
He then went on to express frustration with Mr. Jones, saying in an e-mail that the pastor “did not speak the truth” when he announced that he had been told the mosque would move.
Mr. Jones got on a plane headed to New York, according to an acquaintance, K. A. Paul; the flight landed Friday night, The A.P. said. Mr. Jones has said he wants to meet with Mr. Rauf.
A half-hour after the conclusion of the ceremony near ground zero for the family members of those who died in the attacks, supporters of the proposed Islamic center were to gather for a rally at 1 p.m. at City Hall Park, about a block and a half from 51 Park Place. The opponents’ rally was to begin at 3 p.m. at Park Place and West Broadway.
~~~~~~~~
Notice how he just kinda slides that mention of his deep Christian faith in there. I don't know why he bothers. The people who think he's secretly Satan-worshipping Muslim aren't going to believe him anyway - and the real problem is that these folks have this idiotic idea that it matters.
City Disavows Pastor’s Talk of Burning Koran
Stephanie George used to see members of the Dove World Outreach Center at her neighborhood grocery store, wearing T-shirts that said “Islam is of the devil.” But on Friday, she and her friend Lynda Dillon showed up early at Dragonfly Graphics to order a dozen shirts with a different message: “Love, not Dove.”
The design itself, complete with a lyric made famous by Elvis Costello (“What’s so funny ’bout peace, love and understanding”), takes direct aim at the pastor Terry Jones, his church and his threat — now suspended — to burn copies of the Koran on Saturday, Sept. 11.
But Ms. George and others who have lined up for the shirts from Dragonfly frown and sigh with exasperation that such a public stand is even necessary.
“He’s a lunatic, and yet I still feel like I need to get the message out that we’re not lunatics with him,” said Ms. George, 46. “I don’t want this to represent my neighborhood.”
Mr. Jones has become a reviled figure around the world. But the people of this youthful city in central Florida are taking his actions personally, with anger and heartbreak, as one of their neighbors drags their hometown into nearly nonstop news coverage and infamy.
Gainesville, after all, is a university town that until a few months ago was best known for producing college football champions, Gatorade and rockers like Tom Petty.
Educated and progressive, with a gay mayor and a City Commission made up entirely of Democrats, Gainesville is a sprawling metropolis of 115,000 people where smoothie shops seem to outnumber gun shops.
Fanatics can come from anywhere, Gainesvillians will tell you, but why did this one have to come from here?
“He doesn’t represent the community,” said Larry Wilcox, 78, reading the newspaper at a local Panera restaurant. “This guy is obviously a publicity hound and a weirdo.”
On Friday, Mr. Jones once again turned the lawn at Dove into a spectacle, featuring dozens of photographers and newly arrived supporters, including a former Marine in full camouflage holding an American flag and demanding an apology from Muslims for the Marine barracks bombing in 1983 that killed 241 service members in Beirut.
“It’s frustrating,” said the Rev. Larry Reimer, pastor of the United Church of Gainesville. It was just before noon and he was standing at the door of Dove in a pressed sport coat, with a pile of 8,048 signatures and comments from 97 countries, all demanding that Mr. Jones unequivocally call off his plan to burn the Koran. The thick document was carefully tied in a white ribbon.
Mr. Reimer said people from all over the world had called him and sent e-mail messages offering to help Gainesville counter Mr. Jones. Mayor Craig Lowe said he, too, had been inundated with suggestions.
One resident said he might sue the city or Mr. Jones so the community would be forced to go to court and talk through what happened. Someone from out of town suggested using the National Guard to stop Mr. Jones from setting the holy texts ablaze.
“The amount of e-mail that we’ve gotten is just massive,” Mayor Lowe said in an interview. “It’s almost one a second.”
The challenge for many seems to be managing their anger, and figuring out how to keep Mr. Jones in perspective. Some are looking to direct confrontation; Jose Soto, a leader with Students for a Democratic Society at the University of Florida, stood across the street from Dove on Friday afternoon with a group of students shouting, “Hey ho, hey ho, Dove Outreach has got to go.”
He said that even after this weekend, his group was thinking of following Dove’s leaders when they wore their “Islam is of the devil” T-shirts and surrounding them with signs that identified them as hate-mongers.
“Ignoring them hasn’t worked,” he said. “They just escalate.”
John L. Esposito, a scholar of religion and international affairs at Georgetown who has acted as a consultant to the State Department, offered a different option. Politicians, the news media, all of Gainesville, he said, should stop pleading or arguing against the Koran burning and shift their energy toward all that Mr. Jones is not. “What we have to start doing is delivering the positive side of our message of who we are, and then that will set an example for others in our society who are maybe on the fence,” he said.
That seemed to be exactly the goal of Dragonfly. For 24 years, the tiny four-person company (with part-time help from the owner’s mother) has been printing T-shirts for companies, students, events and churches.
Joy Revels, the owner, said she even used to print generic polo shirts for Dove before last year, when Mr. Jones put a sign outside his church saying, “Islam is of the devil.”
“He called me for the T-shirts” with that slogan, she said, T-shirts that young members of the church wore to school last year and that led to standard uniforms this year. But she refused.
On Tuesday, after seeing the firestorm Mr. Jones created, she decided to act. She said “Love, not Dove” sounded like a good motto, and her graphic artist — Josh Huey, 24, thin, scruffy and lip-pierced — turned out a tattoo-like image of a dove in distress.
Because that seemed a little harsh, Ms. Revels returned to a favorite Costello song (written by Nick Lowe), which sets peace, love and understanding against an opening of “As I walk through this wicked world searchin’ for light in the darkness of insanity.”
Perfect, she thought. She printed 200 shirts to test demand, asking only for donations. As of Friday evening, more than 1,000 shirts had flown out the door.
By nightfall on Friday, Ms. Revels, looking younger than her 50 years, with spiky hair and long plaid shorts, was in the back working the presses with Mr. Huey. Strangers and friends streamed in asking for shirts. One gone. Six more. Then a dozen.
“Whatever Mr. Jones does, it’s still the same in our community,” Ms. Revels said.
She struggled to explain conflicting emotions. “This isn’t ‘We hate you, Terry Jones,’ ” she finally said.
“It’s ‘This is who we are, Gainesville.’ We’re not going to stoop to his level.”
Chock Full o’Nuts Returns to Manhattan. But Is That Salmon on the Menu?
Back in the 1950s and ’60s, New York City was studded with Chock Full o’Nuts coffee shops, homegrown institutions where the budget-minded could sidle up to the lunch counter for a freshly prepared meal. But the restaurants — once nearly as ubiquitous as the Checker cabs that inspired their yellow-and-black decor — were all but gone by the early ’80s, leaving faded memories and eventually some smaller cafes and kiosks bearing the company name.
But starting at 11 a.m. Monday, New Yorkers will once more be able to enjoy those long-lost whole-wheat doughnuts, nut-and-cream-cheese sandwiches, grilled hot dogs and split pea soups, along with their coffee, when the chain opens its first old-style restaurant in decades.
“It finally dawned on us that we were missing the heritage, and that we really needed to get back to the roots of what Chock was really well-known for,” said Jim LaGanke, a vice president of the company, which has continued to sell its self-proclaimed “heavenly coffee” in stores. “We’re going to bring back Chock to New York in a way that people remember it.”
Quite literally: the restaurant, on 23rd Street between Fifth Avenue and Avenue of the Americas, is even offering two versions of its nutty sandwich — the original, on whole-wheat raisin bread with walnuts and Neufchatel cheese, and one with cream cheese on date-nut bread, which many people remember fondly despite its late introduction to the menu, Mr. LaGanke said.
For the developers who will operate the restaurant in the shadow of Mario Batali’s high-end Eataly complex — Joe Bruno and Patrick Johnson — this is just the beginning. They are already constructing a second Chock in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, where the two grew up, and have the rights to develop 50 restaurants across the city (except for Staten Island) over the next 15 years.
Chock Full o’Nuts began as a nut shop in 1926 and became a coffee shop chain during the Depression. “We’re in a recession now,” Mr. Bruno said, “and comfort food is always something that people gravitate to. On top of that, let’s face it: leases are now to be easily had in Manhattan.”
Judging from the enthusiasm with which passers-by greeted the menu in the window on Friday afternoon, Mr. Bruno’s assessment may prove correct.
“I hadn’t seen one of these in decades, and I got terribly excited. I called my husband, who was born, raised and educated in Manhattan,” said Susan Scapier, who lives in the borough and declined to give her age, saying, “That’s classified — way over 40.” She said she had become a fan of the chain’s hot dogs after she moved to New York around 1980.
Madeline Tarantino and Rose Sorrentino, longtime friends from Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, said they hoped it would be like the place they remembered for its doughnuts.
“Just goes to show, some things do come back,” Ms. Tarantino said to Ms. Sorrentino as they strolled 23rd Street.
But some things come back different. The menu, which includes items like Buffalo wings, grilled salmon and a Cobb salad, features whipped cream cheese on the Chock Classic date-nut sandwich. Linda Mayer, 62, who was telling her husband, Ron, about her memories of the chain, said she remembered occasionally splitting that sandwich with a friend from school when they could scrape together the money for it.
“There was no such thing as whipped cream cheese in those days — that does not make it a classic,” she said with a smile, adding that she would visit the restaurant if she could get her old friend to come with her.
But, she added, “You never can go home again, so I probably will not like the Chock Classic.”~~~~~
You know, the original words to that jingle said that "better coffee Rockefeller's money can't buy". My mother all of a sudden remembered that a few years ago, and talked about it for three days.
President Obama gave an impassioned call on Friday for tolerance and better relations between Muslims and non-Muslims at home and abroad, defending the “inalienable rights” of those who practice Islam to do so freely.
Mr. Obama made his statements as protests and violence continued in Afghanistan, set off by a Florida pastor’s plans, now suspended, to burn Korans on Saturday, the ninth anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, and against the backdrop of the controversy in New York over a proposed Islamic center near ground zero.
With relations between the United States and the Muslim world perhaps at their most frayed since the invasion of Iraq seven and a half years ago, the president sought to appeal to America’s core principles.
Mr. Obama said it was imperative for people in this country to distinguish between their real enemies and those who have the potential to become enemies because of continued vilification of Islam in the United States. At a time when polls suggest that a substantial number of Americans erroneously believe that Mr. Obama is Muslim, the president cited his own Christian faith at one point.
“We have to make sure that we don’t start turning on each other,” he said. “And I will do everything that I can, as long as I am president of the United States, to remind the American people that we are one nation, under God. And we may call that God different names, but we remain one nation. And, you know, as somebody who, you know, relies heavily on my Christian faith in my job, I understand, you know, the passions that religious faith can raise.”
Asked about the wisdom of building an Islamic center a few blocks from the site of the Sept. 11 attacks, Mr. Obama reiterated his position that Muslims have the right to build a mosque on the site, without directly saying whether he thought doing so was a good idea.
“This country stands for the proposition that all men and women are created equal, that they have certain inalienable rights,” Mr. Obama said. “And what that means is that if you could build a church on a site, you could build a synagogue on a site, if you could build a Hindu temple on a site, then you should be able to build a mosque on the site.”
Urged on by their religious leaders, Afghans in many locations around the country poured out of their mosques and took to the streets Friday morning, and in most cases the demonstrations remained peaceful. But two of them turned violent, in both cases outside NATO reconstruction bases, and a total of at least 12 people were wounded, three of them critically, in addition to the one who was killed.
While Mr. Obama cast the issue in terms of American national security and the impact of assaults on Islam in this country on American troops in Afghanistan and Iraq, he also said that security was not the only prism through which the issue should be viewed. “We’ve got millions of Muslim Americans, our fellow citizens, in this country,” Mr. Obama said. “They’re going to school with our kids. They’re our neighbors. They’re our friends. They’re our co-workers. And when we start acting as if their religion is somehow offensive, what are we saying to them?”
This ninth anniversary of Sept. 11 has turned almost into a referendum on America’s ability to coexist with the multitude religions. Mr. Obama will be observing the anniversary at the Pentagon, while the first lady, Michelle Obama, will join the former first lady Laura Bush in Shanksville, Pa., the site where the fourth hijacked plane went down. Mr. Obama said that it was important to remember that Muslims are fighting with the United States in the two wars begun since the attacks.
“They’re out there putting their lives on the line for us,” Mr. Obama said. “And we’ve got to make sure that we are crystal clear for our sakes and their sakes: they are Americans and we honor their service. And part of honoring their service is making sure that they understand that we don’t differentiate between them and us.
“It’s just us.”
While New York City will observe the anniversary with familiar rituals — moments of silence, the reading of nearly 3,000 names — a new rancor will be on hand as supporters and opponents of the planned Islamic center near ground zero hold dueling rallies. The two rallies will unfold at roughly the same time in the afternoon near where the proposed mosque and Islamic center is to be built at 51 Park Place. On Friday night, about 2,000 supporters of the project gathered for a vigil near the site, saying they wanted to avoid entangling the mosque controversy and the Sept. 11 observance, according to The Associated Press.
A day after the pastor in Florida, Terry Jones, suspended his plan to burn Korans amid back-and-forth accounts of whether he had won an agreement to move the Islamic center to a new location — it turned out he had not — Daisy Khan, the wife of the center’s imam, Feisal Abdul Rauf, and another person briefed on the conversation provided an account.
They said they never told Mr. Jones or the Florida imam who was acting as an intermediary, Muhammad Musri, that they would move, and only vaguely agreed to meet — at some point down the road.
Mr. Musri called Ms. Khan in “a bit of a panic,” Ms. Khan said, saying he wanted to give Mr. Jones an incentive not to burn Korans. Asked if they would change the location, Ms. Khan said, “No, of course not.” Her account was first reported by Think Progress and confirmed by Ms. Khan. She said she was a bit surprised when Mr. Jones said he would come to New York almost immediately.
Mr. Musri confirmed most of Ms. Khan’s version in an e-mail late Friday, although he recalled them agreeing that the meeting would be “very soon” and not down the road, as she had said.
He then went on to express frustration with Mr. Jones, saying in an e-mail that the pastor “did not speak the truth” when he announced that he had been told the mosque would move.
Mr. Jones got on a plane headed to New York, according to an acquaintance, K. A. Paul; the flight landed Friday night, The A.P. said. Mr. Jones has said he wants to meet with Mr. Rauf.
A half-hour after the conclusion of the ceremony near ground zero for the family members of those who died in the attacks, supporters of the proposed Islamic center were to gather for a rally at 1 p.m. at City Hall Park, about a block and a half from 51 Park Place. The opponents’ rally was to begin at 3 p.m. at Park Place and West Broadway.
Notice how he just kinda slides that mention of his deep Christian faith in there. I don't know why he bothers. The people who think he's secretly Satan-worshipping Muslim aren't going to believe him anyway - and the real problem is that these folks have this idiotic idea that it matters.
City Disavows Pastor’s Talk of Burning Koran
Stephanie George used to see members of the Dove World Outreach Center at her neighborhood grocery store, wearing T-shirts that said “Islam is of the devil.” But on Friday, she and her friend Lynda Dillon showed up early at Dragonfly Graphics to order a dozen shirts with a different message: “Love, not Dove.”
The design itself, complete with a lyric made famous by Elvis Costello (“What’s so funny ’bout peace, love and understanding”), takes direct aim at the pastor Terry Jones, his church and his threat — now suspended — to burn copies of the Koran on Saturday, Sept. 11.
But Ms. George and others who have lined up for the shirts from Dragonfly frown and sigh with exasperation that such a public stand is even necessary.
“He’s a lunatic, and yet I still feel like I need to get the message out that we’re not lunatics with him,” said Ms. George, 46. “I don’t want this to represent my neighborhood.”
Mr. Jones has become a reviled figure around the world. But the people of this youthful city in central Florida are taking his actions personally, with anger and heartbreak, as one of their neighbors drags their hometown into nearly nonstop news coverage and infamy.
Gainesville, after all, is a university town that until a few months ago was best known for producing college football champions, Gatorade and rockers like Tom Petty.
Educated and progressive, with a gay mayor and a City Commission made up entirely of Democrats, Gainesville is a sprawling metropolis of 115,000 people where smoothie shops seem to outnumber gun shops.
Fanatics can come from anywhere, Gainesvillians will tell you, but why did this one have to come from here?
“He doesn’t represent the community,” said Larry Wilcox, 78, reading the newspaper at a local Panera restaurant. “This guy is obviously a publicity hound and a weirdo.”
On Friday, Mr. Jones once again turned the lawn at Dove into a spectacle, featuring dozens of photographers and newly arrived supporters, including a former Marine in full camouflage holding an American flag and demanding an apology from Muslims for the Marine barracks bombing in 1983 that killed 241 service members in Beirut.
“It’s frustrating,” said the Rev. Larry Reimer, pastor of the United Church of Gainesville. It was just before noon and he was standing at the door of Dove in a pressed sport coat, with a pile of 8,048 signatures and comments from 97 countries, all demanding that Mr. Jones unequivocally call off his plan to burn the Koran. The thick document was carefully tied in a white ribbon.
Mr. Reimer said people from all over the world had called him and sent e-mail messages offering to help Gainesville counter Mr. Jones. Mayor Craig Lowe said he, too, had been inundated with suggestions.
One resident said he might sue the city or Mr. Jones so the community would be forced to go to court and talk through what happened. Someone from out of town suggested using the National Guard to stop Mr. Jones from setting the holy texts ablaze.
“The amount of e-mail that we’ve gotten is just massive,” Mayor Lowe said in an interview. “It’s almost one a second.”
The challenge for many seems to be managing their anger, and figuring out how to keep Mr. Jones in perspective. Some are looking to direct confrontation; Jose Soto, a leader with Students for a Democratic Society at the University of Florida, stood across the street from Dove on Friday afternoon with a group of students shouting, “Hey ho, hey ho, Dove Outreach has got to go.”
He said that even after this weekend, his group was thinking of following Dove’s leaders when they wore their “Islam is of the devil” T-shirts and surrounding them with signs that identified them as hate-mongers.
“Ignoring them hasn’t worked,” he said. “They just escalate.”
John L. Esposito, a scholar of religion and international affairs at Georgetown who has acted as a consultant to the State Department, offered a different option. Politicians, the news media, all of Gainesville, he said, should stop pleading or arguing against the Koran burning and shift their energy toward all that Mr. Jones is not. “What we have to start doing is delivering the positive side of our message of who we are, and then that will set an example for others in our society who are maybe on the fence,” he said.
That seemed to be exactly the goal of Dragonfly. For 24 years, the tiny four-person company (with part-time help from the owner’s mother) has been printing T-shirts for companies, students, events and churches.
Joy Revels, the owner, said she even used to print generic polo shirts for Dove before last year, when Mr. Jones put a sign outside his church saying, “Islam is of the devil.”
“He called me for the T-shirts” with that slogan, she said, T-shirts that young members of the church wore to school last year and that led to standard uniforms this year. But she refused.
On Tuesday, after seeing the firestorm Mr. Jones created, she decided to act. She said “Love, not Dove” sounded like a good motto, and her graphic artist — Josh Huey, 24, thin, scruffy and lip-pierced — turned out a tattoo-like image of a dove in distress.
Because that seemed a little harsh, Ms. Revels returned to a favorite Costello song (written by Nick Lowe), which sets peace, love and understanding against an opening of “As I walk through this wicked world searchin’ for light in the darkness of insanity.”
Perfect, she thought. She printed 200 shirts to test demand, asking only for donations. As of Friday evening, more than 1,000 shirts had flown out the door.
By nightfall on Friday, Ms. Revels, looking younger than her 50 years, with spiky hair and long plaid shorts, was in the back working the presses with Mr. Huey. Strangers and friends streamed in asking for shirts. One gone. Six more. Then a dozen.
“Whatever Mr. Jones does, it’s still the same in our community,” Ms. Revels said.
She struggled to explain conflicting emotions. “This isn’t ‘We hate you, Terry Jones,’ ” she finally said.
“It’s ‘This is who we are, Gainesville.’ We’re not going to stoop to his level.”
Chock Full o’Nuts Returns to Manhattan. But Is That Salmon on the Menu?
Back in the 1950s and ’60s, New York City was studded with Chock Full o’Nuts coffee shops, homegrown institutions where the budget-minded could sidle up to the lunch counter for a freshly prepared meal. But the restaurants — once nearly as ubiquitous as the Checker cabs that inspired their yellow-and-black decor — were all but gone by the early ’80s, leaving faded memories and eventually some smaller cafes and kiosks bearing the company name.
But starting at 11 a.m. Monday, New Yorkers will once more be able to enjoy those long-lost whole-wheat doughnuts, nut-and-cream-cheese sandwiches, grilled hot dogs and split pea soups, along with their coffee, when the chain opens its first old-style restaurant in decades.
“It finally dawned on us that we were missing the heritage, and that we really needed to get back to the roots of what Chock was really well-known for,” said Jim LaGanke, a vice president of the company, which has continued to sell its self-proclaimed “heavenly coffee” in stores. “We’re going to bring back Chock to New York in a way that people remember it.”
Quite literally: the restaurant, on 23rd Street between Fifth Avenue and Avenue of the Americas, is even offering two versions of its nutty sandwich — the original, on whole-wheat raisin bread with walnuts and Neufchatel cheese, and one with cream cheese on date-nut bread, which many people remember fondly despite its late introduction to the menu, Mr. LaGanke said.
For the developers who will operate the restaurant in the shadow of Mario Batali’s high-end Eataly complex — Joe Bruno and Patrick Johnson — this is just the beginning. They are already constructing a second Chock in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, where the two grew up, and have the rights to develop 50 restaurants across the city (except for Staten Island) over the next 15 years.
Chock Full o’Nuts began as a nut shop in 1926 and became a coffee shop chain during the Depression. “We’re in a recession now,” Mr. Bruno said, “and comfort food is always something that people gravitate to. On top of that, let’s face it: leases are now to be easily had in Manhattan.”
Judging from the enthusiasm with which passers-by greeted the menu in the window on Friday afternoon, Mr. Bruno’s assessment may prove correct.
“I hadn’t seen one of these in decades, and I got terribly excited. I called my husband, who was born, raised and educated in Manhattan,” said Susan Scapier, who lives in the borough and declined to give her age, saying, “That’s classified — way over 40.” She said she had become a fan of the chain’s hot dogs after she moved to New York around 1980.
Madeline Tarantino and Rose Sorrentino, longtime friends from Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, said they hoped it would be like the place they remembered for its doughnuts.
“Just goes to show, some things do come back,” Ms. Tarantino said to Ms. Sorrentino as they strolled 23rd Street.
But some things come back different. The menu, which includes items like Buffalo wings, grilled salmon and a Cobb salad, features whipped cream cheese on the Chock Classic date-nut sandwich. Linda Mayer, 62, who was telling her husband, Ron, about her memories of the chain, said she remembered occasionally splitting that sandwich with a friend from school when they could scrape together the money for it.
“There was no such thing as whipped cream cheese in those days — that does not make it a classic,” she said with a smile, adding that she would visit the restaurant if she could get her old friend to come with her.
But, she added, “You never can go home again, so I probably will not like the Chock Classic.”
You know, the original words to that jingle said that "better coffee Rockefeller's money can't buy". My mother all of a sudden remembered that a few years ago, and talked about it for three days.
