Dollar pizza is good for New York
There's something awesome about unpolluted sandy beaches. Everyone wants to vacation at one, and not at say, the beach at Coney Island. If everyone relocated from Coney Island to some pristine beach, then the whole ecology would change. What everyone actually want instead is to be one of the first there, enjoy it, and not have a bunch of people following. That's how New Yorkers talk about gentrification. The funny thing about gentrification is that folks never say, "Mmm... I want bullets in my stoop when I wake up in the morning." But if Starbucks moves in then... Sheeeeeeeeet (in the words of the great Clay Davis). At heart heart of the issue is that change is hard to accept. You can imagine what happens if one is on a path of traditional New York slice, and the market swoops in and says, "Nah, that's not popular now. It is time for the dollar slice to reign supreme!" Some folks want New York as they imagine it, and they want the pizza most associated with New York to remain unchanged. The saying goes, "You are what you eat." And this is true for a city as well. If dollar slice joints have the longest lines at lunch time... then does that mean New York Slice is really the Dollar Slice?
There are a variety of dollar slices in the city. There's a mini empire called 99 cent Fresh Pizza and another called Two Bro's Pizza. I've actually seen deli's do dollar slices too. It's not the greatest slice of pizza in the city. However, I have walked around the city looking for a good deal on food, only to succumb to the allure of a dollar slice. Come on, it's just one dollar! I'm not sure if it's because the pizza is so cheap, but the dollar slices are rarely filling. They mostly taste like warm tomato sauce with some carbs. There is something beautiful about that. Sure, the cheese is mass produced and we probably killed a million groundhogs and cut down a million trees to mass harvest all that wheat for flour. Oh and the tomatoes probably came from some Monsantos subsidiary. But hot damn. In this city, there's nothing as worth it as a one dollar slice of pizza. Maybe in Chinatown there's some fried rice at the side of the street from a cart, but that's limited to one neighborhood. You can find the dollar slice anywhere from Hells Kitchen to Chelsea to the East Village. The surge in popularity over the past year or two is not just a reflection of the economic times, it is also a sign that we're living through change. It's gentrification on the pizza scene. Every part of me loves it, not just the cheap part of me.
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I think Two Bros is my favorite $1 pizza in NYC!
Amanda
January 20, 2011 9:37 pm
Dollar slices are the best, especially when your stomach is full of alcohol. The bigger, thinner, floppier and sloppier the better. Fold it up and get. it. in. my. bellehhhhhhhhhh.
Sherm
January 20, 2011 11:36 pm
I think you and I both know what needs to be done. A map overlay of NYC which shows the cost of pizza per square inch of pie. Yes these places are only $1, but Koronet (back in the heyday) would probably demolish them in terms of $/square inch value.
Nicholas
January 21, 2011 12:08 am
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3034/2963571735_b3388ae726_o.jpg
James
January 24, 2011 11:45 pm
@Amanda,
It is a decent slice, I gotta say. I can't get over the fact that it's just a dollar.
@Sherm,
haha, yes it is really great when it's like that.
@Nicholas,
Oh man, cost per square inch of pie... I think that's interesting but there's distinctly a different purchasing process going on here... even if Koronet has better cost per square inch, sometimes you only want to part with one dollar.
@James,
Sheeeeeeeee-it!
Danny
January 25, 2011 12:17 pm