Vesuvio Bakery is finally getting reoccupied

I’ve seen Vesuvio closed for almost a year now, noting earlier this year that it was up for sale. I just read this NYMag post that it’s finally getting reoccupied by City Bakery’s newest launch of Birdbath. I just hope its not all vegan!

Here’s the rest of the post:

When the City Bakery’s Maury Rubin launched his first Birdbath, he coined a catchphrase for the ecofriendly enterprise: Build a Green Bakery. In the case of his third branch, though, slated to open in October in Soho, there was no building involved. He only had to lease it. The bakery in question was already one of New York’s most famous—the 89-year-old Vesuvio, a cherished remnant of a pre-Soho Soho. Even though in recent times it was known more for its iconic façade than for its coal-oven-baked loaves, Vesuvio’s passing struck a chord with urban nostalgists, guidebook-toting tourists, and especially, it seems, with Rubin, who immediately engaged in “very intense, very personal jockeying for it.” Rubin ultimately triumphed, in large part thanks to his commitment to leave the shell virtually untouched. “It’s an heirloom, it’s a treasure, it means the world,” he says. “That I have a chance to have my bakery be in it is a gift.” Ironically, Rubin’s retiring the ancient ovens for now, mostly because of the owners’ fire-hazard fears. Even so, the deal makes sense: Birdbath was originally conceived as the next-generation iteration of the neighborhood bakeries that were disappearing from New York. And by keeping the structure intact (save a new reclaimed-wood banquette and LED lights), Rubin is perpetrating what he calls “the ultimate bakery recycling.” To suit the sixteen-seat setting, there will be a made-to-order menu, a first for Birdbath, with cinnamon toast, microwaved eggs (“Low energy!” says Rubin), and “neighborhood mozzarella” pressed with tomato and basil, plus new pastries like rice-milk-raisin scones. Also, for the first time in Birdbath history, espresso. This is one place, says Rubin, preservationist pâtissier, that “really requires espresso.”

The New Yorker and Magazines

Your Eustace, 2009I buy quite a few books but I don’t end up reading them as fast as I can purchase them. The same seems to be true for Magazines and even blogs (thank you for Blogline & RSS Feeds!). I’ve started to pick up photography more, thus, I’m headed down to my local rag shop to pick up the latest photo mags. I’m also subscribed to several local magazines: Time Out NY and Paper. I’m still current with Food and Wine Magazine because I get it free after attending their event last year and I also get Rolling Stone to catch up on some of the music news.

I’ve gone through many a subs, such as Conde Nast Traveler (which completely sucked for the type of travel I liked to do, and it was entirely advertisements), Business 2.0 (which is good, but I think it went out of business), Fortune (quite often I just didn’t care anymore about the point of several of the stories, so I figured I’d just check in on the mag online), Inc. (again, just didn’t have the time to read it alll the time, however, I did like some of their focus and depth), Men’s Health (I still am reading the back mags of this so why should I keep up with a new subscription?), Selling Power (a great mag for sales professionals, my company didn’t renew my subscription so I haven’t been back to renew it myself) and the last on the dead sub list was XLR8R.

My NY Magazines were piling up in my apartment with out being read for various reasons. I often found the writing in NY Mag to be terrible, boring or just not enthralling enough to keep reading it regularly. The New Yorker however, had great articles and writers, however, I just couldn’t keep up with the weekly schedule. If I could I’d probably get back to the New Yorker out of all of the above options. Here’s a few from their latest:

Here’s a slide show of Shepard Fairey’s work from the Mag
How Obama won
The Perils of Public Banking institutions