After rumors circulated in July about the closing of Upper West Side institution Good Enough to Eat, petitesoeur wanted to meet there for lunch before our girls' museum day.So on a rainy Friday, we braved the line (perhaps others had heard the rumors too) and had a nice lunch -- classic sandwiches with fresh avocado, turkey, chicken, and comforting tomato soup.
And we were happy to find out from the owner that they weren't closing -- just moving!
And oh yes, pie, of course, pie. We shared a slice of blueberry (sorry no photo, it was eaten too quickly).
Good Enough to Eat
483 Amsterdam Av (at 83rd Street)
New York, NY 10024
(212) 496-0163
While we were in Tampa visiting Redneckhunter's brothers, we made a stop in Ybor City to pick up cigars before heading to the airport. It took a while to find a cigar shop that was actually open at 11 am, despite any hours posted on shop windows - guess they're on Tampa time. But when we did find one, Redneckhunter was very happy at his haul. I decided to ask the proprietress where we should grab lunch - always happy to get a local's recommendation.
We got there a little before noon, and I'm glad we did because by 12:15 every seat in the place was taken, and we never would have made our flight in time! Another good sign considering the restaurants on 7th Avenue had people out on the street trying to drum up lunch business.
One thing we like about traveling to Tampa is flying in and out of Atlantic City airport. Nothing normally brings us to A.C. so it's only in transit that we get to eat at the Knife and Fork Inn. Now 100 years old, the joint was an old haunt of Nucky Thompson, Frank Sinatra, Bob Hope and Vic Damone, and was in a scene in the movie "Atlantic City" with Susan Sarandon and Burt Lancaster. 
We ate in the bar and kept it simple splitting 4 appetizers -- crab and avocado terrine, Jersey tomato and buffalo mozzarella salad, tuna tartare, and kobe sliders topped with au poivre sauce, blue cbeese bechamel, and caramelized onions.
Last time we got together in the city with Petiteseour, she suggested going to Don Antonio's -- a midtown pizza place that her co-worker was a regular at. 
Then we order 3 pizzas for the 5 of us -- the Vesuvio, a stuffed pizza with fresh ricotta, mozzarella and salami inside, topped with red sauce, ham, more mozzarella, mushrooms, and artichokes; the Pope's Pizza, with butternut squash, zucchini, roasted peppers, and smoked mozzarella; and lastly was one of the day's special which sounded really good with gorgonzola dolce, a bunch of other cheeses, figs, and prosciutto, but was disappointing. The figs were too sweet, the gorgonzola too strong. 
I liked the butternut squash and smokey flavor of the Pope's pie, but it was not a hit with Petiteseour. Her favorite and Redneckhunter's favorite was the stuffed pie. I liked the pizza, but Petiteseour thought it suffered from too much volume where the oven doors being constantly opened and closed and not retaining heat led to a less crisp crust. 
George's Place 
Both a street and an alley were named after Alexander McDougall (1731-1786), a Major General of the American Revolutionary War. Born in Scotland, he became an American merchant seaman, an importer, founding President of the Bank of New York, delegate to the Continental Congress and a New York State senator. He also spelled his last name with “Mc” instead of “Mac” and with two “L’s,” so it is a mystery why the streets that honor him use a spelling variant. Although he prospered, McDougall was never accepted into New York’s high society; he spoke with a crude Scottish accent, was loud and unpolished and wore gaudy clothes. It didn’t help that he liked to remind the locals that upon his family’s arrival in New York, he first worked as a milk delivery boy for a dairy. Not to mention that he was jailed in 1770 for writing an anti-British pamphlet.
■ 171 Macdougal. The controversial, severe brick façade of the 10th Church of Christ Scientist lasted only 40 years before it was stripped away in 2007, revealing the original street front of an 1890s factory building (at right). In 1966 modernist architect Victor Christ-Janer had provided the church with a stark orange brick resurfacing design (photo below), which left the original facing intact. This was one of the most striking ecclesiastical building façades in the history of New York – now lost to historic preservation. The church decided to sell the unused upper floors in 2006, which have been converted to condominium residences. The church used part of the funds to redesign its ground floor chapel and offices into more distinctive spaces.
Shortly after it opened in 1902 as the residential Hotel Earle (named after its first owner), a second identical building was constructed, the two connected to form one larger hotel. Ernest Hemingway stayed at this hotel for several weeks, just before departing for Europe for WW I in 1914. In 1917 Earle L’Amoureux purchased the adjacent brick building, bringing his hotel all the way to the corner of Macdougal. Dylan Thomas stayed here in 1950 after being evicted from the Beekman for rowdy behavior; Bob Dylan stayed here in 1961 when he arrived from Minneapolis at the tender age of 20. Other guests have included Joan Baez, Bo Diddley, Bill Cosby, Barbra Streisand, Patricia Highsmith and the B-52s. The hotel is today a pleasant, affordable tourist hotel at a great location, with snug rooms and a handsome Art Deco bar. Retrace your steps back to Macdougal.
■ Washington Square North: This series of 19th-century row houses was built as an income generating project for Sailor's Snug Harbor, the nation’s first home for retired merchant seamen. Established in 1801 by the will of Captain Robert Randall, the charity housed 900 “aged, decrepit and worn-out” seamen on a 130 acre waterfront complex on Staten Island. By the late 19th century Sailors' Snug Harbor was among the wealthiest charities in New York, with its Washington Square and Eighth Avenue residences yielding rich rents at a surplus of $100,000 a year. These Greenwich Village properties were built on land that had been Randall’s farm. The construction of this row of houses in 1831 was also the city’s first delineation of distinct residential and commercial districts; the strict absence of trade and industry was stipulated in the land lease. The Row was originally home to some of New York City's foremost merchants, bankers, community leaders and cultural figures. Among the original lessees were New York University council members (numbers 5 and 7); number 3 was where John Dos Passos wrote Manhattan Transfer, and where artists Edward Hopper and Rockwell Kent painted; number 18 (demolished in 1952 for No. 2 Fifth Ave. apartments) was the home of Henry James’s grandmother, and the time he spent there as a boy was reflected in his 1880 novel, Washington Square. Later Row residents included architect Richard Morris Hunt and founding president of the Metropolitan Museum of Art John Taylor Johnston. Number 1, since demolished, was once the home of Edith Wharton. Stylistic unity, high quality construction, extra wide and deep lots, interior luxury features and facades set back twelve feet from the street’s property line made this block of houses among the most lavish of its time. Washington Square North is today one of the finest rows of Greek Revival houses in the country.
The Memorial Arch was originally a temporary wooden monument built in 1899 for the centennial of George Washington’s inauguration. It proved so popular that funds were raised to replicate it in stone. The sculpture of Washington on the west pier is by Alexander Stirling Calder, the father of artist Alexander Calder (1898-1976), noted for his 20th-century mobiles.
■ 23-29 Washington Place. Make the first left onto Washington Place. At the end of the block on your left, at the near corner of Greene Street stands a 1901 vintage 10-story NYU science building, formerly the scene of the gruesome Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire of March 25, 1911, in which 146 garment workers laboring on the top three floors perished behind locked exit doors. After the exterior fire escapes collapsed, many of those trapped inside were burned alive or jumped to their deaths onto the sidewalks below. The tragedy led to wide-ranging legislation requiring improved factory safety standards and helped spur the growth of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union. Three plaques on the SE corner of the refurbished building commemorate the men and women who perished. 
■ The southwest corner of Washington Square Park (which flanks the east side of Macdougal Street) is the site of many historic chess games; the movie Searching for Bobby Fischer was filmed here.
■ 133 Macdougal is home to the Provincetown Playhouse, where the plays of Eugene O’Neill were first staged. In 1918 four buildings were converted from a bottling plant and stables into a theater for the Provincetown Players, whose members included O’Neill, Edna St. Vincent Millay and Djuna Barnes. Paul Robeson and Tallulah Bankhead performed here, e. e. cummings had his plays staged here, and Bette Davis made her New York stage debut on these premises. The building barely escaped the wrecking ball in 2008 when NYU announced plans to raze it. Instead, they spent $4.5 million over two years to restore it, adding 30 apartments for NYU law students.
Numbers 125, 127 (Tea Spot) and 129 Macdougal (La Lanterna di Vittorio) were three lots once owned by a downtown hat merchant, on land that was originally part of the Elbert Herring farm. Number 129, which also houses The Bar Next Door, a basement jazz room, features pineapple newel posts on the entry ironwork, one of the few such remaining pairs in Greenwich Village. Iron pineapples on railings were a symbol of hospitality; traditionally a returning seaman would set one on his stoop to show that he was home and receiving visitors. 129 Macdougal Street was designated a landmark by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission in 2004.
In 1959, presidential hopeful John F. Kennedy made a famous speech outside the coffee shop. When the Cavallaccis became the second (and current) owners in 1955, the angel-topped cappuccino machine conveyed, but by the 1970s it was decommissioned and placed in the street display window. Today it remains on the premises, perched atop a console along one wall. Caff̬ Reggio still retains its rusticated stucco walls, dark paintings, furniture, stained glass transom, lumpy pressed tin ceiling and assorted bric-a-brac (photo above) from previous decades Рa neighborhood institution.
■ 130-132 Macdougal, on the East side of the street (durectly opposite Caffè Reggio), was where Louisa May Alcott wrote Little Women, while residing here in her uncle's large brick house (at right), built in 1852.
■ 115 Macdougal (at the corner of Minetta Lane) is home to Cafe Wha?, a Greenwich Village mainstay that hosted Bob Dylan’s first NYC gig. Jimi Hendrix achieved early fame here, and Bruce Springsteen, The Velvet Underground, Kool and the Gang, Peter, Paul & Mary, Woody Allen, Lenny Bruce, Joan Rivers, Bill Cosby and Richard Pryor have all performed on its stage. Until 1988 it was owned by Manny Roth, uncle of David Lee Roth. 
■ 113 Macdougal is the site of Minetta Tavern, a neighborhood staple since 1937. It was an Italian trattoria/bar whose regulars customers included e. e. cummings, Joe Gould, Ernest Hemingway, Eugene O'Neill, Dylan Thomas and Ezra Pound. Named after the Minetta Brook, which ran southwest from 23rd Street to the Hudson River, Minetta Tavern was renovated in 2008 in an upscale style described as “Parisian Steakhouse meets classic NYC tavern” (photo below). A little known bit of trivia is that Reader's Digest was founded in the basement apartment of DeWitt Wallace and Lila Acheson in 1923.
■ 77 Macdougal is home to the exclusive members-only New York Rifle Club, the U.S. branch of the 19th-century Italian shooting society known as Tiro a Segno, or "Hit the Target." Members have included Fiorella Laguardia, Enrico Caruso and Giuseppi Garibaldi. Three flags hang out front – one American, another Italian, and a third labeled Tiro a Segno, which has been at this location since 1924. Prospective members must be nominated by a current member, and there is a quota on non-Italians. Rifle shooting is done only during dinner hours in the basement gallery, which boasts three wood paneled ranges with a choice of targets. Lunch and dinner are served upstairs Tue.-Sat., and there is a dress code for men. I'm not kidding.
Retrace your steps and cross back over Houston. Cross over Macdougal to the right and continue walking along the north side of Houston for one block, turning left onto Sullivan Street. In the first block on your right is a strikingly modern condominium building, shown at right.
The rowhouse was converted into a 153-seat Off-Broadway theatre in 1960. The Sullivan Street Playhouse was home to the intimate musical The Fantasticks for 42 years, until explosive real estate values brought about its demise. The Fantasticks, which opened in May, 1960 (before Neil Armstrong walked on the Moon), holds the record for the longest run of any musical – 17,162 performances; it has since moved uptown to the Jerry Orbach Theatre at 50th and Broadway (Orbach played El Gallo in the original cast). The Sullivan Street rowhouse was demolished in 2006 and replaced by the modern building before you, which houses five residential condos.