Three people in this world remember the 402 Club, an exclusive establishment, staffed by Marv Berkman, serving corned beef hash and welsh rarebit ala Campbell’s to famished grade school patrons, one Wednesday per week or by special appointment. Breakfast was also served: Lipton’s Cup-a-Soup and hot Nestle’s Quik made with half coffee; burned bacon sandwiches (for Pammy); or cinnamon toast.
The floorplan is unchanged, although the room adjacent the kitchen is now called a bedroom, instead of a dining room, as it was known by earlier inhabitants, so you can rent it for 10 times what my parents paid in 1970, and to this end the lovely archway opening has been reduced to a mere doorway. The alleged “closet” off the kitchen was our breakfast nook and, for a while, Barb’s studio. I see they moved the kitchen sink; very drole.
what is beautiful remains 
It was a great apartment. I remember the breakfasts and the lunches – how could you leave out Marv’s peppery scrambled eggs? 🙂 I also remember Lipton’s chicken soup with noodles and Geno’s individual pizzas – little round disks of dough with various toppings on an aluminum tray! Such good memories.
On another note – Peter, my business partner – his father opened The Belden – managed and ran it. Isn’t that ironic? Sadly, there are no delis left in the city and tonight – I really wanted a corn beef sandwich, a bowl of chicken kreplach soup and a chocolate phosphate!
My dad, your Jimmy, adores corned beef hash, canned soup, cinnamon toast and burned bacon sandwiches (and so do his grandkids, and so do I). Its funny how little day to day things like that get passed on.
Comfort foods…………….ours was my mom’s homemade mac & cheese…………..poached egg on toast every day before the school bus arrived cut into a nine patch……………kapoosta soup (cabbage)…………borscht………..
Boolka bread………………….crullers…………………..for starters!
How burned was the bacon sandwich???
Yes… midnight hours in the DINING ROOM with Barbara after the store closed, and finally Marv, after Ric’s (and whatever)… You two were asleep?
Childhood, and the memories that it brings…along with the food we ate. Personally, Cambells was big with my dad and me. Lots of “Bean with Bacon” and “Noodles and Ground Beef”. Thanks for sharing because it made ME remember those precious meals with MY Dad too and that is precious.-Tracy