| EYE on BUSINESS
…Featuring neighborhood establishments Bridge KitchenwareWhen Steven Bridge says his specialty shop – Bridge Kitchenware – is all about quality and selection, it’s hard to argue. After all, this is the store where Julia Child bought her omelette pans, where legendary food critic Craig Claiborne said he found the best cooking utensils “this side of Paris,” and where today, the most famous of New York’s celebrated chefs browse for the latest in gourmet cookware. Bridge sells more than 7,000 items, ranging from a 10-cent mustard spoon to a $1,980 copper stock pot from France. In between, you’ll find 325 different kinds of knives, 535 molds, 120 cake pans and 30 different ice cream scoops. You can find a rosewood or faux ivory manche à gigot (that’s the contraption that holds your lamb shank while you carve it), four different kinds of fish mongers (they’re for cutting off heads and tails of your fish), fancy gold-plated grape shears (or nickel-plated, if you prefer) and a bird’s beak peeler (it just looks like a bird’s beak; it’s not for peeling them).
Bridge Kitchenware, located at 214 East 52nd Street, was founded in 1946 by Steven Bridge’s father, Fred. The store has been a Turtle Bay institution since 1970 when it moved here from its original East 33rd Street location. After Fred Bridge died in 1996, his widow Carolynn, a trained home economist who once worked for Betty Crocker Kitchens, took over management of the store and this past January, Mrs. Bridge turned over the store’s management to her son Steven. The store caters equally to retail customers and to the hotel and restaurant trade. “We’re as happy to offer a cookie cutter to a Turtle Bay homemaker as we are to stock a full restaurant kitchen,” says Bridge. And he’s pleased to tell Turtle Bay homemakers they can choose from no less than 380 different cookie cutter shapes, including a turtle. Tucked away among the floor-to-rafters shelves of cutlery, cookware and cutting boards are some prized photos and letters from famous fans of the store, including Julia Child, who died recently at the age of 92. Ms. Child was among the first to congratulate Fred Bridge when he started his thriving mail-order business back in the early 1970’s. “About time, my friend,” she wrote, “You have outlived them all – everyone in New York, Boston and everywhere else, too,” she said of the business at the time. Mrs. Bridge says Julia Child was often in the store. “What I remember most about her visits is how she enjoyed talking with the young chefs who were shopping alongside her, and how thrilled they’d be when she offered them words of encouragement,” she recalls. In
addition to its mail-order catalogue, Bridge has a Web site, www. While the store caters to neighborhood kitchen hobbyists as well as famous chefs, there’s no doubt that Bridge is a serious store. It’s said that Fred Bridge once refused to sell a whole array of French copper pots to a shopper who announced that he was going to use the pots to decorate his new kitchen. “My father thought good quality copper pots should be used for good quality cooking,” says Steven. “I’m not as strict about that as my father,” he laughs. But neighborhood shoppers eyeing a copper crepe pan for the wall above their stove might be well advised to abide by a “don’t tell” policy. And Steven says that he “won’t ask.” Store hours: Mon.-Fri., 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Sat., 10 a.m.-4:30 p.m.
The Turtle Bay Association is a nonprofit (501c3) community organization.
224 East 47th Street, New York City 10017 |
