Кафе La Fortuna, Вест-сайд, Нью Йорк

Café La Fortuna, on 69 West 71st Street on the Upper West Side. Café La Fortuna was a favorite New York hangout of John Lennon and Yoko Ono. (amNewYork Photo/ Rolando Pujol / February 21, 2008)


Итальянское кафе La Fortuna было любимым местом, где часто бывали Джон и Йоко с самого момента его открытия в 1976. В феврале прошлого года кафе закрылось, но его интерьер все эти годы хранил память об одном из своих посетителей.

John Lennon's New York hangout Cafe La Fortuna to close

In another sad case of fading city icons, we've confirmed that Upper West Side mainstay (and John Lennon's favorite neighborhood hang-out) Cafe La Fortuna will close this Sunday, Feb. 24 The rumor was first posted on Eater earlier this week. Here's our updated story.

In part, it's the usual New York story. According to the restaurant's Web site designer Elizabeth Halliday, owner Mike Trapani said after rents on neighboring businesses skyrocketed, he knew his building would soon follow.

But the place had also lost its "heart & soul." This note below from original owner Vinny Urwand, known among cafe regulars as "Uncle Vinny," tells patrons his wife and co-owner Alice died in January - and that piece of him went with her.
The Upper West Side cafe was a favorite hang-out of John Lennon and Yoko Ono – and until early last year when Trapani gave it to Yoko, the couple's table was featured in a front window. The interior is still decorated with Lennon photos and memorabilia

Randy Smith, a 50-year-old legal word processor, who has lived above the restaurant for 17 years told Urbanite a waitress first told him last week the cafe was set to close and then last night he saw the notice confirming the sad rumor.

“I’ve been going there for the iced cappuccino and chocolate Italian ice for 17 years. I don’t know where I’m going to go now,” Smith lamented.
Confused patrons saw the sign this morning before the cafe opened, and knocked on the glass looking for explanations. The cafe has been a stalwart independent in a neighborhood increasingly eaten up by chains.

"It’s like a boutique coffee shop, it’s not a chain coffee shop. It’s an Old World Italian café where you can linger and talk and be surrounded by music and it’s comfortable, and when we lose places like that, the city loses a little bit of soul," Halliday said over the phone this morning.

She first heard rumors of the closing when a customer wrote a note to the cafe's Web site address, asking if the place was set to shut down - and then she called Trapani.

"He sounded very sad, like resignation," Halliday said. "He said, 'Things change and we have to change with them."

http://weblogs.amny.com/entertainment/urbanite/blog/signs/

That afternoon, Lennon went by himself to his favorite West Side haunt, Cafe La Fortuna, a small Italian coffee shop on West Seventy-first Street, just around the corner from the Dakota. John and Yoko were regulars at Cafe La Fortuna, right from the time it opened in 1976. They would often go in together, with or without Sean, and there were many more times that Lennon could be found there by himself, drinking cappuccino, nibbling on Italian-made chocolates, reading the newspapers, and talking with the restaurant's owner, Vincent Urwand.

Lennon viewed La Fortuna as a safe haven, and over time he established the kind of relationship with Urwand that allowed for much teasing and playful banter. Urwand even teased him that day about Double Fantasy."Look, you've had all those years of wildness and success in the Beatles," Urwand was quoting as saying in Ray Coleman's exhaustively researched John Lennon biography, Lennon.

"You don't need the money," argued Urwand. "What are you doing all this for? You're enjoying being a husband and father!" According to Coleman's book, Lennon responded first by laughing, and then saying to Urwand, "I swore I'd look after that boy until he was five, and he's five and I feel like getting back to my music. The urge is there. It's been a long time since I wrote a song, but they're coming thick and fast now."


Excerpt: 'The Last Days of Dead Celebrities'

John Lennon and Yoko Ono memorabilia is prominently featured on the walls of Café La Fortuna. Café La Fortuna was a favorite New York hangout of John Lennon and Yoko Ono. (amNewYork Photo/ Rolando Pujol / February 21, 2008)

http://www.amny.com/news/local/am-cafelafortuna0222-gallery,0,495900.photogallery

John Lennon and Yoko Ono memorabilia is prominently featured on the walls of Café La Fortuna. Café La Fortuna was a favorite New York hangout of John Lennon and Yoko Ono. (amNewYork Photo/ Rolando Pujol / February 21, 2008)

John Lennon and Yoko Ono memorabilia



Cafe La Fortuna

An Italian cafe at 69 West 71st Street. John visited this cafe almost every day from 1976 while he was living in the Dakota Building. It was a place where he went to relax, smoke his Gitanes and drink a cappuccino while he read the newspapers.

Bill Harry/Lennon Encyclopedia

Cafe La Fortuna located at 69 West 71st Street in Manhattan was a local eatery which both John Lennon and his partner Yoko Ono regularly frequented. The cafe plans on closing permanently on Sunday Feb. 24, 2008 due to a significant increase in costs for rent. Originally shot on February 21, 2008 and was published on February 22, 2008. (RJ Mickelson)

LENNON'S OLD HAUNT TO CLOSE
By SANDRA HURLEY and LUKAS I. ALPERT
TODAY'S HOT TOPICS


February 22, 2008

Here's yet another sad verse in the ballad of John and Yoko.

Cafe La Fortuna, the Upper West Side coffee shop that was a favorite of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, as well as scores of other celebrities and New Yorkers, is closing it doors for good this weekend - the victim of rising rents, its owner said yesterday.

"We're heartbroken," said Mike Trapani.

The last supper will be served Sunday night.

While the walls of the West 71st Street eatery are festooned with signed photos of top celebs, from Luciano Pavarotti to Bill Clinton,, the greatest amount of space is dedicated to John and Yoko. A shrine to the pair is placed in the front window.

Since Lennon's tragic slaying in front of the nearby Dakota in 1980, Ono still came in from time to time.

In 2006, Trapani made headlines by giving Ono the small wooden table where she and John liked to sit, after originally putting it up for sale on eBay for $50,000.

Ono did not return messages for comment, but other regulars said they were deeply saddened the neighborhood stalwart was coming to an end.

"The cafe was an oasis around here," said actor Henry Stran, 53, who discovered it as a student at nearby Juilliard. "It's going to be weird without this in the neighborhood."

http://www.nypost.com/seven/02222008/news/regionalnews/lennons_old_haunt_to_close_98772...

Yoko Ono and John Lennon were regulars at Cafe La Fortuna in the 1970s.

то есть это первая линия домов по манхеттен,между 69 и 71? или надо сворачивать в глубь? спасибо.а вы долго тут?я за дакотой живу еще 3 дня.

Это 71-я улица , а номер дома -69,между 6-й авеню и Централ Парк Вест.

с напряжением вглядывается в карту

71 улица по Вест сайду и 6 авеню на моей карте в разных местах.Пересечений нет.Если это рядом с 72,о которой мы знаем много,кивните головой.Спасибо

Должно быть, Фортуна.

ага,поставил ручкой точку на карте.спасибо.тут,в принципе в этом месте не потеряешься.

Советую сходить на Банк стрит 105,где Джон с Йоко начинали жить в Нью Йорке в 1971 году.

Банк ст.105

знакомые приехали и сразу мне фото..