The
earliest pizzas didn't have tomatoes. The first tomato seed was
introduced to Spain and Italy in 1572. Tomatoes where still considered
poison in the 1800s.
The first pizzeria anywhere was
established in 1836. First pizza delivery was to Queen Marghereta in
1889. Yes, it was cheese.
Gennaro
Lombardi opened the first NY pizzeria at 53 1/3 Spring St. in 1905.
The place is gone but his grandson now runs a nice sit-down pizza restaurant
down the block (33 Spring).
talians invented the pizza but
only got the
pizza craze when their American cousins invaded in WWII.
Way back in time they used coal for pizza ovens in NYC.
Now coal is outlawed. The few remaining coal ovens are grand fathered
in. Coal baked pizzas are totally different from the usual NYC slice.
Enjoy them while they last.
1980: the pizza-token connection (soon to
become a theorem) revealed to the world for the first time in the
Metropolitan Diary column
of the New York Times.
1985: A New York Times article
If You Understand Pizza, You Understand Subway Fares,
by George
Fasel
explains the economic theory behind the pizza-subway token connection.
1995: Another New York Time article
Return of the Subway Token Dance recalls the "Fasel Theorem"
2002 (January): An article titled
Beware The Price of a Slice anticipates a rise in the price of a subway ride based
on the "Fasel Corollary."
2002 (July 9): New York Times article
reveals in
As Inevitable As Pepperoni: Higher Fares that original theorem was Bram's not Fasel's.
2002 (July 15): in a
letter to the editor Fasel acknowledges that he was not the first with
the theorem.
2004: The
New Yorker Talk-of-The-Town picks up on the Bram pizza-token theorem
2005: with the price of a slice increasing
the New York Times
puts an urgent phone call to Bram for an
updated assessment, as related in the article titled Digging Deep For a Slice Of the Pie
2007:
BestPizzaNY wiki reviews the
story from start to present (Pizza
and Subway Tokens)
2010: New York Magazine Intelligence reports that pizza prices are diverging from the theory. (But that's an exaggeration: our 12/2009 survey found that the theory is still 95% accurate.).
2012: A couple of very cool dudes discuss the theory in 'A Fare Slice' on YouTube. Gothamist.com mentions it too.
2014: The story is in Wikipedia. Grimaldi call attention on their front door.
