Paul Smalera

photo by wendy ploger

I’m happy to link to a story I wrote in today’s New York Times: Havens North Tucson. Havens is the second homes column, so this is a story about people who live there and why they chose to buy a second home in Tucson. The southwest is a beautiful area, and I really felt thrilled to be able to cover it and say things like:

If, like Buck Clippard, you fly but have trouble finding airplane parking, you might consider requesting permission to land at La Cholla Airpark, a community 20 miles north of downtown Tucson. The Clippards have a second home there — and a two-plane hangar on a taxiway (or, as the earthbound might call it, a road), right off the airpark’s main drag, a 4,500-foot landing strip.

Anyway, please give it a read and enjoy. If you’re interested in reading more about the foothills, one of the real estate agents I spoke with, John Schneider, writes frequently about the area on his aptly named blog, The Tucson Foothills.

Also, thanks to Rob Ploger who, after all, moved to Tucson (not in the foothills though) and gave Wendy, his sister, my girlfriend, a reason to bring me out West and see what all the fuss was about. Now I know!

Well, I don’t know what’s happening to the East Village. Since I moved across the island, comes word that Kurowycky Meat Products has closed its doors after 50 years of fatty service. This was the Polish deli of my childhood dreams, complete with slabs of greasy bacon back (boczek pronounced bo-check) sitting right out on the counter, totally safe to eat because they had been cured to within an inch of their lives. The kielbasa, sadly, had to be put in refrigeration several years ago thanks to overzealous DOHers. Salty, fatty meat products are the staples of Polish winter cuisine. I didn’t shop here often enough. It will be sorely missed.

As if this blow wasn’t enough, Teresa’s Polish restaurant, also on First Ave., like, I think the same BLOCK of First Ave, has closed too, according to Gothamist. This was just a simple diner, with cheap and quite good food. No elegies (except this one) will likely be written about it, but I’ve always liked “Fanfare for the Common Man” and this restaurant shared that same space in my heart: just a simple place to get simple food, prepared from scratch and with some heart and love. Too many of these places in New York seem to be going out of business. I wonder what will take their places.

In other news, I reviewed an old favorite for The New York Press this week, the Italian restaurant named Max. And then Eater promptly published a rumor that it was going out business too, though this is still just a rumor for now. What is going on?