Food Fight

A deli? On Park Avenue? Ugh!

It sounded like a great idea, at least to Kyu Shung Choi: a 24-hour gourmet food store on Park Avenue, at the center of one of Manhattan's ritziest residential blocks. Smelly French cheeses, bottled water, fresh vegetables and, near the back, a few of those gooey snack foods people sometimes need really late at night. And get this: there are no other food stores on Park Avenue for blocks.

It was not a great idea. Last month Shirley Bernstein took one look at the busy renovations going on across the street from her Park Avenue place and her head spun. A deli? Not on her block.

"Do the residents of Park Avenue want to look out the window at vegetables?" she asked. "They most certainly do not." Besides, she went on, "can you imagine the litter?" Spoiling for a fight, Bernstein mailed off petitions to 800 local residents, and called friends at city hall.

Building inspectors soon arrived in droves, finding code violations on almost every shelf. Choi, no chump, halted his renovation plans, complied with each building ordinance and applied to the city landmarks preservation commission for permission to keep his new awning. Then the underdog syndrome took over. While Choi started getting fan letters, Bernstein got 60 obscene phone calls. A writer from Gourmet magazine called her a snob. Customers like a little cause celebre with then-caviar. Maybe it wasn't such a bad idea after all. -