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This article, written in 2005, was nostalgia driven. V&T Pizza Very few things in life are constant, butV&T pizza is one of them. Vincent and Tony Curcurato were born in Manhattan and grew up on 116th Street off First Avenue. Prior toWorldWar II, they were bakers by trade.Then they enlisted in the US Army. In 1945, they returned from the war, opened a small pizzeria on Amsterdam Avenue and 122nd Street, and named it after themselves:TheV&T Restaurant. In 1952, the V&T relocated to Amsterdam Avenue between 112th and 113th Streets. In the mid 1960s, it moved again; this time two blocks further south to its present home at 1024 Amsterdam. My own memories of the V&T date to September 1963, when I began my freshman year of college.A small cheese pizza cost ninety cents. “Small” was six slices. The price went up in ten-cent increments for medium ($1.00) and large ($1.10). During my years at Columbia, I ate at theV&T two or three times a week. Usually, I ordered pizza. Mushrooms and sausage were added on when budgetary considerations allowed. Frank Macchiarola (my floor counselor, who would become a lifelong friend and a nationally respected educator) shared my love of V&T pizza.“It was comfort food for a homesick Italian kid from Brooklyn,” Frank recalls. The restaurant was also the site of numerous dates, celebrations, and other gatherings, and remains a touchstone of my college years.Ten years ago, when I created a family-run Italian restaurant for a scene in a novel I was writing, I modeled it on theV&T. Even now, I revisit for pizza every few months. There aren’t many restaurants in the Columbia neighborhood that I recognize anymore.TheWest End, Hungarian Pastry Shop, andTom’s are still there. So, by the way, is the huge message painted on the side of 600 West 113th Street:“The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” But most of the Biblical words REFLECTIONS 241 have faded beyond legibility.The Gold Rail,Takome, College Inn, and New Moon are all gone. As for theV&T;Vincent and Tony Curcurato sold the restaurant in 1985 to a man named Alex Gjolaj.Vincent died in the mid 1990s.Tony passed away in 2000. For Columbians of the past two decades, Gjolaj is the face of the V&T. He’s there a minimum of five nights a week. On weekends,he’s joined by RobertTaylor,a waiter who has been on staff for forty years. The 2005 edition of Zagat’s guide to NewYork City restaurants (a culinary Qur’an for NewYorkers) describesV&T pizza in no uncertain terms:“Scholars swear by the greasy saucy cheesy pizza . . .An undergrad dream.” Gjolaj estimates that half his business comes from Columbia students. Many of his other patrons are neighborhood residents. Alumni often return.Art Garfunkel, who majored in art history and earned a BA from Columbia College in 1965 remains a loyalV&T customer long after his separation from Paul Simon.“We deliver to him on East 79th Street all the time,” says Gjolaj.“He gives a nice tip and pays the cab fare.” But the V&T is hardly celebrity driven. “That’s our only big celebrity ,”Gjolaj acknowledges.“No;wait a minute.Jack Nicholson was here once about ten years ago. He was waiting for someone and the person never came. But he liked the way the pizza looked, so he went out to his limo and brought his chauffeur in to have a pizza with him.” Needless to say, I returned theV&T for this article. It was an opportunity to feel pleasantly nostalgic, enjoy a good pizza, and play food critic at the same time. The currentV&T menu is a more ambitious than it was decades ago. In addition to old standards, there are entrees like chicken scarpariello, veal française, and mussels fra diavolo. Naturally, prices have risen. It now costs two dollars just to put mushrooms on top of a small pizza. As for the decor; the murals from my youth have given way to modern renditions of NewYork and Italian landmarks, and the blue Formica tables are covered by maroon tablecloths. The glass display case that housed salads, slices of cheesecake, and cannoli has been replaced by a large wood bar.The wine list is more elaborate than before. In fact, the simple existence of a wine list makes it more elaborate than before. Hard liquor is now served. 242 THOMAS HAUSER [3.133.12.172] Project MUSE (2024-04-25 16...

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