John Delach

December 2025

Banking in Midtown

Marsh & McLennan, the firm where I worked, moved uptown from the City Service Building at 70 Pine Street to the brand-new McGraw-Hill Building, 1221 Avenue of the Americas in the Spring of 1972. I had worked downtown since 1966 and it took less than a day to fall in love with midtown. It was as if the sky had opened and sunlight was everywhere. My old bank was on Wall Street so I picked a new one, Chemical Bank, that was across the street in the Exxon Building, 1251 Avenue of the Americas.

The branch was in a large area below the street. It did attract a good following which resulted in having to wait on lines most days. Chemical Bank took advantage of its waiting customers to display wanted posters of about a dozen bank robbers. For a while, I ignored these posters until one day the information under one of their photographs grabbed my attention. I picked up the poster and started studying it as I made my way to the teller.

I had time enough to reach a realization by the time I arrived at my teller. Transaction complete, I made my way to the part of the bank where the officers were located. I asked to see one and a receptionist led me to a young man. He asked, “How can I help you?”

I put the poster onto his desk with the felon’s photos facing him. “This is one of the wanted posters that you have in various places in this bank. I want you to take a good look at the information that is beneath each photo. You will notice that the dates shown for each and every bank robbery took place more than seven years ago meaning that the statute of limitation for every one of them has expired.”

With that, I got up leaving the poster on his desk as I walked out.

The next time I returned to Chemical Bank, all of the posters had been removed.

Restaurant Row

West Forty-Six Street between Eighth Avenue and Nineth Avenue is officially known as Restaurant Row. This block has offered more than a century of culinary history in the many restaurants that line both sides of the street. Originally, most of these eateries were French, some being upscale offering classic French cuisine, but mostly peasant French offering every day choices.

But why West 46^th Street and why between Eighth and Nineth Avenues. One explanation was: “Located conveniently close to Broadway and the Theater District, Restaurant Row is an ideal destination for the pre- and post-theater crowd, Times Square employees and Hell’s Kitchen residents.

Close, but no cigar. The real reason for the actual location of Restaurant is one of geography. Walk west along Forty-Six Street until you reach the Hudson River. In front of you is New York City’s cruise ship terminal, but back in the day it was occupied by the French Line. French immigrants who were seeking to open their own restaurants followed their predecessors as far east as they could to open an eatery with reasonable rents. Over time these restauranters and their successors established Restaurant Row.

During the 1970s one of the favorites of mine and my mates was Che Cardinale, a small, reasonable peasant French place with good food. It turned out that the owner lived in Port Washington and I would see him on the Long Island Railroad from time to time.

It was an ordinary place and one day I discovered how ordinary it was. At lunch, I decided to turn over my fork and found the back read, “Horn & Hardart” that referred to the operators of a famous of a chain of NYC cafeteria’s known as The Automat. I didn’t tell anybody, but I kept the fork.

Che Cardinale is long gone and today, thirty-one eateries occupy the block including Chinese, Korean, Japanese and Caribbean cuisine. The most famous are Becco, Joe Allen, Lattanzi, Orso and Barbetta that has been there since 1906.

May this famous New York block continue to prosper for another hundred years or longer.