Gridskipper
In the storied chronicles of New York pizza, most focus on the high drama of Lombardi's and Patsy's and Grimaldi's and other nobles. But there is another world. This world celebrates by-the-slice culture while churning out some of the worst offenses against human eatables the world has ever seen. Yes, New York has the best pizza on the planet, and it also suffers the highest concentrations of bad pizza in the cosmos. To list every crap pizza parlor in town would be like counting grains of sand on a beach swamped with canned tomato sauce. But we can at least focus on the well-known story of Ray's Pizza in all its Shiva-like incarnations, which unsurprisingly contains very little good pizza, and surprisingly contains not one actual Ray. However, it does contain heroin!
Through the decades, the New York Times has studied the Ray's Pizza phenomenon several times. Without going into too much detail, it appears to begin here with a credulous 1976 profile of Famous Ray's. Then there's the tripartite Ray's cabal formed in 1987 to destroy the other Ray'ses and market the brand to the world, apparently failing on both counts. The best and funniest of the lot is this 1991 study of where and who is Ray, from which several quotes are pulled for this map. And as promised, there's the heroin — a drug ring operating out of a particular Ray's that caused collateral reputation damage to other Ray'ses. All this comedy and notoriety even spawned Fort Greene's Not Ray's Pizza, though no one has taken it to the next level with Not Famous Nor Original Ray's Pizza.
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Ray's Pizza
27 Prince Street New York, NY 10012
Current favorite for holding the crown of oldest extant Ray's (founded circa 1959) and one of the few that doesn't modify with further adjectives. Raylationship: Founder Ralph Cuomo, an Italian… immigrant, says "Ralph's might have sounded, I don't know, maybe too feminine. ... Besides, nobody ever called me Ralph. My family took the Italian word for Ralph — Raffaele — and shortened it to Rayfie or just Ray. All my life I was addressed that way." [link]
N 40° 43.22633 W 73° 59.40801
Famous Original Ray's: Patient Zero
1073 First Avenue New York, NY 10022
No longer exists, but it's important historically speaking. Raylationship. This was the short-lived and (to date) only second location of Cuomo's Ray's, and it was sold to Rosolino Mangano in 1964, who rechristened it Famous Original Ray's. "Nobody knows Rosolino. ... Everybody knows me as Ray. I can't go no place — Ray, Ray, Ray. Nobody ever heard… of Ralph Cuomo. I was the one who made Ray famous." [link]
N 40° 45.33659 W 73° 57.43879
Famous Original Ray's Pizza
250 E Houston St New York, NY 10002
One of these is much like the other, so who cares? Raylationship. After taking the idea and running with it, Mangano and co. have opened up about a dozen Famous Original Ray's around New York since… the 1960s. He's the one chiefly responsible for the metastasization of the brand, and the most well-known version of the logo ("RAY'S" in a little crown). Despite the chain's overall success, there's never more than about a dozen of this subspecies open at any one time. (photo) [link]
N 40° 43.19269 W 73° 59.7320
Famous Ray's Pizza
465 Avenue of the Americas New York, NY 10011
Reportedly opened in 1973 by Mario Di Rienzo, this is also likely the most popular and beloved of all Ray'ses. It seems odd that someone would name their pizzeria with a truncated version of an existing chain at… the time, but fortunately, there's an explanation. Raylationship. "It's a small town I come from. Although I am a Mario, in Roio I am also a Ray. The name Ray is a nickname for the family name of Di Rienzo. Every family has a nickname in my town. Someone asks, 'Did you see Mario?' and there are so many Marios in town you have to ask 'Which Mario?', so the answer is Mario Ray. And so my restaurant became The Famous Ray's Pizza. If it were The Famous Mario's, you would have to ask 'Which Mario?'" (photo) [link]
N 40° 44.7746 W 73° 59.53627
Original Ray's Pizza
2nd Avenue & 51st Street, New York, NY 10022
The first of the apparently now-defunct Original Ray's subchain, formed when Mangano sold a Famous Original Ray's to Gary Esposito, who opened up a few more Original Ray'ses. This branch of the family appears to have died out or been bought back by Famous Original Ray's. Raylationship. ""I have never said that I am Ray. ... That's my claim to originality."… [link]
N 40° 45.19802 W 73° 58.5055
Ray Bari Pizza
1330 3rd Avenue New York, NY 10021
In 1973, Mangano sold yet another Famous Original Ray's to Joseph Bari, who renamed it Ray Bari Pizza and also launched a few more locations over the years. Raylationship: "There is no… Ray Bari. ... There is Joe Bari. There is Carmelo Bari, my brother. Someone else may have been Ray's on a small street in Little Italy before us, but we were the ones who made Ray's popular." (photo) [link]
N 40° 46.20529 W 73° 57.31382
Comments
Your #4 on 6th and 11th St. is the "real" Rays that was popular in the 70s and early 80s, and the one the others all try to feign association with (the ones called "famous" and "original" aren't). Thanks to two changes of family ownership, there is nothing much special about the one on 6th Av, anymore. But back in the day, the sauce was incredible, the onions, mushrooms and other toppings baked into extra cheese were fine, and the line was out the door. Past, over!
Not Ray's Pizza, on Fulton and South Portland in Brooklyn, is really good. On the walls are pictures of all the Ray's mentioned here, plus pictures of famous people named Ray.
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