Coney Island Burlesque Paves Way For Organ Grinder Chic; Monkeys Most Affected

Italian stereotypes forgotten, visitors to Coney Island will enjoy the return of organ grinders — with monkeys! — when the boardwalk’s high season starts in earnest next month:

Mayor LaGuardia banned them 70 years ago, but organ grinders will return to Coney Island next month — and maybe bring their monkeys, too.

To kick off the amusement mecca’s opening day April 9, dozens of the once-prominent street musicians plan to crank out old-time hits such as “The Sidewalks of New York” on their automatic music machines.

“It’s a lot of great music,” said Coney Island USA chairman Todd Robbins.

. . .

The machines, some more than 100 years old, were once hugely popular in New York, especially in neighborhoods such as Little Italy and the lower East Side, where Italian immigrants settled.

But in a bid to stamp out Italian stereotypes, LaGuardia banned the instruments from the streets.

“This was cranked up by every Italian immigrant who came to the United States, until it became so noisy that Fiorello LaGuardia had to shut ’em down,” said Aldo Mancusi of the Molinari organs that were made in southwest Brooklyn.

In his biography of public-work whore Robert Moses, Robert Caro claims that Moses once called LaGuardia a “little organ grinder,” a charge Moses denied (although Moses did admit to referring to the Little Flower once as “Rigoletto,” albeit lovingly).

And Now, After Months Of Bureaucratic Wrangling, That Sweet, Sweet California Hooch Is Here!

Eric Asimov discovers that, after months of ironing out bureaucratic details, direct shipment of out-of-state wine is underway in New York:

For years I had been thwarted by Navarro Vineyards’ policy of bypassing retail stores. Instead, Navarro’s fine gewürztraminers and late-harvest rieslings from Mendocino County were sold only through restaurants or by direct sale to customers. As a New York resident, I was out of luck. That is, until last May, when a Supreme Court ruling struck down bans on out-of-state wine shipments in New York and Michigan. Then in July, New York passed a new law allowing residents over the age of 21 to do the civilized thing.

Many more frustrating months passed as the state ironed out the mechanics of its new law. Out-of-state wineries needed to obtain licenses and the bureaucracy required a blizzard of paperwork. The state had to approve agreements with carriers like Federal Express and United Parcel Service before they could legally ship wine. And then, since I’m the type who still holds on to a collection of phonograph records, it took me a couple of months to recognize that I was no longer bound by the old rules.

But when the realization came, it came fast. Within minutes of sitting down at the computer one morning, a half-case of Navarro wines was coming my way. Not bad, I thought, as I began to consider my wish list of hard-to-find wines.

I had visited Peay Vineyards on the Sonoma coast last November and was impressed with their syrahs, pinot noirs and Rhone-style wines, but had never seen them in stores. Bingo! Six assorted bottles of Peay wines were coming my way, too. I was beginning to like this.

Asimov reports that small producers are unable to keep up with the paperwork:

While consumers may be pleased with their new access, the benefits are a little less clear for wineries. Sure, they can expand their market, and, in dealing directly with consumers they are cutting out the middle men, the distributors and retail shops that occupy the two other rungs of the three-tier system that has long stood between consumers and their desired bottles. But smaller producers in particular say they are being overwhelmed by paperwork and that new licensing fees may cut off previously open markets.

“Every state has different laws,” said Dave Harr, the shipping manager at Navarro. “One wants us to collect excise tax, or sales tax, or no tax, leaving it to consumers. Florida wants the tax form shipped to the consumer. New Hampshire has a specific form we have to fill out. Every state has different quantity laws, reporting procedures and fees.”

Navigating through the New York system, for example, requires three different reports, Mr. Gross said: semi-annual, quarterly and monthly, showing tax payments, volume shipped, where it was shipped, and so on. For some winery owners, simply thinking about it causes a headache.

Rocking Horse Winery in Napa, Calif., makes some fine zinfandels, but when I inquired about ordering directly, Jeff Doran, the owner with his wife, Nancy, said he hoped to get around to it, but not until it was less difficult.

“It’s created a quagmire for the small producer,” he said. “So at the moment, we’re focused on the three-tier market because that’s the path of least resistance.”

If software firms can figure out Sarbanes-Oxley reporting requirements, then there has to be some kind of system they can develop for wine shipping. I mean, this is fucking America! Get on it!

Backstory: Functional Repeal Of The 21st Amendment, That Sweet, Sweet California Hooch Is On Its Way, Sweet California Hooch Must Wait.

And You Assumed Manhattan Was High Brow . . .

The FYI column finally addresses that nagging Where-in-Manhattan-can-one-play-Skee-ball? question:

Have no fear. You can find Skee-Ball in Lazer Park, an arcade at 163 West 46th Street, east of Seventh Avenue. In addition, Dave & Buster’s, a Dallas restaurant-and-arcade chain, is opening a branch with Skee-Ball on April 5 in the heart of Times Square, at 234 West 42nd Street, between Seventh and Eighth Avenues.

This doesn’t pretend to be a complete list, but there are Skee-Ball lanes in Coney Island arcades, as well as four Chuck E. Cheese’s restaurant-arcades, in the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island.

For those who have never seen Skee-Ball, players score points by rolling balls up a ramp toward holes of various sizes, separated by circular dividers. The harder a hole is to reach, the more it is worth.

We Can Peel The “I Caused 9/11” Sticker Off Of The Statue Of Liberty’s Crown Now

The Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island will be powered by renewable resources, effectively eliminating a sensitive source of irony:

The Statue of Liberty, America’s ubiquitous symbol for freedom is now symbolically free from fossil fuels. The Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island and several other federal facilities in northern New Jersey owned by U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) will run on 100% renewable power.

Pepco Energy Services, a supplier of renewable electricity in the mid-Atlantic region, will provide the green power credits in a three-year contract. The energy will be generated from wind turbines.

Pepco Energy Services will supply an estimated 27 million kWh of electricity generated from 100% renewable resources to the Statue of Liberty on Liberty Island and the Ellis Island Immigration Museum on Ellis Island; both landmarks are operated by the National Park Service.

Minerva Update

Minerva’s view of the Statue of Liberty may be safe:

A controversial condo that threatens to block the famed wave between the Statue of Liberty and a Green-Wood Cemetery icon suffered another setback last week when the local community board voted to downsize the project.

Developers hoped the 614 Seventh Ave. building would tower 70 feet in height, but Community Board 7 members voted to limit it to 50 feet, arguing that new city zoning regulations applied to the lot.

“The community didn’t feel it was appropriate to reward developers for bad behavior,” said Board 7 chair Randy Peers, adding developer Chaim Nussencweig’s project had been tagged with five active Buildings Department violations.

Nussencweig had struck a deal with Green-Wood Cemetery officials earlier this month to cut out a portion of the 38-unit condo to preserve the famed salute between the cemetery’s statue of Minerva and Lady Liberty.

Critics of the redesign called it a peephole that would save only a sliver of the current panoramic views of Red Hook, the harbor and parts of New Jersey.

New rules went into effect last November limiting the height of new buildings in Greenwood Heights, but projects with finished foundations aren’t subject to the new zoning.

The Buildings Dept. ruled later that month that the Seventh Ave. condo’s foundation hadn’t been finished and froze work on the project.

See also: “Greenwood Cemetery Vista Saved?”