Entries tagged with 'Obituaries'
Posted by Adam Kuban, February 10, 2006 at 4:27 PM
This is one of those entries we wish we'd never have to post. From the New York Daily News:
Arturo Giunta, whose Greenwich Village coal oven has been cooking up pizzas at Arturo's for nearly five decades, has died. He was 79.
The Manhattan native died Wednesday night at Beth Israel Hospital, a month after breaking his arm and developing an infection that led to kidney failure, said his daughter-in-law, Carol Giunta. A World War II Army sergeant wounded twice battling the Nazis, Giunta founded Arturo's pizzeria in 1957.
Our condolences to Mr. Giunta's family and friends.
Iconic pizza chef Arturo Giunta dies
Posted by Adam Kuban, July 21, 2005 at 4:20 PM
Like a decent number of Slice readers, I'm sure, I was saddened to learn of the death of James Doohan, a.k.a. Star Trek's "Scotty" or "Mr. Scott." I grew up watching Star Trek and enjoyed the cantankerous commander and his declarations—that he was doin' all he kin, cap'n. That she, the ship, canna take no more.
As is the case here at Slice, when a beloved public figure dies, we hit the Internets and see if the dearly departed had any connection to pizza. Mr. Doohan apparently did not, but we came across this page that posits what toppings Trek characters would order on their pizza.
Scotty's? "No more anchovies, cap'n! The tastebuds cannae hold it!"
Not that funny admittedly, but worth a chuckle or two.
Godspeed, Mr. Doohan! May you fare well in that undiscovered country.
James Doohan to be sent to his final frontier [CNN]
Trek character pizza orders [About.com]
Posted by Adam Kuban, April 3, 2005 at 6:45 PM
ABOVE: The late John Paul II blesses pizzamakers during the Jubilee of Pizza Chefs on October 25, 2000. Here, gifts are delivered to Il Papa by Walter Botrugno of the Associazione Nazionale Pizzaioli E Ristoritori, Catalan Stefano of the Pizzaioli Associati Siciliani, and the owner of Naples' Starita Pizzeria, the famed location of Sofia Loren's L'Oro di Napoli. RIGHT: John Paul II at Shea Stadium on October 3, 1979. Though there's no evidence that he ate pizza during his visits to New York City, it's nice to think that he may have.
I was saddened last night to hear the news of John Paul II's death. In certain circles it's probably not cool to like the Pope, but I was raised Catholic and am half Polish so I've got a soft spot for Il Papa. I'd bet a certain segment of our readers do, too.
And when you consider that a great deal of Italians and Italian Americans—the folks who invented pizza and brought it to the U.S.—are Catholic, this little obituary for Karol Jozef Wojtyla is not out of place on Slice.
Even though the late Pope was probably more at home with pierogi and kielbasa, he did have an affinity for pizza. In fact, John Paul II blessed the world's pizzaioli (pizzamakers) during the jubilee of 2000. He thanked 2,000 pizza chefs, saying, "I assure you of my prayers for your families and for your professional activity, which is so appreciated."
They in turn presented the Pope with an antique Neapolitan pizza oven, a brass pizza platter, and a decorated pizza slicer.
There's more about this ceremony here: Giubileo del Pizzaiolo (in Italian).
RIP, JP.
Posted by e-rock, March 4, 2005 at 1:13 AM
[For those of you new to Slice, let me introduce E-Rock. E-Rock is our roving reporter. While the rest of the Slice staff remains safe and warm in New York City, with easy access to some of the world's best pizza, we send E-Rock out to do our dirty deeds: eating at and reporting on pizzerias in other parts of the country—and the world—that might not have the greatest pies. Most of his missions end in disappointment, but he seems to cope by viewing these crazy assignments as being more about the journey than the destination. Hunter S. Thompson has long been E-Rock's idol and, it's fair to say, has had great influence on E-Rock's writing. At Slice HQ, we've often called E-Rock "the Hunter S. Thompson of pizza writing." So it was with great sadness that we heard the news of Hunter's suicide almost two weeks ago. I asked E-Rock if he might like to write a fitting tribute for these pages. After some thought, a little recollection, and a lot of Wild Turkey, here it is. —Adam K., editor in chief]
A Rocky Mountain Downer Like No Other
"The man is clear in his mind, but his soul is mad."
— Dennis Hopper, in Apocalypse Now
Hunter S. Thompson, 1937–2005; photograph from HST archives
WORDS AND PHOTOGRAPHS BY E-ROCK .::. Last month I was in the home state of my recently deceased idol, Hunter S. Thompson. E-Rock wasn’'t there to see the Good Doctor—I never had the pleasure of knowing him. I was in the mountains on other business. However, I wish I had made the journey to the Woody Creek Tavern, his favorite haunt, to possibly get one last drink in his presence.
E-Rock was lucky enough, however, to have had two encounters in the past with Mr. Thompson, once in Woody Creek, Colorado, the other in Lawrence, Kansas.
The first time I ran into Thompson was while driving across country from Las Vegas, fittingly enough, about 10 years ago. Some friends and I decided to take a detour to Woody Creek. We drove around the town, and finally found the Doctor's “fortified compound,” where we left a Smith & Wesson baseball cap and a bottle of whiskey near his front gate. I was too terrified to approach his home, known as the Owl Farm, the grounds of which were famous as home to roving packs of peacocks, Dobermans, random explosions, and heavy substance abuse.
Not quite satisfied with our visit, we headed to the Woody Creek Tavern (right), a small, shacklike bar. We pulled into the parking lot and knew right away that we were going to have a fucked-up experience: Parked out front was a red Chevy convertible, an early '70s model. It was a replica of the Red Shark, one of the vehicles Thompson rented and trashed during his masterpiece saga, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
I can'’t remember the exact circumstances anymore. For some reason, my buddy "Jackknife" went into the bar a full five minutes before E-Rock did. Maybe I was rearranging the luggage in the trunk. Who knows. Jackknife walked back out into the parking lot, stark white with a terrified look in his eye, like he had just watched one of his pet cats get raped and impaled in front of him.
“He'’s here,” Jackknife wheezed. “It'’s him.”
Continue reading »
Posted by Adam Kuban, January 24, 2005 at 12:10 PM
Before anyone did anything, Johnny Carson did it all. Leno, Letterman, Conan? Pfffht. They're all pickin' up on the style he laid down more than 40 years ago—the topical monologue followed by a short skit followed by celebrity interviews.
And with 4,500 shows during a 30-year Tonight Show run, is it any surprise that Johnny did pizza long before Slice was but a gleam in its founders' eyes?
We did some digging and found some archived 1982 footage of Johnny tossing dough with a young pizzaiolo named Barry O'Halloran.
The clip, which appears on the website of Mr. O'Halloran's present-day pizzeria operation, is strikingly different from today's late-nighters. First of all, Johnny spends a great deal of time with Mr. O'Halloran, initially at the desk and then on stage throwing dough. Today's shows would relegate a non-celebrity segment like this to about three minutes of stage-only time. Also notable is how Johnny playfully ribs Mr. O'Halloran, managing to be funny without a hint of condescension. Johnny gives him a hard time about being Irish in a traditionally Italian field (something that might not play too well on today's airwaves) and about spending lonely nights home alone tossing dough.
The young O'Halloran has the type of pizza philosophy we at Slice like to see. He describes wanting to open his own pizzeria but eschews starting with a franchise, saying you lose the "magic" of pizza when you start concentrating so much on making dough of the paper variety. He also talks about his victory at a San Francisco pizza-dough thow-off, describing his competitors as folks who didn't seem to care about what they were doing. "It's more like just a job for them," he says. (And it's nice to see, via his website, that Mr. O'Halloran realized his dream of opening a pizzeria.)
We also learn that Johnny is well acquainted with Gotham pizzerias ("New York, when you're walking along, you'll see when you look in the windows, you'll see guys workin' the pizza") and that he preferred thin crust: "When I go out, I like the little thin crust on pizza."
This starts a discussion on thick vs. thin crust, with Mr. O'Halloran describing the typical thick-crust eater: "They'll order a couple pitchers of beer, and they'll pipe down the thick crust, and they'll be out the door with their bellies full; they don't really care what it tastes like."
To which Johnny replies, "So these are slobs, huh?" while redeeming his harmless jab at thick-crust eaters with "No mail, please!" Mr. O'Halloran then deems Ed McMahon a thick-crust slob and Johnny a thin-crust gourmet.
Post-banter, they're onstage, with Mr. O'Halloran teaching Johnny how to toss dough. After what are probably some intentional flubs for laughs, Johnny actually proves to be quite adept at it.
Watching the clip reminds us here at Slice how much we enjoyed Carson when he was on the air. And even though we already felt his absence during his retirement years, we'll be missing him that much more. For the last time: Goodnight, Johnny.
— photograph at top by Douglas C. Pizac, Associated Press
Posted by Adam Kuban, December 10, 2004 at 9:17 AM
A sad bit of news to wake up to:
Joel Cimineri has run out of dough for the last time.
Brooklyn's legendary pizza man — who manned the oven at Totonno's in Coney Island and famously closed for the day if he ran out of dough — died this week from diabetes. He was 59.
A Brooklyn legend, Cimineri not only helped keep alive a pizza-making tradition dating from the turn of the 19th century, but with every thin-crusted pizza he made, he stood up against fast-food culture.
"We live in a Burger King world of 'Have it your way,' " said Dick Zigun, who runs the Coney Island sideshow. "But when you ate at Totonno's, you were with a loving Italian family that did it their way"
Cimineri learned the art of pizza-making from his uncle-in-law, Jerry Pero, who learned it from his father, who learned it from Gennaro Lombardi — the man who brought pizza to America more than 100 years ago....
Posted by Adam Kuban, October 6, 2004 at 4:06 PM
Posted by seltzerboy, September 30, 2004 at 2:27 PM
words by seltzerboy .::. This item is a bit of stretch, but somehow it seems appropriate for a compendium of New York pizza—a fixture of city life—to search for a link to note the death of radio legend Scott Muni (right) earlier this week. After all, listening to his show was a slice of life here, so to speak.
Very recently, I happened to watch the Sidney Lumet film Dog Day Afternoon again. The film recounts an incredible bank heist in 1972, when a couple of guys’ robbery attempt turned into an all-day affair for the employees and customers—and for all the New Yorkers who watched the events unfold on television and in person. Basically, the New York Police Department surrounded the Bay Ridge bank before the robbers could escape, so the pair held everyone hostage all day and well into the night. Meeting their demand of a chartered plane out of the country took extensive plotting by police. With the hostages holed up all day, the lead bank robber, Sonny Wartzik (deftly played by Al Pacino), turned into a bit of a showman. The crowds of onlookers outside the bank cheered him on as the drama played out in front of them, and he became a kind of folk hero to the masses.
Throughout the ordeal, these guys tried to portray themselves as otherwise normal people. When locked inside on a hazy summer afternoon, what could be a more normal New York thing to do than ordering pizza? Among the funnier scenes in the film is when Mr. Wartzik expresses concern that his hostages might be hungry, and demands that police order some pizza. Sure enough, the ubiquitous pizza man (played by Lionel Pina) shows up, insulated bag in hand, and walks up to the front door of the bank. Even more, Mr. Wartzik refused to let the cops pick up the tab. He went back inside the bank and paid the deliveryman with the bank’s stash of counterfeit money. (Mr. Wartzik, who had previously worked in a bank, spotted some notes as fake in his initial demand to the teller.) After the exchange, the pizza man patted Mr. Wartzik on the back, wished him well, and then carried on a bit in front of the television cameras.
Tough to believe? Well, one of the real-life events that inspired the moive but was not captured on the silver screen involves Cat Olson (the bank robber's real name) calling Scott Muni from the bank. "Scottso" put him on the air during his WNEW radio show [Listen to an MP3 of the actual on-air exchange here]. Ever the gentlemen, Scottso treated Mr. Olson with kindness and respect; Mr. Olson asked him to play some Grateful Dead. (The film’s lone reference to this was when Mr. Wartzik fielded a telephone call at the bank by answering, "WNEW. We play all the hits.") This clip was played during the noon hour Thursday on WAXQ, where "the Professor" (a nickname earned due to his extensive knowledge of pop music) had made his home since WNEW fired him—after 31 years at the station, where he was a pioneering force in free-form rock radio—in November 1998. All told, Scottso had been on the air in New York for nearly 50 years.
On a personal note, I had been listening to Scottso since 1987, after my eighth-grade music teacher clued me in to the Professor’s affection for—and personal relationship with—the Beatles. A few years later while working for various publications, I would force the staffs to indulge me by listening to Scottso’s singular gravelly yet calming voice over our transistor radio in my high school’s print shop. Many times over the past few years, I have forced Slice editor and publisher Adam K. to share a Beatles Block with me from a wind-up Freeplay radio at work.
As part of his radio family, Slice extends its heartfelt condolences to the entire Muni family. Much like two founding members of the Slice team, Mr. Muni was a gentleman with Kansas roots for whom Gotham opened its arms. He was a New York original, whose impact was felt far beyond the Place Where Rock Lived. Adios, compañero.
