As I mentioned in the first part, I started answering the individual questions of this survey well over a month ago — back before life as we all knew it came to a grinding halt. As such, the tone of the answers below may be a bit different from the first batch.
Once again, I am not in the city in question, at the moment. About three weeks back, the wife, kids and I took up my family’s kind offer to decamp to my mother’s empty house out on Long Island. Given the limited space of our Manhattan apartment — which was already feeling tiny well before this crisis hit, even after some “creative" renovations — the spiraling uncertainties and the growing predictions of a looming, unstoppable uptick in COVID-19 cases — I felt it was prudent to get my family out of what has since become, by all reports, an unspeakable tragedy — one that we could have collectively been better prepared for had Trump and the rest of his clown car of an administration not dismantled the Nation Security Council’s pandemic response team in May of 2018. But, what’s done is done. There are now coronavirus-treatment tents on Sheep’s Meadow in Central Park and makeshift morgues in the streets. There is continued talk of temporarily burying COVID-19 victims in trenches in city parks.
Out here in Quogue, I would take solace in the notion that we’ve now been out of the city long enough for the incubation period — had we been infected before we left and unwittingly brought the virus with us — to have flowered into sickness by now, and that hasn’t happened. We are all still, to our knowledge, fully healthy. But, that, too, is speculative. We could very well have been infected and continue to be asymptomatic. As such, we are staying inside, washing our hands frequently and furiously after supply missions and, now, covering our noses and mouths when we have to do those runs. Most of all, we’re staying indoors and maintaining physical distance with others in accordance with that elusive goal of flattening the curve. But I cannot — and will not — complain.
I am profoundly privileged to have gotten out, but I miss my city, and I sorely fear for my friends, family and countless independent local concerns still there. I worry constantly about what happens next. As do we all.
As such, here’s the second half of the survey that celebrates my home town.
Favorite Book Shop:
Much as with my favorite record & CD shops, New York’s once great network of small, independent bookstores has also been largely vanquished by the advent of technological convenience. Time was when I would have answered this question with Shakespeare & Company at 716 Broadway, but that closed a few years back and is now a Foot Locker (`cos, y’know … we needed another place to buy expensive sneakers). That was an amazing bookshop, as I discussed here, but it’s gone now. As such, my fallback position is the mighty Strand on Broadway at East 12th Street. A huge, cavernous, multi-tiered hive of all sorts of literature, it is absolutely essential and unfuckwithable.
Favorite Music Shop:
I have already devoted entirely too many posts to lost record & CD shops. It’s a subject that largely defines this stupid weblog. As such, I’ll devote this answer solely to what remans … which regrettably isn’t very much. If I’m hard-pressed to find a specific disc, my first inclination, these days, is to head to Rough Trade in Williamsburg, which has a sprawling and enviable supply of great music of all stripes and is staffed by knowledgable folks (like my good friend Miles). Failing that, in Manhattan, there is always Generation Records on Thompson Street, but their selection is growing somewhat thin, of late. I’m also still quite fond of Downtown Music Gallery down on Monroe Street, in a sleepy patch of Chinatown, but that’s exclusively for deeply esoteric stuff. With regards to all three of these businesses, I have grave concerns about their well-being in the wake of this pandemic.
Favorite Dive Bar:
There remains a great deal of debate about what genuinely constitutes a proper “dive bar,” but I’ll say this — if the bar you’re in has a flatscreen television, it’s not a dive bar. Dive bars are generally dark, decrepit, a little scary and filled with drinkers for whom the clock has little or no importance. And make no mistake — dive bars aren't “punk bars.” Sure, there are plenty of so-called punk bars, but they’re usually fairly stylized, arty and endeavor to create a specific atmosphere (and many try way too hard, in this capacity). Proper dive bars don’t cater to that. There are loads of seedy, neighborhood bars, but that doesn’t make them dives. Proper dive bars don’t cater to being neighborhoody or kitschy or themey. They’re there to profit from despair, not cultivate character. Proper dive bars may indeed serve food, but chances are you don’t want to eat it. Dive bars are purely function over form — places wherein to get blotto drunk on the cheap to help you forget the shittiest of life’s circumstances. There are no proper dive bars in my neighborhood, anymore. None. Being that less and less is genuinely cheap in Manhattan, there are fewer and fewer of these joints. Dive bars don’t exist in nice neighborhoods. They perch on the fringes of civilization. I used to know a couple of bona fide dives on 8th and 9th avenues, where desperately depressed mailmen would drink themselves blind, but I don’t know if they’re still there. The Savoy, tucked behind Port Authority, was certainly one of them, but that’s changed hands a few times since I was last there in the mid-90s. Billymark’s West on West 28th & 9th Avenue was similarly grim, but the last time I looked, it was a good deal more inviting.
Favorite Irish Bar:
My favorite is probably The Scratcher on East 5th Street. Genuinely Irish, but without any cartoonishly cloying blarney aesthetic. Being half-Irish, I’m allowed to say shit like that.
Favorite Date Bar:
Well, I’ve been married for about twenty years, now, so haven’t really been on any dates, recently. When we were dating, the wife and I were quite fond of Johnny’s Bar on Greenwich Avenue, especially if we could sit in the front window. If you’re feeling flush, I might also suggest taking your date to the King Cole Bar at the St. Regis, which has astounding atmosphere (but very pricey drinks). Angel’s Share on Stuyvesant Street (amazingly still there) was also a great spot for dates, especially in that it was hard to find, which made it that much cooler.
Favorite Sports Bar:
Being that I generally don’t give one single crap about sports, I really don’t have one. If I’m at a sports bar, you’re bound to find me at the jukebox, about to piss off several patrons who are otherwise trying to pay attention to their precious ball games.
Favorite Park:
As much as I love Washington Square Park and Tompkins Square Park and Riverside Park, there is only one — 1 — answer for this. Any answer other than Central Park is moot.
Favorite Street:
I have a few, but they’re favorites for different reasons. I love Courtlandt Alley for its atmosphere, vibe and history. I love 13th Street between 6th & 7th Avenues for its overall look and feel. I love my own street, because I live on it.
Favorite Live Music Venue:
I feel like I’m repeating myself, but most of my favorite live music venues are gone. If you’re curious what they might have been, just peruse back under the “Vanished Venues” category. In terms of live music venues that — as of, say, February — that were still in operation, I’d say I’m still quite fond of the Bowery Ballroom. Irving Plaza is reportedly coming back, or at least was before all this bullshit went down. I have not been the re-opened Webster Hall, as yet, so jury’s still out on that, but the building certainly still carries a ton of resonance.
Favorite Movie Theatre:
I love the Quad Cinemas on West 13th Street. Kind of the very last of its kind.
Favorite New York Movie:
Without a moment’s hesitation, “After Hours.” Second place would be “The Taking of Pelham One Two Three,” the original version from 1974.
Favorite Song About New York:
I could make whole playlists of favorite songs about New York, so picking one is not easy feat. Today, I’m going to say “Manhattan” by Cat Power, but that could change in a half an hour.
Favorite Quiet Place in New York:
Maybe the Conservatory Gardens on Upper Fifth Avenue.
Favorite New York Secret:
If I disclosed that here, it wouldn’t be a secret anymore.
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