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Bronxville, New York — Great cities like New York and Paris are walkable and full of excellent restaurants. Miami is developing into a great city from Brickell north to Wynwood and their surrounding areas, but the heat and humidity can be oppressive. During a recent visit to New York, your columnist had the opportunity to explore Manhattan’s Flatiron District—at a time when New York City may be turning into a Communist jihadist enclave.

Grand Central Terminal

Getting there required taking the Metro-North train to Grand Central Terminal, home of the perennial favorite Oyster Bar restaurant. The New England clam chowder is a delicious, reliable choice, as are the Scottish salmon and Maryland crab cakes.

This terminal once featured Michael Jordan’s Steak House near the Vanderbilt entrance, but it closed—largely due to the overreaction to the Wuhan flu virus. A new steakhouse, Palladino’s, has opened in its place, and everyone is rooting for it to succeed. Another newcomer near the 42nd Street entrance is Grand Brasserie, a French-style restaurant.

Not far from the northeast entrance to Grand Central, on Lexington Avenue and 54th Street, stands Le Relais de Venise—L’Entrecôte, a French bistro steakhouse. Its steak frites are delicious and served with a signature sauce. Desserts are tasty, and the house wines are reliable.

Grand Central has expanded in recent years to accommodate Long Island Rail Road trains. In the new Madison Avenue section, Tracks Raw Bar & Grill—a legendary commuter bar formerly at Penn Station—has opened. Its menu extends beyond seafood, offering award-winning chowder, Cajun chicken sandwiches, and grilled steak sandwiches on baguettes. Guinness is on tap.

Last year, jihadists occupied the terminal during rush hour but were eventually expelled by the NYPD and National Guard. The building’s owner keeps a nest of falcons on the roof to control the pigeon and rat populations in the surrounding streets.

Murray Hill

East of Grand Central, in the Murray Hill neighborhood, several excellent restaurants stand out.
• Arthur & Sons (39th Street west of Third Avenue) serves classic New York Italian dishes with signature cocktails and lively energy. The fresh gnocchi in house tomato-basil sauce, tossed with mozzarella, pecorino and extra-virgin olive oil, then topped with burrata, is a highlight.
• Norma (Third Avenue near 30th Street) offers traditional Sicilian cuisine in a rustic yet elegant setting. The home-style cooking evokes the atmosphere of Michael Corleone’s Sicily.
• Sarge’s Delicatessen (Third Avenue near 36th Street) serves legendary pastrami sandwiches and matzo ball soup—Jewish penicillin. It also serves breakfast all day and is open seven days a week.

Park Avenue South

Walking down Park Avenue South from Grand Central to the Flatiron Building reveals more gems.
• Pershing Square Café, across from Grand Central’s main entrance, is a bustling American bistro serving comfort food from breakfast through dinner. Located under a roadway and above a railway, it was famously disrupted in 2020 when BLM protesters stormed Sunday brunch.

• Novita (22nd Street) is a casual Northern Italian restaurant with excellent pappardelle in meat sauce and classic cacio e pepe. Its cozy, intimate space is inviting, though the front step is awkward.

• Isabelle’s Osteria (near Gramercy Park) presents refined Italian dining with homemade pastas, seasonal dishes, and private event options.

Church, Hotel and Union League Club

On Park Avenue South and 38th Street stands the Roman Catholic Church of Our Savior, where on Good Fridays the priest once reflected on each of Christ’s seven last sayings on thte Cross, accompanied by celestial musical interludes.

Across the street, the elegant Kitano Hotel offers boutique accommodations at reasonable prices for its quality and location. Bronze Botero sculptures adorn the lobby.

Nearby, the Union League Club on East 37th Street is a bastion of good government in a city tilting leftward. Zohran Mamdani, a Democratic Socialist, leads the polls in New York’s four-way mayoral race. Other candidates include Andrew Cuomo (a failed former governor), Eric Adams (a troubled incumbent who didn’t even run in the Democratic primary), and Curtis Sliwa (a Republican crusader for public safety, deserving President Trump’s endorsement).

New York should also consider adopting Miami’s system of runoff elections, ensuring that the mayor is chosen by a majority. Otherwise, New Yorkers may find themselves moving to Miami—joining the many Spanish-speakers there, proof of communism’s failure.

Affordability

According to polls, a plurality (though not a majority) of New York City voters are preparing to elect a Communist-jihadist mayor because they believe he will deliver “affordability.” But how affordable are Havana or Tehran?

New York City has always been expensive, yet it has become even less affordable due to progressive policies from Democrat governors and legislatures over the past 20 years, and Democrat mayors and city councils over the last 12 years. These policies include:

1. High state and city income taxes, along with numerous other levies and fees.
2. Enterprise-stifling regulations—not permitting fracking, closing Indian Point nuclear power plant, and blocking natural gas pipelines to New England.
3. Rent control on thousands of residential units, and limits on new construction, which prevent the market from clearing.
4. Union favoritism, with strong support for both public- and private-sector unions, while rejecting right-to-work laws.

The State of New York has a slightly smaller population than Florida, but its state and local governments spend more than twice as much as Florida’s.

Flatiron District

The Flatiron Building, a 22-story, steel-framed, triangular skyscraper at Fifth Avenue, Broadway and 23rd Street, opened in 1902. Designed by Daniel Burnham—who helped rebuild Chicago after the Great Fire of 1871 and designed Washington, D.C.’s Union Station—it is now being renovated into residential units.

Across the street is the Eataly marketplace, evoking both Rome and Milan. It houses authentic Italian restaurants, bakeries, grocery shops, cooking classes, and events. As Clemenza advised: “Leave the gun, take the cannolis.”

At Eataly, you’ll learn that “extra virgin” olive oil must come exclusively from the first cold pressing, extracted only by mechanical means (hydraulic press or centrifuge), contain no chemicals, be 100% pure olive juice, and have low acidity before bottling. A branch of Eataly has now opened in Aventura, Florida.
Another neighborhood gem, Boqueria (53 West 19th Street), feels like a tapas bar in Barcelona. Its jamón serrano sandwich on a crusty flute roll has earned worldwide praise. Nearly 20 years ago, The New York Times’ Barcelona correspondent hailed the version served at Café Viena on the Ramblas as “the best sandwich I’ve ever had!” Pair it with a lager beer or milk, depending on your age and condition. The churros are also superb. Fortunately, the locals in Manhattan are friendlier to tourists than their counterparts in Barcelona—so far.

Midtown Traffic

Next to the Flatiron Building, articulated diesel buses operated by the MTA run along 23rd Street between the Hudson and East Rivers. We rode them both ways.

Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia (1934–45) consolidated New York transit under government ownership. Until the Great Depression and the New Deal, subways and elevated railways had been built and run by private companies. LaGuardia laid the groundwork for today’s bloated public transit—and for a future Mayor Mamdani.

Driving in Manhattan has always been difficult, unless you were a taxi driver. Since Mayor Bloomberg’s anti-car policies (2001–13), it has become nearly impossible. Your columnist last tried it in the summer of 1977 and has never attempted it again. Lanes have been sacrificed for bike paths, and “congestion pricing” now rules lower Manhattan.

The future likely belongs to Waymo driverless taxis—at least in Manhattan, they haven’t yet been set on fire by rioters as in Los Angeles. For now, there are Uber and Lyft cars, along with the classic yellow cabs (now mostly Nissans built in Mexico). Perhaps the city should import left-hand-drive London taxi cabs, already in use by Uber in Paris.

Empire State Building

At Fifth Avenue and 34th Street stands the Empire State Building. Completed in 1931 after only 14 months of construction, it became the world’s first skyscraper with more than 100 stories.
We don’t build like that anymore.

New York Public Library

The New York Public Library at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street is open to the public but privately operated as a not-for-profit corporation. It remains a peaceful oasis for reading and writing in the heart of Midtown, near Grand Central.

Sadly, jihadists have been gathering on its steps this summer to show support for Tehran’s clerical regime and its Hamas death cult in Gaza.

The Roosevelt Hotel

When your columnist visited last year, the Roosevelt Hotel near Grand Central had been completely rented out by the City of New York to house illegal aliens. At one point, roughly 20% of all hotel rooms in the city were under government contract for that purpose. Guards even attempted to prevent photos from being taken.

The hotel is now permanently closed. Get woke, go broke.

Saint Patrick’s Cathedral

Will Cardinal Dolan invite candidate Mamdani to speak at next month’s Al Smith Dinner? If so, will Mamdani accept? Will the menu include pork and wine? Will the event be catered by city-run grocery stores?

Karol Wojtyła—on his path to becoming Saint Pope John Paul II—understood that, with all its flaws, the Roman Catholic Church is still far better than the Communist Party.
See:
• https://miamiindependent.com/zhoran-kwame-mamdani-is-todays-mainstream-democrat/
• https://miamiindependent.com/mamdani-versus-new-york-city/

Hopefully, Cardinal Dolan will not submit to dhimmi status.

While attending high school in the 1970s, your columnist rode a school bus past Skokie, Illinois, a suburb with a substantial Jewish population. Many of its synagogues displayed signs reading “Save Soviet Jews.” Back then, your columnist didn’t know much about Jews—but reasoned that if the Soviets were persecuting them, they couldn’t be all bad.

Soon, we may see signs reading: “Save New York City Jews.”

Rockefeller Center

One of the delights of the third version of Yankee Stadium, which opened in 2009 with the Yankees’ most recent World Series victory, is Lobel’s sandwich stand down the left-field line. Lobel’s, a six-generation family business that began in Austria in the 1840s, has run a butcher shop on the Upper East Side since 1954—where Jacqueline Onassis was a customer.

Now, Lobel’s has opened a sandwich shop in the lower-level concourse Rockefeller Center. Their classic beef sandwich is outstanding—large enough to split between two people.

Trump Tower

On the southeast corner of Fifth Avenue and 57th Street stands Trump Tower, the iconic headquarters of our President. Completed in 1983, it includes residential, office, and retail space. Donald Trump was already a tremendously successful developer over 40 years ago.

The golden escalator to the ground floor remains memorable.

Side Trip to New Haven

In the future, we plan to take the Metro-North train from New Rochelle to New Haven, Connecticut. Directly across from the station is Sally’s Apizza, in operation since 1938. Founded by Salvatore Consiglio, it is famous for its distinctive tomato sauce and chewy, crispy, oven-kissed crusts. While toppings range from clams to shrimp to potatoes, we’ll order Italian sausage. The Italian meatballs are also renowned.

A short walk away is Zeneli’s, a Neapolitan pizzeria run by four Albanian brothers who trained in Naples. Their pizza Margherita is a highlight.

Slim Pickings Coming Up

As Napoleon observed, an army marches on its stomach. With Mayor Mamdani on the horizon, now is the time to enjoy New York City’s restaurants. Communist cities rarely sustain good dining scenes. Just look at Moscow, East Berlin, Havana or Caracas.

Hong Kong doesn’t count.

You could look it up.