Egg Creams

Anyone who has grown up in New York, and I mean really grown up in New York circa 1950s, will know of people who told them that so-and-so's is where you can get the best "egg cream in the city."

It's like that scene in The Godfather just before Michael comes out on pops the police captain played by Sterling Hayden, right between the eyes, when Sterling Hayden recommends to his dinner mates to try the veal, "it's the best in the city."

I grew up in Flushing, which is in Queens, and only close to Brooklyn when you look at a map. The two boroughs could not be more different. My Jewish friend who lived next door, Paul Pinsky would tell me that Jahn's ice cream parlor on Main Street next to the Prospect theater had the "best egg creams."

I know what egg creams are, and they have nothing to do with eggs. They are a soda fountain concoction of chocolate syrup, seltzer, and milk. Jews in particular loved egg creams, and in any Jewish neighborhood, in the Bronx, Brooklyn or Queens, there were certainly ice cream parlors that provided the "best egg creams anywhere."

If anyone ventures to Downtown Brooklyn and takes in Junior's, site of the best cheesecake in the world, and egg cream central for a long-gone generation of egg cream lovers, and looks at, or buys a souvenir glass, they will get fill lines on the glass instructing them how to also make your own "best egg cream." Fox's chocolate syrup is highly recommended, and is also available for purchase at Junior's. Knock yourself out.

Anyone who needs proof of seltzer's popularity, especially in Brooklyn, need only read the obituary in today's NYT for Eli Miller, 86, Sultan of Seltzer Who Kept Brooklyn Bubbling. Seltzer deliveries were once ubiquitous in the borough, with many trucks following their routes delivering the wooden cases of the pressurized bottles to residences.

I never saw what the attraction was. Jewish people were big on seltzer, I think because they basically believed anything that acted as a cathartic promoted good health. (You might remember Moxie) If your bowels moved, you were healthy. Especially if you wiped well. (I kid you not about this one.)

So, why the sudden rhapsody on egg creams if I never really cared for them? Simple. Obituaries.

In yesterday's NYT there was a Death Notice for Nan Schieisner Weiss, a woman born in 1933 that took up six of the eight columns a Death Notice can be displayed in. In fact, hers was only one of two death notices in the whole paper, probably because with the restrictions on gatherings, even at funerals, family members are not placing notices in the paper. Another ripple effect of the coronavirus.

The name of a famous New York saloon, P.J. Clarke's caught my eye, principally because it was at the end of one of the column. I don't usually read the Death Notices unless something catches my eye for some reason, and P.J. Clarke's being cited, did just that.

Nan, was born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, went to college in North Carolina, worked in her family department store in Harrisburg, and moved to New York City after graduating college to pursue a career in fashion.

In any era, lots of young people migrate to New York for their career, and when women did it, we will assume in the early 1950s, they could find themselves staying at the Barbizon Hotel, a hotel on 59th Street I believe, that was only for women, and especially for the new arrivals who were looking to get a start in New York City, the big bad city, before finding more permanent living arrangements.

The notice tells us:

"At the Barbizon, she renewed her acquaintance with Burt Weiss, also from Harrisburg, who became her husband for 52 years. Their first date was for an egg cream at P. J. Clarke's..."

Huh? P.J. Clarke's is one of the oldest saloons in New York City, owned by a restaurant corporation that has recreated its Third Avenue, below-the-El look in a few other locations, right down to the sarcophagus porcelain urinals that look like upended row boats.

That you could get an egg cream at P.J. Clarke's, in any era, seems as unlikely as being able to buy a left-handed screw driver. Did Burt spin a line to Nan and tell her a Brandy Alexander was really an egg cream?

This possibility reminds me of the scene in 'Guys and Dolls' where Sky Masterson wins his bet and takes the strait-laced Salvation Army tambourine girl Sarah to Havana and gets her to start downing rum by having her drink it mixed with milk. Sarah gets a buzz on and declares that the concoction would be a great way to get children to drink milk. The buzz of course leads to a song, "If I Were a Bell," which of course fits because Sarah's bell has truly been rung.

Has the gang back in Harrisburg been fed a line about how Nan and Burt got together again, sipping egg creams at P.J. Clarke's? Are they that strait-laced that they could be told that Burt took her out for a few at a saloon? Maybe it's an inside joke.

I have absolutely no idea. Could P.J. Clarke's been asked to make an egg cream for Nan by Burt? They certainly would have the ingredients, if not the repetitive expertise to make "the best egg cream?" Did Burt wink at the bartender and ask him to slip some spirits into the concoction? It certainly seems that Burt was in New York City ahead of Nan and knew of a place to go on a first date, even if it wasn't a museum.

Whatever, it worked. They were married for 52 years. That says it all.

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