nythroughthelens:

Vesuvio Bakery - a quaint bakery storefront kept intact in Soho, New York City.

This is one of my favorite storefronts in Soho. A little over 90 years old, Vesuvio Bakery still looks as it did for decades. A tiny bit about the original owners of the bakery is found in a newspaper article from 2003 :

“Dapolito, 83, worked as a boy in the bakery on Prince St., decades before the neighborhood came to be known as Soho. His father and mother, Nunzio and Jennie, immigrants from Naples, opened it in 1920 and Tony went on to own it after they died.” - Source

What is interesting about this beautiful old bakery storefront is that the bakery is no longer in the Dapolito family and has changed ownership several times since the article cited above was written. However, it is currently still operating as a bakery and the owners have kept the storefront intact.

In early October, an article was making the rounds on local lower Manhattan blogs about a recent trend that involves new shop owners paying homage to the history of a neighborhood via their store facades. The article is called: In Which We Mark Graves Like Birthplaces . It calls this process “authentrification”, a term I really love but a term that definitely stirs up conflict. This process of authentrification has been happening quite a bit on the Bowery and in the East Village but the article does cite Vesuvio Bakery as being an example of this process as well. Part of me is thrilled that new businesses are looking to capture the feel of a neigborhood by zeroing in on feelings of nostalgia related to older versions of New York City but part of me also feels that some of the authentrification that is going on is a bit hollow in overall intent.

My angst seems to be mostly directed at the authentrification taking place on the Bowery (especially with Daniel Bolud’s high-priced restaurant DBGB whose storefront is modeled on the kitchen supplier stores that line the Bowery). I have tossed around the reasons in my mind why I find the situation with Vesuvio Bakery more palatable than Bolud’s authentrification on the Bowery but I still need to think about it more. I am mostly pleased that the nearly 100 year old facade of Vesuvio Bakery has been maintained by the completely different bakery that operates on the inside of Vesuvio Bakery.

I will say that I never thought I would be contemplating something like the various nuances of authentrification! Interesting times we live in…

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I love store fronts like these!! Wish there were more cafes like these around. Starbucks should model after this. :-)