By this stage of the proceedings, I’ve written about the long-lost Blue Willow, a relatively short-lived restaurant on the northeast corner of Broadway at Bleecker Street, more times than is probably warranted (see below), especially for someone who never actually set in the establishment when it was named as such.
As first unspooled in this old post, my fascination with the Blue Willow – which went out of business in 1990 – had more to do with it being the atmospheric location of the 1989 album cover for Gavin Friday & the Man Seezer’s Each Man Kills The Thing He Loves, the primary image having been captured in the rear chamber, with ancilary shots from the same shoot around the stately, marbel-laden interior of the eatery used to adorn promotional materials and the sleeves of various singles from the record, tidily wrapping the entire project with a consistent theme of noirishly elegant decrepitude. Here are a few of those images – all snapped by acclaimed Dutch photographer Anton Corbijn, once again.
Nice, right?
Even though I was a huge fan of the album (which you should run out and fetch for yourselves), I regret to concede that I didn’t connect the dots that the cover shot had been captured here in my native New York City until well after the fact. By the time I tracked it down at 644 Broadway, back in 2013, the space had been commandeered by a menswear emporium of no great distinction, with the rear chambers being occupied by a sneaker/streetwear concern called, inexplicably, KITH.
Over the ensuing years, I documented doings on that corner as the menswear venture changed hands and then vacated the premesis entirely. KITH went onto move one block to the east, taking over the corner building on the east side of Lafayette Street. From that point, I speculated as to what was going to happen next in the compelling, high-ceilinged atriums of 644 Broadway, taking solace that many of the architecutral trappings from its tenure as the Blue Willow (and prior to that era) were still visible.
After a long period of complete dormancy, activity started anew in that space, slowly revealing itself to be an adjunct concern of KITH, that being the flagship outlet of KITH Women, which has a formal opening tomorrow, actually.
I am sad to say, however, that, as evidenced in the video on the top of this page, virtually every aspect of the former interiors of that space are now covered up, from the marble trim that framed the rear portals to the high ceiling that allegedly still sported bullet holes from a botched robbery during the era of the building’s original incarnatio as a bank.
You’d never know it was the sepulchral setting for Each Man Kills the Thing He Loves, let alone recognize any semblance of its long history prior to that fleeting era.
Now, it’s just another douchey retail outlet.
`Twas not always thus. Here’s that corner back in 1913, beneath that, what it looks like today.
The story so far....
Searching for the Blue Willow (2013)
The Blue Willow is Dead (2015)
Ghosts of the Blue Willow (2017)
Back to the Blue Willow (2022)
Back Again to the Blue Willow ... Just Down from CB's (2022)
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