Exactly one year ago today, I noticed that my favorite neighborhood restaurant, Col Legno, had closed its doors for good. In the ensuing year, the space at 231 East 9th Street has been subsumed by the Japanese restaurant next door. The exterior of what was Col Legno now looks a bit like a bondage palace (yeah, like any of those are left in Manhattan either). In any case, I actually ran into Chris from Col Legno about a week ago. Since leaving 9th street, he's since gone onto take over WXOU Radio in the West Village (across the way from the White Horse Tavern). How the transition from commandeering a quiet, neighborhood Italian restaurant to a popular, oft-crowded bar is going is a question I didn't get to ask him, but I'm planning on swinging by to check out his progress at some point. WXOU is a fine bar (with a decent jukebox), but it has a tendency to fill-up on the weekends.
Being a father of two small children, I don't really get to spend a great deal of time in bars anymore, but being that we were just discussing another one on the West Side, I was disappointed to recently learn that the old Emerald Inn on the far end of Spring Street just renovated its interior. While the bar itself was never anything special (part of its charm), I hold it particularly dear as it features prominently in my oft-cited favorite film of all time, Martin Scorsese's "After Hours." The Emerald Inn acted as the location of the "The Terminal Bar," wherein protagonist Griffin Dunne seeks temporary shelter from the rainy, Kafkaesque nightmare he's ensnared himself in. Back in the day, so to speak, the interior of the bar looked like a run-of-the-mill dive. When I briefly stopped in there a couple of weeks ago with some friends, we were shocked to find the insides re-modeled to look like a cocktail lounge rife with ersatz-swank. I realize it's naive of me to expect places like the Emerald Inn to remain preserved like a mosquito in amber, but I was bummed to find it changed all the same (see also Smith's Bar in Hell's Kitchen). I suppose, however, that I should take a little bit of comfort in the fact that it's still there.
The Emerald Inn today (photo courtesy of Greenwich Village Daily Photo):
And circa "After Hours"....
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