Owner of a Katrina-Ravaged Pizzeria Seeks N.Y. Memorabilia To Help Rebuild

When Hurricane Katrina ripped through New Orleans, Todd Duvio’s 7-month-old pizzeria was as good as gone. Four feet of water filled the restaurant and lay waste to everything from the wooden pizza paddles to the 60-quart mixer. Thick clumps of mold now cling to every remaining surface, and most everything at Brooklyn Pizza needs to be replaced.Mr. Duvio, who left a hotel in Dallas to return to his restaurant last weekend, has tried to reach FEMA and the Red Cross but says he’s had trouble getting through. He’s had slightly better luck with the next group he turned to: the New York City pizza community. He’s not asking them for the $70,000 it’s going to cost him to get his joint up and running again. He just wants authentic New York City subway maps, photographs, and pizzeria menus. On his Web log, http://pizzerianeedshelp.blogspot.com, he writes: “I could use any type of New York items, Brooklyn especially … maps, photos, posters, T-shirts, hats, etc. I’m not asking for cash.”Before Katrina struck, the pizzeria’s walls were decorated with photographs of the Brooklyn Bridge, the Dodgers, 19th-century New York streetscapes, NYPD and NYFD patches, Yankees and Jets paraphernalia, and New York T-shirts, including the one pictured on Mr. Duvio’s blog. It was tacked next to an Italian flag and it says: “Yeah I’m from Brooklyn you got a problem with it?”“Now I’m going to be able to start over,” a shaken-sounding Mr. Duvio said from his decimated restaurant in the Metairie section of New Orleans. “I want my place to be funky and cool. It would be so cool to have T-shirts from all the New York pizzerias, or their menus, any kind of cool stuff. It would be an homage to the pizzeria owners who helped out. And if they came to New Orleans, they could look on the wall and say, ‘Hey, that’s my pizzeria.’ “So far, Mr. Duvio’s post on the Internet has occasioned two responses. Bleecker Street Pizza sent a note offering 9/11 photographs taken by a professional photographer who is a friend of the owner. Another message came from a non-pizzeria-owner who is a photographer and has offered to make prints of any of his photographs of New York featured on his own Web site. “I can choose,” Mr. Duvio said.The responses he’s been getting locally are far less encouraging. Mr. Duvio said his insurance company has told him he didn’t have flood insurance. “I’m trying to gut it out myself,” he said. “I can’t afford to hire anybody else until I get my insurance settled.” He said the stench of uncollected trash is unbearable and there are about a thousand flies buzzing around his restaurant. “The smell is, ugh,” he said, “I can’t even describe it.”Mr. Duvio, 33, has been in the restaurant business for more than a decade, and he said he has dreamed of opening a New York-style pizzeria all his life. The first time Mr. Duvio tasted New York pizza was on a trip when he was 3 years old. He’s been back about 20 times since. Last year, he and his wife finally used their life savings to buy Rocky’s, a failing pizzeria in a strip mall on the western side of town. Their mission was to create a casual restaurant that serves authentic New York pies. For five years, Mr. Duvio had been courting the owner of a real Brooklyn pizzeria and trying to convince him to sell his recipe. Last year, he finally bought it – for several thousand dollars.Mr. Duvio described the pizza as “crunchy yet foldable.” The top-secret recipe calls for dough made with high-gluten flour, and there are notes of basil, oregano, and Romano cheese in the sauce.“I was the only one in the area that would sell pizza by the slice,” he said. “We were doing unbelievable business.” While most pizzerias in New Orleans specialized in gourmet pies with unlikely topping combinations (spinach, mango, and Gruyere, anyone?),Brooklyn Pizza was committed to keeping its pizza simple. They served up plain, pepperoni, and mushroom pies, and the wildest topping they offered was marinated artichoke.After Katrina struck, Mr. Duvio, his wife, their two sons, and his parents went to Dallas, where they stayed in a hotel. New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin has been urging residents to return home, and last weekend, Mr. Duvio and his family did just that. He has been hard at work, spending about 10 hours a day trying to clear out his restaurant. His wife used to work at the pizzeria but can’t go in there now because her allergies to the mold are too severe. “She got sick cleaning out our freezer at home,” Mr. Duvio said.The other night, after picking up his sons from their gymnastics practice, the only restaurant open on the way home was Papa John’s. “It was sickening,” he said. “It was horrible. But my sons were starving. They thought it was horrible too. They’re very picky about pizza.”Every week the restaurant is closed Mr. Duvio loses another $8,000 in business, and he has four employees who are ready to go back to work. For the time being, he’s not sure when he’ll be able to reopen, but he’s hoping the answer is soon, possibly by Christmas. For the meantime, he just ordered a $12,000 mobile pizza kitchen from Arizona that will temporarily serve as his kitchen. Once everything is back to normal, he said he’ll use the mobile kitchen for the city’s festivals, like the Jazz Festival and Mardi Gras. “That’s going to be awesome,” he said.Brooklyn or New York City memorabilia can be sent to, Brooklyn Pizza, 2701 Airline Dr., Metairie, La. 70001.

Owner of a Katrina-Ravaged Pizzeria Seeks N.Y. Memorabilia To Help Rebuild

Owner of a Katrina-Ravaged Pizzeria Seeks N.Y. Memorabilia To Help Rebuild

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