Flaming Pablum

The Revenge of the Flaming Pablum Grub Guide

About four years ago, I posted an audacious little entry here rather grandiosely called The Flaming Pablum Grub Guide. Despite that promising title, all it really amounted to was a tidy list of six restaurants I happened, at the time, to like. Hardly a “guide” of any credible semblance.

At the tail end of that post, I appended the line “more to come,” as if to suggest that my culinary recommendations were swiftly to become a regular fixture on this blog, rubbing shoulders with lamentations about closed record shops, meaningless asides about old post-punk singles, slavishly overwritten eulogies to recently deceased musicians of a certain stripe and/or complaints about our current president. Had I any idea, in 2015, who the latter was going to turn out to be, I may have been too nauseous to conceive of writing anything about food. But, I digress.

Indeed, despite the “more to come” warning, apart from a couple of fleeting mentions of the closings of various eateries, I didn’t post many entries that were strictly meal-related. By and large, writing about food just isn’t my métier, so to speak.

This all said, in the last couple of months, some specifically favorite restaurants of mine have simply just up and ceased to exist. The first to go, of these, was my family’s preferred Chinese restaurant (also mentioned in my previous Grub Guide), that being the excellent Lychee House on East 55th between Lexington and Third Avenues. I have absolutely zero idea why it shut its doors, but it’s evidently gone for good. For this cruel affront, I question the existence of a benevolent deity.

More recently, after yet another frankly mediocre order from Jin on Third Avenue between 10th and 11th, the teenaged Pablumites and I decided to revert to our old trusty standby, Irving Place’s Hunan Cottage (or, as my kids used to call it, Hunan College). While never the stuff of greatness, the Cottage/College (or Huniversity, as I would sometimes call it) got several key dishes right, notably their fried pork dumplings. Imagine our collective potty-mouthed incredulousness, then, upon learning that -– like Lychee House way uptown -– Hunan Cottage had mysteriously closed up shop. And now, for that matter, shitty Jin has a "For Rent" sign in its window.  

What was this? The work of fucking Thanos? Why are all our favorite spots vanishing?

Way back in 2007, I prefaced my first lengthy post about since-closed record shops with a rumination about the shuttering of restaurants. Steeped in melancholy, it read as follows:

For some reason, I always find the closing of a restaurant to be particularly heartbreaking (more so than, say, the closing of a shoe store or cell phone emporium). Restaurants require -- to misappropriate a line from Winston Churchill -- blood, sweat and tears. They demand someone with heart, vision and a desire to not only meet a need but excel beyond that need (nobody strives to open a merely adequate restaurant). And there's something about the offering of food that makes it extra personal. Someone carefully planned the menu and imagined the fare and took pains to present it in a palatable way. When those endeavors collapse, I just find it kinda tragic. There's a restaurant down West 10th street, for example, that just closed. I walked by it earlier this week with my wife. Only a couple of short months ago, we'd dined there with friends, celebrating the christening of my son. The food wasn't exceptionally bad, but it wasn't much to sing about either. Still, we ate and laughed and had many drinks and had a splendid time within its walls. It's now just an empty room that someone's dream once briefly occupied.

As histrionic as that sounds, I continue to feel that way when a beloved eatery goes out of business.

With that all in mind, I decided to update my flimsily executed Grub Guide and imbue it with more specifics. Those with an only passively keen eye for detail might notice I’ve qualified these with the descriptor “Favorite” as opposed to “Best.” No votes were tallied. I am not claiming this to be in any way authoritative. These are only my personal preferences. Just because I’m partial to the way one restaurant prepares a certain dish doesn’t mean I think that particular iteration of said dish is its supreme realization. As the saying goes, results may vary. You may not agree with my choices. You’re free to make your own Grub Guide.

In the interest of being comprehensive, I’ve broken this up into categories. Invariably, I will leave something out. This is not meant as a slight to whichever cuisine I’ve omitted. It only means I’ve forgotten to include a selection representing that particular culinary discipline. I am human.

So, let’s get to it, shall we?

Favorite Mexican 

Mariachi’s
156 Chambers Street.

The original Mariachi’s was a block or so to the east on West Broadway (replete with a touching outdoor mural of its former neighbors, the Twin Towers). When its block was slated to be razed to accommodate a new condo, Mariachi’s moved to its more recent perch on Chambers Street between West B’way and Greenwich. It’s not that its fare is the best of its kind (I’m sure friends from the Southwest would balk at even the mere suggestion), but it’s consistently solid, hearty food. I frequently go for the quesadillas and am never not happy and/or sated by the results. Unfussy, quick, cheap and satisfying.

Honorable Mention: The fish tacos at Dorado on 28 East 12th Street are mighty fine, although not as outstanding as the fish tacos at El Vez (259 Vesey), which are fucking muy bien. My other local Mexican, El Cantinero (86 University Place), is also always respectable. They also have a nice outdoor deck in the warmer months, and a somewhat hilarious Mexican disco on the second floor, if you’re ever in that particular mood.

Favorite Chinese 

Mission Chinese Food
171 East Broadway

As weepily explained in the preamble to this post, both my very favorite Chinese restaurant and my local standby Chinese restaurant have all just shuttered, which pisses me right off. There are, of course, hundreds -- if not thousands -- of great Chinese eateries scattered across Manhattan alone, but I’ve now lost my go-to’s. As such, I’m citing the somewhat insufferably trendy Mission Chinese Restaurant on way-the-Hell-near-nothing East Broadway. If you can tolerate the hipster aesthetic/cache, the food is indeed damn good. Even comparatively unadventurous dishes like Beef with Broccoli blew a new part in my hair. That said, it’s way remote, and I don’t believe they deliver.

Favorite Sushi 

Japonica
90 University Place

This is actually the same place I cited last time around, but hey ... it's a fave. In all honesty, my sushi palette isn't so adventurous or sophisticated enough to know exceptional sushi from simply good sushi, but I'm also prone to sticking fairly close to familiar fare (no blowfish sashimi for me, thanks). Japonica's been our neighborhood go-to for eons. I'd love it if they were a little bit cheaper, but I'm happy to support the place. Moreover, sushi that is too cheap is best avoided. 

Honorable mention: I do like the bento box lunch specials at Tokyo Bay (183 Duane Street --  below) in TriBeCa. 

Favorite Korean 

Dons Bogam
17 East 32nd St

What I credibly know about Korean cuisine couldn't cover one side of a piece of loose leaf. That said, I know good Korean BBQ when I have it, and this is the place to get it. It's crowded (like everything on East 32nd Street), but when you do manage to sit down, they do all the work for you. I've been to too many Korean BBQ joints that let you -- the idiotic patron -- cook the meat yourself, and while that's fun and all, it can frequently come with digestive ramifications. That's not the case at Dons Bogam. It's all good stuff, but I wish the portion sizes were bigger. 

Honorable mention: Nam Pang on East 12th off University is not bad at all for Korean sandwiches/finger food. 

Favorite Cuban 

Sophie's Cuban Cuisine
76 Fulton Street

Much like Korean food, what I know about Cuban cuisine isn't much. I was brought to Sophie's by two colleagues, and while it assuredly doesn't look like much, the food is delicious. I've only had the sandwiches, but if they're anything to go by, the rest of their fare is well worth checking out. 

Favorite Indian 

Haveli Banjara
100 Second Avenue

This is a tenuous one. Time was when I had several favorite Indian restaurants. This was back when East 6th Street was frequently rumored to house one huge, block-long Indian kitchen that fed the numerous eateries that lined its sidewalks. Back then, my criteria for patronizing an Indian establishment were iffy. If they boasted an uproariously garish amount of fire-code-thwarting Christmas lights? That was a plus. If they'd pinned a photograph of Iron Maiden to their front window (as if to suggest that the lads in question had dined there)? I was in. If a sitar player sat in their window with a Casio keyboard with a rubber band wrapped around a single key (y'know...to provide the right drone)? That meant it was good enough for me. 

Later on, the wife and I became besotted with a Nouvelle Indian restaurant on University Place called Cafe Spice. We were regulars there to the extent that we tried to set up their manager, the dashing and slightly mysterious Sandeep, with a friend of ours. Sadly, that endeavor never got off the ground, although we did get a lot of free naan and tallboys of Taj Mahal for our efforts. 

Sadly, Cafe Spice closed, but was replaced with Jackson Diner, a Manhattan offshoot of the revered Indian restaurant of the same name over in Jackson Heights, Queens. While not quite as stylish as Cafe Spice, Jackson Diner's food was unimpeachable. Regrettably, they, too, closed up shop a few years back, and the space they once occupied is now a Vegan venture called Nix.

As such, we started patronizing Haveli, which has a long history on Second Avenue, just south of East 6th. More recently, though, we believe Haveli has fallen on some hard times. At one point, it gave notice that it was going to close, only to merge operations with another restaurant. In the wake of that, however, they've had some trouble, I gather. On two recent occasions, orders we placed with them via Seamless went astray. This all said, I ordered from them in the last few weeks (by phone, this time) and their Kati rolls and Butter Chicken remain excellent. 

We were enthused by the newish Babu Ji on East 13th between University Place and Fifth, for a while. The food was good, and the atmosphere was colorful. I especially enjoyed their "help yourself" beer chiller (and verily helped myself). That said, the maitre'd was uproariously rude to my wife one evening not too long back that I simply couldn't believe it. Suffice to say, we took our business elsewhere and have no plans to return. 

We recently spotted a new place on East 18th Street that looks promising, called Gupshup. It looks like it should be pretty good, but Eater gave it sort of a black eye. 

Favorite Brunch

Elephant & Castle 
68 Greenwich Street

For the past several years, "brunch" has become a dirty word in New York City. No longer a simple culinary descriptor involving Eggs Benedict and maybe a festive Bloody Mary, the term is now synonymous with hordes of monied drunks seeking to extend their Saturday-night imbibing into a next-day Wake & Bake. Across town, various restaurants accommodate this weekly variant of beardless Santa-Connery by offering "bottomless brunches" (meaning, I imagine, that the booze keeps flowing, not that anyone's going sans pants, although that does seem to happen, too). The once-revered tranquility of Sunday morning, in certain neighborhoods, has been replaced by rampant, broad-daylight douchebaggery. It's a plague. 

So, yeah, when I say brunch, I'm referring to its more conventional definition. For my money, my best brunches have all been had at Elephant & Castle, an age-old Greenwich Village mainstay that's about the size of a storage shed. Despite their spacial limitations -- charitably described as "cozy" -- Elephant & Castle make a helluva brunch. My personal favorite dish, like you care, is their purée spinach with poached eggs, melted English cheddar and potato pancakes. Simply put, it's fucking exquisite. I could eat that dish every goddamn day and never tire of it.

Their other fare is also fantastic, so seek it out, do.

Honorable Mention: Veselka on the East 9th Street and Second Avenue has long been a beloved East Village institution. Where once I'd repair to its comfy confines in the dead of night after an evening of copious beering -- it being a 24-hour establishment -- to wolf down pierogis. These days, I'm usually there with my kids ... and the pierogis are still the big attraction, for us, although their many brunch variations are all totally delicious. It does get crowded and touristy, these days. Still, it fucking rocks.

Favorite Ramen

Ramen Takumi
1 University Place

Time was when the only ramen I knew were those cheap-o bags of Nissan top ramen you'd buy in lieu of spending huge amounts of money you didn't have on food. Somewhat ironically, the ramen dishes on offer at lovely Ramen Takumi right in our neighborhood are damn tasty, but one might be hard pressed to characterize the eatery as particularly cheap. That said, their big bowls of noodle-based concoctions are always delightful, as are their gyoza appetizers. You have to rub shoulders with a lot of cloyingly youthful NYU types, but hey ... it IS University Place. 

--

Okay, that ought to be enough for now. I know what you're thinking, though: "Wait! What about favorite burger? What's your favorite steakhouse? What about Italian food? What's your preferred Middle Eastern place?"

Rest assured, these and other variations will be addressed in the next installment of the Flaming Pablum Grub Guide. 

Until then, tip your waiters and bon appetit! 

What Was on West Eighth

Over the course of this silly blog’s almost …. Jesus … 14-year existence, I’ve posted multiple entries about doings over on West 8th Street, specifically the strip between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. Time was when this little patch of Greenwich Village covered a vast array of my needs and interests. From amazing record stores like It’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll and the original Venus Records to mediocre ones like Revolution Records and Record Factory, there was no shortage of places to procure music. You also had Butterfly’s, should you ever be in search of just-the-right Iron Maiden or Black Flag t-shirt. Across the way was Postermat, which featured a dizzying array of crap --- poster, buttons, badges, décor – aimed squarely at teenage music jerks. There was also the suitably surreal art gallery, Psychedelic Solution and Flip, for all of your New Wavey fashion needs, the 8th Street Playhouse – which was the first place I ever saw “Repo Man” -- and the seemingly ageless Gray’s Papaya, once touted as Lou Reed’s favorite restaurant in New York City, at the end of the block. You also had the amazing video store TLA, and a massive B. Dalton Books (later Barnes & Noble) on the corner, across from Gray’s Papaya. There were also numerous places to buy shoes of every possible description.

In later years, when fortunes started to change for this once-busy byway, there were still places like Disc-O-Rama and Sleep of Reason Comics, but somewhat gradually, West 8th Street had less and less to offer me.

All of the concerns listed above, of course, are long, long gone here in 2019.

More recently, my kids became very fond of The Burger Joint (which left us about two years back), while I enjoy both the odd visit to endeavors like the 8th Street Wine Cellar, Arts & Crafts Beer Parlor and nouvelle-Italian eatery, Aunt Jake’s. My wife quite enjoys cocktails at the Marlton Hotel, every now and then, but I wouldn’t call that a particular favorite of mine.

In any case, blah blah blah… Who cares what I like, right? Fine. Regardless, as happened on University Place, and as is happening on the other side of town at St. Marks Place, West Eight Street is about to be blighted with its own enormous new luxury tower, slated to be plonked right down on the southeast corner of Eighth & MacDougal, finally putting to rest speculation of why that particular row of storefronts has been vacant for so long.

Whatever your memories of West Eighth Street are, get ready for this formerly signature byway of olde Greenwich Village to (further) decimated. Incidentally, the lovingly rendered painting of the intersection of MacDougal and West Eighth above comes courtesy of the great Ephemeral New York blog, and was painted by Alfred S. Mira in 1942. Below, meanwhile, as covered here a few times before, is Lowell Bodger's walk down West Eighth Street from the early 1970s.

Back to the P&G

I spotted the below photo on the excellent Tumblr, NYC Nostalgia (refreshingly unencumbered with any blogger’s guilt about being unabashedly nostalgic, or “pasturbatory” as Kembra Pfahler of the Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black might say), and it put the hook in me.

This is, of course, as shot of the ol’ P&G Bar & Grill, which formerly stood on the northeast corner of West 73rd and Amsterdam Avenue. I’ve mentioned it a few times, notably here, here and here, but it was an excellent spot.

This photo was taken in 1980. I haven't been in that neck of the woods in an age but today, I gather, it’s a Blue Bottle Coffee franchise.

After Hours AOC

Despite appearances to the contrary, this post is not really about AOC (Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez), but — since I just invoked her — I might as well concede that I think she’s pretty great. Sure, she’s young and probably still has a lot to learn about the office she now holds, but anyone who is capable of speaking truth to power with her level of conviction — to say nothing about causing so much angst and indigestion among key figures on the Right — is a-okay with me. You, of course, may beg to differ. That’s all.

In any case, a friend of mine recently posted the above photo on Facebook of AOC, posing with her signature, unblinking intensity on a weathered New York City stoop, her impeccably sharp, green ensemble creating a striking dichotomy with her otherwise rough-hewn surroundings. At first glance, I found it strangely familiar, but then I realized … there are doubtlessly thousands of stoops just like the one she’s depicted sitting on.

Then I thought back to an evening several weeks back. I was going to meet some out-of-towner friends who now live on the other side of the globe. They were briefly back in the city for a wedding, so we decided to meet up an at age-old favorite haunt, the Ear Inn on the westerly edges of Spring Street.

I’ve mentioned the Ear a few times here. It passively vies for the title “Oldest Bar in New York City” in meaningless competition with joints like Pete’s Tavern and McSorley’s, although — to my mind — it’s way better than either of those over-hyped establishments. Whether it’s genuinely the oldest bar in New York means nothing to me. It’s just a great place to meet friends and have a few beers. Long may it stay that way.

In any case, because I’m deeply neurotic and punctual to a fault, I arrived in the neighborhood ahead of schedule, which left me plenty of time to roam around the surrounding environs before assuming my place at the bar.

Time was when part of the Ear’s charm was that it was in such a remote, desolate backwater of a neighborhood. Apart from a deli or two, a couple of fellow bars (notably McGovern’s and the Emerald Inn) and, later, rock club Don Hill’s, there was practically nothing. The streets were empty and quiet. It’s for this reason that Martin Scorsese chose this patch of SoHo for many of the locations in “After Hours,” because it exuded such an eerily quiet, empty ambiance.

Suffice to say, this is no longer the case in 2019. These days, the westerly edges of Spring Street are a densely populated Emerald City of exclusive condos and monied luxury. Somehow, the Ear Inn has managed to hold on, but the days of it being a remote outpost are decidedly over.

This all said, there are still whispery elements of the neighborhood’s old vibe, if you look hard enough for them. As I circumnavigated the area on foot, I snapped a few pictures, trying to capture that rarified essence of place.

Circling the block on Renwick Street, just a street to the east of the Ear Inn, I came upon a certain stoop at the tail end of the building that formerly housed the Emerald Inn, the bar Scorsese re-cast as the Terminal Bar for “After Hours” (which I wrote about back here). I was struck by how grim and forbidding the stoop in question looked, so, I took a picture.

Sure enough, it’s the same stoop AOC was photographed on. Now, what was she doing there?

Hell if I know.

Goodbye to the Carriage House

Happy St. Patrick’s Day. Alas, today is the final day to secure yourself a pint of Guinness at the Carriage House — or Old Carriage Inn, depending on which sign you prefer -- in Park Slope, which closes today after 35 years.

You may well indeed be wondering why an insufferable, dyed-in-the-wool Manhattan snob like myself would care about a Park Slope bar. It’s a fair question, but suffice to say, my wife’s family owns a brownstone in that `hood, so on many an occasion, my brothers-in-law and I would repair to the endearingly dark, dank and slightly decrepit confines of the Carriage House while our wives held court at home. Not being a sports fan in the slightest, I would devote most of my attention to the jukebox, while my brothers-in-law would shout obscenities at basketball and football players on the television screens. I do believe I was admonished for putting “Bringin' On the Heartbreak” by Def Leppard on one too many times (pickings were slim, you see). It was that type of place.

In all honesty, the boys and I did log a fair amount of hours in the Carriage House over the last couple of decades, usually around Christmas. I can remember many a intense familial discussion against that bar. We ducked in yesterday to say goodbye to the place and have a final few pints. Unsurprisingly, it was kind of depressing.

I saw the below tagged on the back wall and couldn’t resist a picture. That said, there’s a bit of irony to it. The hipsters don’t go to Park Slope, least of all to a dive like the Carriage House. If any demographic is to blame, it’s the stroller-pushing yuppies that drove the rents up, not Pabst-swigging LCD fans with comedy beards.

Pour one out for the Carriage House.

Down Cortlandt Alley ... By Horse

As laboriously extolled in this post from 2016, I’ve always been a huge fan of Cortlandt Alley, that dark, thin canyon stemming south into TriBeCa off Canal Street. I love its slightly forbidding aura, its back history as the narrow strand of pavement that once led to the Mudd Club, a storied venue I was never old enough to attend. I love its periodic bursts of street art, its weathered exteriors and rough-hewn, industrial trappings leftover from bygone eras. In every season, Cortlandt Alley takes on a new vibe. I never find it boring or unpleasant to walk down, even if I’m hopscotching over random dollops of (human?) excrement, dead rats and pigeons flattened the night before by delivery trucks, or evading the suspicious eyes of furtive weed-smokers in its darker recesses.

And I walk down it a lot. After I drop my son off at school in the Gramercy neighborhood, I hop on a downtown 6 train and get off at Canal to walk the rest of the way to my office at the bottom of Manhattan, taking a hard left down Cortlandt Alley on each and every one of those commutes. I’m now so familiar with that particular strip that I practically notice each and every change to its topography on a daily basis.

As was seemingly inevitable, however, there’s been a recent uptick in renovation and refurbishment in the Alley (as I mentioned just last summer). Scaffolding appears and disappears with some regularity, as certain addresses endeavor to spruce themselves up. While a wholesale facelift of the stretch seems unlikely, certain patches of it are very definitely changing. At its southernmost segment between White & Franklin Streets, a pricey-but-seemingly-dormant condo vainly tries to keep up appearances. But the real big activity is happening on the portion between White and Walker Streets. A few months back, a series of light fixtures were installed along its easterly wall, decimating a bit of this byway’s signature gloom. Beyond that, there was clearly something brewing in that building. Sure enough, just last week, some signage went up. Evidently, Cortlandt Alley is now home to a new venture called the Au Cheval Diner.

Here’s how the official website describes it…

An eclectic diner hidden down Cortlandt Alley with a passion for eggs, Au Cheval elevates traditional diner fare. Guests can indulge in dishes ranging from chopped chicken liver and roasted bone marrow, to traditional sandwiches, egg-focused entrees, and griddled cheeseburgers. The bar program showcases strong, classic cocktails including the Negroni, Vieux Bonal, and Hemingway Punch. A robust draught beer list offers a wide range of neighborhood, domestic, and international selections. The dimly lit restaurant, pulsating with an eclectic and resonant soundtrack, features leather booths, reclaimed wood paneling and a zinc bar that wraps around the open kitchen.

If my high school French still serves me well, Au Cheval means “by horse” …. a particular species of mammal that very rarely graces Cortlandt Alley, these days. While I am wary of Cortlandt Alley becoming further gentrified, it’s a bit late to lament the damage of that particular tsunami in 2019. I do, at least, appreciate Au Cheval’s relative discretion. Yeah, they’ve brought a bit of polish to the pathway, but we’ll see where it goes. I’d be curious to hear what constitutes their “eclectic and resonant soundtrack.” I want to believe they’d play geographically-appropriate stuff like DNA, The Lounge Lizards, Teenage Jesus, The Cramps and the like, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.

Still, I might try to check it out. Watch this space.

Here's a bit of DNA playing just down the way from Au Cheval's front door. Today, this space is someone's doubtlessly well-appointed, private and expensive apartment.

 

Bud Club

So, yeah, I watched the Oscars last night. I have precious little to say about it beyond that I truly appreciate that "Bohemian Rhapsody" did NOT win the Best Picture award. It was like a decent VH1 movie at BEST. I didn't see most of the other stuff.

In any case, during the course of proceedings, they showed this Budweiser ad featuring Charlize Theron demonstrating her billiards prowess in a bar. Yeah, yeah, ho hum, right? Oooh, she's sexy, etc. etc.

The thing that got my attention was during a fleeting glimpse of the jukebox ... the cover of Miami by The Gun Club...

It is probably the highest-profile exposure the band and the late, great Jeffrey Lee Pierce will ever receive, however brief.

Watch the full ad...

This, incidentally, should you not be familiar, was The Gun Club....

Goodbye to the Sidewalk Bar

And the carnage continues.

Courtesy of EV Grieve’s ever-excellent blog, I read with some weary melancholy that the Sidewalk Bar on Avenue A and 6th Street is closing -- or, at least, “changing hands” with a new owner who’ll doubtlessly disembowel it -- both figuratively and literally. I was somewhat sad to read this. I say “somewhat” as I cannot say I was anything of a regular. I certainly liked that it was there, but it wasn’t as much of a fixture for me as some other spots.

While it’s sad, I also cannot say it’s especially surprising. Once the vast and pointedly character-free condo, 100 Avenue A went up (the one with the Blink Fitness in its ground floor), the signs did not bode well. I’m very glad Jesse Malin’s main foothold, Niagara, is still holding firm, but the number definitely seemed to be up for Sidewalk.

There is assuredly nothing duller to read than unspooled anecdotal yarns that ultimately don’t amount to more than “gosh, I was drunk,” but here are two such recollections of evenings spent questionably at the Sidewalk. Continue at your own peril, and my own embarrassment. 

When it comes to opinions about music and the reasonable expressions thereof, it has been noted that I have something of a problem. On one dark evening about twenty-five years --- blimey! –- back, I was sequestered in the more northerly chamber of the Sidewalk with my frequent compatriot in alcohol imbibement, Rob D., who was illegally subletting a space a block over on Avenue B (in the same building as Manitoba’s). I’m not entirely sure why we ended up at Sidewalk and not, say, any number of other suitable locales, but there we were. In any case, in walked a pair of pointedly uptight looking gents who took seats to our right. I’d noticed upon their entry that one of them was sporting a Slayer badge on their lapel, which -– for some ridiculous reason -– immediately gave me license to start up a conversation, or so I very wrongly presumed. When my doubtlessly awkward attempts to engage in a chat –- much to Rob’s arched-eyebrowed chagrin -– failed to instigate the intended result, I believe I blithely tossed over the comment “fuck do you know about Slayer?!”

Suffice to say, that ill-considered remark prompted the badge-wearer to stand up with a pronounced sense of purpose, sending his bar stool toppling to the floor with great, dramatic aplomb. There would be no witty rejoinder but, instead, a swift delivery of knuckles to my arguably smart mouth. That was his intention, anyway, before both his drinking pal and mine intervened with the requisite, “fellas, fellas….c’mon, settle down”-styled arbitration. Rob and I wisely adjourned to another neighborhood institution and I was understandably scolded for my unthinking solicitations.

My other great memory of an evening at the Sidewalk dates back to specifically February 28, 1995. I know the exact date because that was the evening that punky Britpopsters Elastica (left) were slated to play nearby at the comparatively tiny Mercury Lounge on East Houston Street. Since first hearing the “Stutter” single a year earlier, my friend Eric F. and I were both wholly onboard and quite excited to see them perform. We made a plan to meet up that evening and go check it out.

Again, for some inexplicable reason, we ended up back at Sidewalk. I feel obligated to point out, at this stage of the narrative, that at the time –- 1995 -– I was still rather ravenously single, and would not go on to meet the lovely lady who became my wife for another three years. This will become relevant to the story in due course.

In anticipation of a great night out seeing our favorite new band, Eric and I availed ourselves to the fare at Sidewalk, laying the foundation for a longer evening’s worth of drinking. In the course of same, I managed to fall head over heels in love with our waitress. These things happened, back then. When the time came for Eric and I to split and go catch our show, it was somehow deduced that it was my turn to pay. I paid with plastic, but decided to leave a cash tip, as that was the nicer thing to do. That’s fine, but what I did next was questionable.

Upon the bill I was leaving as a tip -– I cannot recall the amount -– I took the supplied pen and scrawled something to the effect of: “Sheila, I think you’re exquisite….” and punctuated it with my phone number. I know, I know….

With that, Eric and I hit the streets and headed south, whereupon a strenuously crucial flaw in our evening plan was stealthily revealed. Neither of us had procured tickets for this show in advance and  -- very unsurprisingly, in retrospect -- it was sold the fuck out.

Bummer.

After a few minutes of gawking incredulously at the horde outside the Mercury Lounge, Eric and I glumly repaired to bars of the East Village to curse our idiocy. Along the way, I continued to be justly chided for my half-baked romantic gesture back at Sidewalk.

A few hours later, Eric and I ended up back at my apartment. Being that he lived out on Long Island, Eric was going to crash on my couch. We were greeted by the blinking red light of my answering machine (remember those?). I had one message:…

:::BEEP:::

“Hi, Alex? This is Shelia calling from the Sidewalk Bar on Avenue A….”

Eric excitedly hit stop on the tape. “HOLY SHIT, ALEX!” he gasped. “I thought you were a first-class douchebag for leaving your name and number with her, but not only did she call, …. she’s calling you THE VERY SAME NIGHT!!!”

Eric hit play again…

“…Yeah, I’m calling because you left your credit card here.”

Lunch with The Ramones

In one Facebook group or another I’m a member of, someone posted the above photo of the late brothers Ramone that I’d never spied before, prefaced with the question: “Where was Jone’s Diner?”

The diner in question is, of course, the former Jones Diner (curious apostrophe placement, though) that was formerly on the southeast corner of Great Jones and Lafayette Streets. I spoke about the place a couple of times here (notably here, here and here), but it was just one of a great network of endearing greasy-spoon joints that has since been all but wiped off the map.

Some might remember the Great Jones Diner from its cameo in the video for “Two Princes” by the Spin Doctors. In later years, its metallic, railway-car-like exterior was removed, revealing a brick-faced edifice beneath. If I remember correctly, it was closed and then razed around the dawn of Y2K (remember that?). These days, there’s a giant new building erected over its former footprint that has yet to define itself as anything other than just another vulgar display of exclusivity and affluence.

Back to the photo, though, I find it striking how the Ramones have now fully crossed over into the realm of the practically mythological. I honestly used to see Joey Ramone walk around my neighborhood (he was hard to miss). I spied Johnny Ramone on Sullivan Street in Greenwich Village, once (I left him alone), and surreally sat across from Dee Dee on a Downtown 6 train (I left him alone, as well). For decades, you just took the Ramones for granted. My friend Rob B. and I had a long-running gag. “Should we go see the Ramones next Thursday?” “Meh, they’ll be back.” And they always were, until one day, they weren’t. And then they started dying.

With great respect to Marky -- and, I guess, C.J., Richie and “Elvis" --  the original Ramones are now all gone. We’re all so used to seeing their familiar stances on album covers, videos and in any number of celebrated photographs by shutterbugs like Bob Gruen, Roberta Bayley, Godlis, and Mick Rock (among many others), that to see a “new,” heretofore unpublished, lost or just plain ol’ less-well-circulated snap of them always stops me in my tracks. Yeah, we’re all used to seeing them pose like ….well, like The Motherfucking Ramones!… that to see them just hanging out or goofing around is just this great reminder that beyond being this iconoclastic, culture-informing unit, they were ultimately just a group of four guys, however dysfunctional.

Farewell to The Half King

As I understand it, we officially lose The Half King tomorrow, vanishing from its place of almost two decades on West 23rd street, which is strange, `cos I feel like only yesterday, I read about its impending opening.

Arguably most famous for one of its founders, author Sebastian Junger, The Half King became a regular haunt of New York City’s robust legions of hardened journalists. I was unwittingly about halfway through my long tenure at the TIME Magazine news desk when the bar opened in 2000, so it indeed became a regular stop for many members of the team, and a particular favorite whenever a normally far-flung correspondent was in town. I have many fond memories of supping multiple pints in the company of those estimable colleagues there, and often feeling well out of my depth, but always welcomed. As I’ve mentioned many times, the TIME team was a tight, familial unit, and I continue to regard my friends and co-workers from those days with profound respect and admiration.

But in terms of The Half King, I have two specific memories of the place that rise to the top, and neither of them involve my career in journalism.

The first occasion was a reception thrown by the publishing company my wife was working for, at the time. One of her authors had just given a reading nearby at the Barnes & Noble over on Sixth Avenue that is now a Trader Joe’s, I believe. This was this young author’s debut, of a sort, reading from his first novel, which was semi-autobiographical, if I recall correctly. In any case, this young writer’s big Italian family turned out in force to proudly show their support and hear their guy do his thing. The drama began, however, when the author ended up outing himself by way of a passage in his book to the gathered attendees, much to the pronounced surprise of several members of his very large family. By the time the whole congregation had moved over to The Half King, what had ostensibly been conceived as a festive gathering had turned into a very different event indeed.

Initially, I’d just been along for the ride, so to speak, and was always happy to be included in any excursion to The Half King that would invariably involve a few pints. As it happens, I ended befriending the husband of one of my wife’s colleagues when it was somehow gleaned that we both harbored a fondness for early 80’s hardcore bands like the Circle Jerks, Kraut, Bad Brains etc.

This all culminated in a surreal scene wherein a large percentage of the room we’d all been herded into was occupied by a gaggle of excitable Italians wrapped up in the throes of very emotional discussions (all in Italian … with lots of raised voices and frenzied gesticulations), with my wife and her team trying to comfort the newly distressed author, while myself and this other dude sat in the corner pounding beers and talking animatedly about our favorite punk bands.

My other long-lasting memory of The Half King is more recent. It was the tail end of 2016, just after the election and tensions and apprehensions were, suffice to say, rather high, as you probably recall yourselves. Here in New York City, for the most part, the pervading mood was one of gloomy consternation and incredulousness. In any event, I’d been drafted to go pick up my daughter after some social event in Chelsea, and the wife suggested I arrange to meet up with a few of my fellow dads beforehand. Since it was in the same `hood, I suggested that the four of us meet up at The Half King and have a couple of pints before picking up our respective kids.

I remember walking in and meeting these guys – most of whom I knew pretty well, by that point, or so I thought – at the bar. A sporting event of one variety or another was on the television above the far end of the bar, and that commanded most of the attention. Talking sports with any degree of enthusiasm, let alone credibility, is not something I’m especially versed at, so I just drank my beer and only chimed in when I had something to say. As if on cue, the program cut away to a news break, and Donald J. Trump’s mug appeared on the screen, prompting a not-so-subtle hiss throughout the bar. I can’t remember what comment I made, but it was one that doubtlessly telegraphed my own misgivings for the results of the election. Suddenly, all three of my fellow dads looked at me quizzically. “Well, he’s gonna get this country back on track,” one remarked. I snorted and practically spat out my beer, assuming he was being facetious. He wasn’t. The other two were nodding in agreement. There I was, in the super-liberal capital city of a super blue state … surrounded by three unblinking Trumpublicans. Had I slipped through a portal into The Twilight Zone?

Now as much as I’m generally very happily game to burn a few bridges every now and again, the notion of starting heated political beefs with the fathers of my daughter’s best friends seemed ill-advised. I demurred from futher commentary, and we all went back to our beers, my big takeaway being that it is NEVER a good idea to assume everyone you’re with is on the same page politically.

Sadly, that bizarre instance was the last time I ever darkened the doors of The Half King. For a more authoritative and broader portrait of the place, check out this great tribute from The New York Times.

Pour one out.