Flaming Pablum

Happy Thanksgiving from Flaming Pablum!

Reheated Pablum: Updates on Some Past Posts

I thought I’d take a moment to aggregate some updates regarding stuff I’ve written about here before. Here we go…

Some of you might remember this post from 2023, which documented the quiet closing of Miyabi, the frankly not-that-amazing Japanese restaurant that moved into Bleecker Bob’s former space at 118 West Third Street following the slow demise of that storied record shop in 2013. Well, after another period of dormancy – during which time the neighboring business to the west morphed from a dubious foot-rub/happy-ending joint into a frozen yogurt purveyor – it seems 118 is getting ready for a new tenant … one that involves, evidently, a “hibachi lab.” See the interior above.

Back in 2013, meanwhile, I wrote an entry about See/Hear, the furtive hive of zine culture, music-geek literature and underground comics that formerly held count in a basement-level space on East 7th Street. As you can see from the comments on that post, the mere invocation of the shop touched a nerve, for a lot of people. Well, for those folks, I’d like to highlight a new, comparatively exhaustive oral history that was just posted on Animal about the place that really goes into its back-history. Check that out here.

Lastly, some of you might remember a series of posts from 2017 wherein I became preoccupied with identifying a certain Manhattan corner upon which the fabled Misfits had once posed for a series of photos that had become relatively iconic (well, for Misfits fans, at least).

As detailed in those posts, I stalked the streets of Lower Manhattan trying to pinpoint the exact spot. At the same time, I reached out to the photographer, one Roxanne Lowit, to see if she could provide the answer, or at least some clues. Her assistant got back to me with some vague intel about where the location might be, and – in turn – I asked if I might reproduce some her photos for my posts. Unfortunately, the response was an emphatic NO, I could not. I got around that by linking to other sites who’d posted them, including photos of Lowit’s images on various bootleg singles and via some illustrations by my daughter, who was about 12 years old at the time. Here’s one of those illustrations now. This is Charlotte's interpretation of the print-out I'm holding in the shot above. 

Initially, I was surprised that Lowit – who’d gone on to do many, many other higher profile projects and is now a celebrated fashion photographer -- should have given that much of a damn that some rinkydink little blog like mine wanted to host her pics, but hey, I do understand. That’s her goddamn work. Those images are no one else’s. Respect is due.

Cut to 2024, and someone has evidently convinced Lowit to revisit her evening in the company of Jerry Only, Glen Danzig, Bobby Steele and Joey Image by way of a new photo book called, “We Walk the Streets at Night.” Documenting the full shoot wherein Lowit led the Lodi, New Jersey quartet around the then desolate streets of the West Village (the corner in question, incidentally, was West 11th at Washington Street), the book is frustratingly spare on details (not even a preamble from the photographer). Moreover, the images themselves are presented in their original form as blown-up slides. It’s a nice effect, I suppose, but I would have liked to see some of the pictures in a larger format – and with a bit of anecdotal augmentation, although if you’re curious as to the doings of the Misfits during that era, I would recommend the excellent book,“This Music Leaves Stains” by James Green Jr.

If you’re curious about “We Walk the Streets at Night,” meanwhile, you can pick a copy up at Generation Records on Thompson Street. Tell’em Flaming Pablum sent ya.

Back from La Belle France

Two entirely unrelated posts later, yes, I am indeed back from France.

Ostensibly, my wife and I were there as a surprise for my sister-in-law’s 25th wedding anniversary. Her husband – my brother-in-law – invited us along, which was sincerely nice of him. We did one night in Paris, then took a train to Provence to stay in a ridiculously picturesque town in the Luberon valley outside of Avignon called Gordes (pronounced, I believe, like “gourds”). We stayed there for a few days, then zipped back to Paris for one more night and then flew back to NYC.

Unlike my otherwise usual rituals when visiting foreign places, I didn’t really get to go to any record shops or music venues. It was pretty much my brother-in-law’s party, so largely just went along with the program.

At the very least, I ate and drank like a marauding Visigoth (my brother-in-law is something of a “wine guy,” so I periodically strayed from my beloved beer). I’m now paying for it.

Notes from The Flown Coop

I hate to keep apologizing for the slowdown here, as I’m sure most of you probably wouldn’t even notice it if not for me tirelessly pointing it out. There are a couple of possible causes for this.

For whatever reason, I’ve been experiencing a tenacious torpor ever since we dropped our son off at school. It’s a tremendous cliché to suggest that I’ve been stricken by the aforementioned “Empty Nest Syndrome,” but whether it’s that or seasonal affective disorder or that I’ve unwitting ditched my muse or that I’ve simply started to lose my edge --- or all of the above, somehow I seem to have depleted my supply of the idiotic bullshit that passes for “content” here which normally flows out of me like needlessly verbose sewage.

I do have one kind of labor-intensive post in the works, but if I had a dollar for each idea I’ve hatched then summarily abandoned, in the last couple of weeks, I could probably buy us all a nice lunch. I had a post prompted by an exchange in the comments section of Tribeca Citizen about the dispiriting proliferation of cannabis dispensaries in lower Manhattan, but figured that’s more my own grievance than anyone else’s. I had another pointed one about grill-ordering etiquette in Manhattan delis, but – again – that’s all about my own pet peeves. I had a less cantankerous one that looked back at Sounds on St. Marks Place, but somehow can’t bring myself to finish it. I am not feeling especially inspired. Maybe I’m just burned out?

Compounding all this, my lovely wife left for London, last Friday, for the London Book Fair, making our empty nest that much emptier. Left to my own devices, this past rainy weekend, I did all that I could to escape the maddening quiet of our apartment. I was so bored on Sunday morning that – apropos of absolutely nothing – I decided to make a soggy pilgrimage to the Bowie mural in Jersey City. It’s impressive, yes, but in a super random (and not entirely that nice) neighborhood. Moreover, as far as I’m aware, the great man never lived here .. which begs the question … why Jersey City?

On Saturday, meanwhile, upon hearing of a brand-new record shop in Park Slope (Sterling Records on Fifth Avenue at Sterling Place), I schlepped out there to check it out. I wasn’t really looking for anything, but felt compelled to be supportive and buy something, so I bought a fridge magnet with the cover of XTC’s Drums & Wires on it, then proceeded to walk all the way home – all the way down Flatbush Avenue and over the Manhattan Bridge.

Last night, driven by a hankering for South Asian grub, I found myself in one of the few remaining Indian restaurants on East 6th Street, trying to maintain my composure in defiance of a roiling plate of Chicken Tikka that was weapons-grade spicy (a descriptor that normally does not apply to this particular dish). As my eyes and nostrils flowed like faucets, a guy behind me was steadily boring his date into a drooling stupor with Grunge-era conspiracy theories about Whitewater, the Rose Law Firm, and the late Vince Foster. Had I stepped through some sort of tear in the time/space continuum?

Anyway, I’m sure I’ll snap out of it in due course, but please be patient with me in the short term.

 

The Pastrami Remains the Same: Katz's Delicatessen Then & Now

1998:

2024:

Back from Ireland

Hi again, all. Apologies for the tardy follow-up, but there’s been a lot going on, on the home front and elsewhere, and I’ve not had the opportunity — much less the energy — to update proceedings here.

First up, drop-off of the boy (as mentioned here) was successful. With a bare minimum of hiccups, my son Oliver was effectively ensconced at his college and, after only a week in, is already having a fabulous time. As predicted, it’s quite strange to be back here at home without him, and we miss him terribly, but he’s off to a rollicking start, and we couldn’t be happier and prouder. Mission accomplished.

My daughter is also safely back at her school in Scotland after a couple of weeks of traipsing around Western Europe with her flatmates. Neither of our children get Thanksgiving off, for obvious reasons, but we’re hoping to swing back over in November to see each of them. We’ll see if we can pull that off.

In any case, now that we’ve been back and forth to Dublin a few times, by this point, I thought I’d unsolicitedly give you a dilettante’s not-at-all-comprehensive guide to the city. You’re welcome!

BEST MEAL:
As I’ve been laboriously pointing out, it’s exceptionally hard to have a bad time in Dublin — I mean, you have to really work at it. There are so many great places to eat, drink and be merry, it’s ridiculous. That all said, if I ate and drank as I did last week for the duration of a month, I’d be fucking dead. It’s not just the drinks either. I mean, the food is hearty and heavy and not exactly the healthiest of options, in most cases, but goddamn if I didn’t enjoy myself, in that capacity. But since returning last week, I’ve been trying to sharply curtail the worst of my habits to do a bit of course correcting. We’ll see if that takes.

Anyway, on our second night of this past jaunt, while we’d intended to find a brand new place to dine, we ended up repairing to a spot we’d been before, a lovely restaurant on Dawson Street in central Dublin called The Ivy. The last time we ate here, I fielded a call from my office to tell me about a sizable bonus I was about to receive and my son got an acceptance email from a school he was interested in. As such, we consider the place charmed. Nothing so dramatic happened this time, but I had a steak that was verily to die for, so to speak. I highly recommend the place.

BEST PUB:
Much like trying to determine the best pizzeria in New York City, pinpointing the “best” pub in Dublin seems like a fool’s errand. That all said, while we did belly up to the bar at any number of pubs from the celebrated to the seedy, I’d have to say that while I do love the Stag’s Head in the Temple Bar area of town (that’s me imbibing in same up top), it’s a bit on the touristy side. My personal favorite was a comparatively humble joint we happened upon on Lower Baggot Street, just a few doors up from the birthplace of Francis Bacon, called Thomas Rody Maher’s or, simply, Maher’s. It’s just a cozy, unpretentious space with lots of atmosphere and elbow room. The pints of Guinness kept coming, the vibe was convivial and the music was excellent. I’d go back in a heartbeat.

BEST FISH & CHIPS:
A standard order in that part of the world, a plate of fish & chips in Dublin is not unlike, once again, a slice of pizza in New York City. Some iterations of it are sublime, whilst others simply check the box. I partook of this aquatic delicacy quite a few times, during this last visit, but if I had to pinpoint the “best” one, I’d say it was had at a comparatively expansive seafood joint on Pembroke Street Lower called Matt The Thresher. Everything about it was absolutely perfect. In all fairness, the fish & chips I had the night before (yes, I had it for dinner two nights in a row) at The Woolen Mills, a lovely riverside restaurant off the Ha’Penny Bridge, was also exemplary. But I’m still giving it to Matt the Thresher.

BEST PLACE TO ILL-ADVISEDLY SPEND:
I got a bit carried away at the Tower Records on Dawson Street.

BEST PLACE FOR SUNDRY ITEMS FOR A NEWLY MINTED COLLEGE KID: 
We stocked up at Dunnes in the otherwise somewhat grotty Stephen’s Green Shopping Center. We were able to outfit our lad with everything from basic accessories to rudimentary culinary items. Plus, they have a great, expansive grocery section in the basement.

BEST PLACE TO STAY:
The first time we came to Dublin in 2017 or so, it was my brilliant idea (not) to rent a room over a pub in the Docklands called O’Brien’s Ferryman. Inspired by the sepia-toned video of “Pride (In the Name of Love)” by U2 — I’m so embarrassing — I assumed the Docklands would be a manageable neighborhood in which stay. Suffice to say, the Docklands had long since morphed into a lively nightlife destination since the mid-`80s. Imagine renting a room above a bustling East Village bar on a Saturday night. When the Ferryman closed, each evening, the party would simply move outside and continue for another hour or so. It became a bit of a “if you can’t beat’em, join’em” kind of scenario, which —while fun — was ultimately unsustainable.

Our more recent trips to Ireland have found us lodging at the much more respectable Stauntons on the Green, a lovely little hotel just off St. Stephen’s Green that is but a stone’s throw from several key points around central Dublin, including Grafton Street, Temple Bar, Trinity College Dublin and loads of other places. It’s a great staging point for any Dublin expedition.

BEST DISCOVERY:
As an alternative to yet another heavy pint of Guinness (ironic, in that your average pint of Guinness actually packs LESS alcohol than a pint of lager), I went with a local Dublin brew, on occasion, called Hop House that wasn’t bad, despite some skepticism from the locals.

BEST PHONE SERVICE:
The 3 network is way, way better and more flexible than Vodaphone.

BEST WAY TO GET AROUND TOWN:
I will always opt for walking, but the tram (aka “The Luas” … pronounced like “Lewis”), is quick, clean, intuitive and efficient …. and quiet. I almost got slammed from behind by one on Dawson Street, because I’m a clueless American.

"Great Bars of New York City"

While I do not know them personally, James & Karla Murray are renowned in the amorphous community of NYC-centric bloggers, vloggers, photographers, nostalgists and digital storytellers of which I am also a member. Over the 19 (jeezus!) years I’ve been “keeping” this silly blog, I’ve doubtlessly mentioned their name, evangelized their work and re-purposed their striking images countless times.

James & Karla's lovingly composed photographs of New York City corner shops, bistros, pizzerias, record stores, taverns and mom’n’pop concerns of all stripes have become a crucial part of the documentation of our ever-(d)evolving city, and their magisterial books like “Store Front: The Disappearing Face of New York,” “New York Nights,” and “Broken Windows: Graffiti NYC” make any coffee table they are placed on that much goddamn cooler. I’ve frequently spied them out and about — Karla’s signature shock of punky, bleach-blonde hair is hard to miss. On the occasions in which I’ve accosted them (“hey, it’s James & Karla!”), they seem to be in a constant state of buoyant, infectious joy. They clearly live their entwined lives like one long, curious adventure, and are insatiable in their quest to see, go, do, experience, capture and create. I find them quite inspiring, in that way. 

Imagine my own joy, then, when I was contacted out of the proverbial blue by a publicist representing a new project for Prestel Publishing, that being the forthcoming book by James & Karla titled “Great Bars of New York City.” I relayed an enthusiastic “yes” to the publicist before I’d even finished reading the pitch.

Beyond my tireless affinity for waxing rhapsodic about the New York City of my growingly distant youth and/or my favorite willfully obnoxious, listener-hostile music, I am somewhat sheepishly notorious for my penchant for putting away many a pint of beer, and I quite relish doing so in any number of establishments — from the endearingly seedy to the stuffily stately — across the five boroughs (yes, dear readers, I have consumed beers on Staten Island). “Great Bars of New York City” speaks directly to that ….uhh…. unquenchable thirst with 239 pages of James & Karla’s brilliant photographs, augmented with text by food & culture scribe, Dan Q. Dao. The pictures are crisp, colorful and packed with nuanced detail, matched by Dao’s meticulous historical research and illustrative prose. It’s entirely splendid. If you harbor any of the same predilections as myself, you will not be able to put this book down, as I haven’t.

“Great Bars of New York City” is available on September 10th. Click here for more information. Also, don’t sleep on James & Karla’s Instagram page.

What's Your Hurry, Now? The End of Summer Survey for 2024

Yes, I know – technically, the summer has another whole month left to it (the official end of summer is September 22, I am told), but most folks sort of chalk up Memorial Day Weekend as the last gasp. Personally speaking, as noted in the previous post, now that my daughter has left and we’re leaving in about ten days to drop Oliver off for his first year of college, Summer 2024 certainly feels over and done with. As such, I guess it’s time to dust this off. Here we go…

Defining Moment of Summer 2024

This is going to sound super boring, but I can’t really say that there was one. I’d suggest it was either my son’s graduation from high school, signaling the next big step for him or possibly meeting my daughter’s new(ish) boyfriend from London (he turned out to be a nice kid). That’s about it, really.

Best Purchase of Summer 2024

Time for another super boring answer, but I bought a Mag Charger for my iPhone at ye olde Apple Store, and it’s been a complete delight. On a slightly less practical level, I bought myself a new coffee mug I’m quite fond of.

Best Meal of Summer 2024

On the evening of July 13, the same day that someone took a shot at Trump, the wife and I were out at my mom’s place on Long Island and repaired to nearby Baby Moon Pizza in Westhampton for a late-night meal (where Marky Ramone is a regular). We sat at the bar – under a widescreen television endlessly repeating the news of the day – and ate some truly excellent pizza … while politely refraining from any audible commentary about the big story.

Best Concert of Summer 2024

I don’t know if mid-May counts as the summer (I’m pretty sure it doesn’t), but the last show I saw was the mighty Part Chimp at Bowery Electric. They put on an endearingly loud and slovenly performance, and I was very pleased to run into various similarly inclined friends of mine also in attendance.

Best Book You Read During Summer 2024

I didn’t plow through as many books, this summer, as I normally do, but I very much enjoyed Robyn Hitchcock’s memoir, “1967: How I Got There & Why I Never Left,” and I’m currently three-quarters of the way through Griffin Dunne’s “The Friday Afternoon Club.” I also re-read Legs McNeil & Gillian McCain’s magisterial “Please Kill Me” over the course of a weekend, … just because.

Best Movie of Summer 2023

Not a big movie summer, for me, but if I had to pick one, I’d suggest that I quite enjoyed finally seeing “Have You Got It Yet?,” the documentary about Syd Barrett of Pink Floyd, and his slow descent into oblivion.

Best Gift You Received of Summer 2024

For Father’s Day, my wife put a recent New Yorker cover in a frame for me that features an iconic neighborhood fixture.

Biggest Loss of Summer 2024

The passing of musical iconoclasts like James Chance, Pat Collier and Steve Albini knocked the wind out of my sails, especially Albini. I was crestfallen to learn of the incredibly myopic dissolution of the MTV News archives, and I was depressed and disappointed (but not surprised) to learn just recently that St. Vitus in Brooklyn is shuttered for good.

Song That Sums Up the Summer of Summer 2024

I don’t have a grand explanation for either of these, but it’s either “Adrenaline” by the excellently named French trio, We Hate You Please Die, or possibly “Fear is a Man’s Best Friend,” by John Cale. I mostly slept on Cale’s solo career after he was ousted from the Velvet Underground, and lemme tell ya – that was a big mistake. Cale provided the lion’s share of the sneery abrasion and overall weirdness to the Velvets, and they were absolutely never the same without him. He went onto produce fucking crucial records by The Stooges, The Modern Lovers, Nico and Patti Smith, among many others. I’ve only started exploring his sprawling solo catalog, and there is some real gold therein. A friend of mine posted the clip below on Facebook, earlier this summer and it blew me away. Flanked by storied Womble/erstwhile Sex Pistol producer/guitarist Chris Spedding, Cale – dressed like a mid-`70s tennis pro – delivers an emphatic rendition of the title track to his 1974 album that starts off reasonably and slowly becomes droolingly unhinged. Wait for it.

Happiest Memory of Summer 2024

Beyond just spending loads of time with my excellent little family (it’s becoming rarer for us all to be together for very long), I got to meet and chat with R.E.M. at the Songwriters Hall of Fame induction ceremony back in June. That was fun. I was also super pleased to appear in Catherine Araimo’s award-winning “B Sides” documentary.

Saddest Memory of Summer 2024

It hasn’t happened just yet, but I’m expecting to be quite verklempt when we have to say goodbye to Oliver in two weeks.

Scariest Moment of Summer 2024

For a while — not that we’re out of the woods just yet — it was seeming like a fucking given that Trump would be our 47th President. It remains to be seen, but it’s no longer in cement, I’d suggest.

Word That Best Describes of Summer 2024

Stealthy.

The Lingering Ghosts of the Murray Street Tinsel Toads

Murray Street, specifically between Church Street and West Broadway, comes with a lot of associations. Its name became fatefully entwined with the events of September 11th, 2001, when it was discovered that battered landing gear from one of the doomed, hijacked planes had fallen into a narrow alley behind 50 Murray Street. Sonic Youth, who were recording a new album at Echo Canyon Studios just across the way at 51 Murray Street, had to understandably abandon their sessions for a while in the wake of that calamitous event. When they were able to return, several weeks later, all of their instruments were covered with a grim patina of dust and debris. They ended up titling the resultant album Murray Street in observance.

Murray Street was also the home to New York Dolls, a holdover strip club from a less salubrious era of Manhattan, unwittingly named after the seminal proto-punk band of the same moniker. Directly across the street from New York Dolls was a large delicatessen called Amish Market, which stretched between Murray Street to Park Place to its south. Legend has it that rapper Cardi B, having recently dropped out of nearby BMCC (Borough of Manhattan Community College), took a job as a cashier at Amish Market. But after coming in late and lipping off to her manager, Cardi B was fired. Distraught, Cardi took her now-former manager’s withering advice and marched across the street to New York Dolls to get a job as a stripper, a vocation for which she earned considerable renown, eventually turning her penchant for performing into a music career. The rest, as they say, is history.

As neighboring TriBeCa started to further gentrify and essentially widen in size (originally, the southern “border” of TriBeCa was arguably considered Chambers Street a couple of blocks to the north of Murray Street), New York Dolls seemed destined be zoned out of existence, given its location in a burgeoning residential neighborhood. Somehow, they managed to hang on, possibly because the club’s owner bought the building in 2016. The club was re-christened FlashDancers Downtown during COVID and is still there here in August of 2024.

Back in late 2016, meanwhile, I started a job just a block or two to the south of Amish Market and, for that matter, New York Dolls. While I never gave any patronage to the latter, I did initially frequent Amish Market to procure my breakfasts, in the mornings. While a very busy and robust operation (I honestly have no recollection if Cardi B was still working there, at the time – I certainly never knowingly saw her, much less any actual Amish folks), I cooled on Amish Market pretty swiftly. The grill from which one might procure, say, an egg & cheese sandwich never operated with any pronounced stealth or efficiency. In time, I abandoned that option in favor of some frankly lackluster oatmeal but ended up giving that up as well after overhearing someone in my office’s elevator saying that they’d gotten food poisoning from Amish Market’s salad bar. From that point forward, I started getting my grub at the presumptuously named Corner Gourmet deli on Murray Street, on the other side of West Broadway. I know.... fascinating, right? 

Not quite as resilient to COVID as its scantily clad neighbors at New York Dolls, Amish Market closed permanently in 2020, and has been gutted and dormant ever since.

Here in 2024, I don’t have a lot of reasons to walk up and down Murray Street unless I’m bound for Benares, a decent option for Indian food at 45 Murray. But there is still something my eyes catch on almost every time I’m crossing Murray at West Broadway ---- the Tinsel Toads.

Either left over from some amphibian-themed function held at Amish Market’s second floor at some indeterminate point or part of some anachronistic promotion of some kind (maybe a special on frogs’ legs?), there are two silhouettes of splayed toads in silver tinsel still affixed to an upper window just off the corner, and I simply cannot wrap my head around why they’re still there, let along what purpose they may have once served.

Walk around the byways of Manhattan here in the years after COVID, and it’s impossible not to notice the sheer volume of still-empty storefronts and for lease signs everywhere. While, as I mentioned, I was not the greatest fan of Amish Market, its departure was inarguably a pronounced loss to the surrounding neighborhood, and I want to believe a new venture will occupy that cavernous space before too long.

Until they do, the tinsel toads of Murray Street will doubtlessly maintain their strange, silent vigil.

And here's Sonic Youth playing a 9/11 benefit in October 2001. Thurston Moore prefaces the performance with his thoughts about what was happening for them and for NYC writ large, at the time. Worth a listen...

Auf Wiedersehen, Club Berlin

It might seem inconceivable that I’ve found yet another reason to write about “After Hours” (the last time, I believe, being this recent post), but here we go.

The reason is the somewhat sad news that 296 Spring Street, the building on the southwest corner of Spring and Hudson Streets that served as the location of Club Berlin in “After Hours” (as lengthily discussed here) is no more. As mentioned in that earlier post, there was an actual Club Berlin in SoHo back in the day, but it was over on West Broadway and Grand Street, I believe. Today, there’s a subterranean club on Second Street and Avenue A called Berlin NYC, but that’s not really related, I don’t believe.

In any case, 296 Spring was originally a bar called JJ’s West. Circa the filming of “After Hours,” Scorsese had its exterior painted in a checkerboard fashion to stay in tune, I guess, with the edgy fashion of the times. In later years, that corner became one of the neighborhood’s few delicatessens. It was seemingly the only spot for miles around to procure sundry items like beer and sandwiches in the dead of night.

My most vivid memory of that deli involves a late night in about 1990 at McGovern’s just down the block on Spring Street. Myself, my friend Sam and a young Australian lady named Madelene had gone to go see age-old noise-rock weirdos Alice Donut play. We stepped into that deli, after the show, and --- for whatever reason – bought three more beers with the intention of consuming them while we walked. We did so, but then just stood outside the deli – awkwardly – drinking those beers. The only reason it was awkward was that, at the time, Sam and I were sort of both courting fetching Aussie Madelene, and it was gradually becoming apparent that Sam had “won” this little competition.

The trouble was that he was having kind of a tough time conveying that information. As something of an ice-breaking punctuation, Sam gave the top of my beer bottle a tap with the bottom of his bottle, an annoying little stunt we were wont to do that usually resulted in the recipient’s beer foaming over. As the suds washed over my fingers, I managed to figure out what he was trying to imply, and I retaliated in kind, unwittingly using too much force as I brought the bottom of my bottle down onto his. The narrow rim at the top of his bottle quietly snapped off, leaving behind a sharply edged shard that no one initially noticed.

I stammered out some anemic comment like, “okay, well, I guess I’ll see you guys tomorrow,” leaving them to what I imagined would be doubtlessly amorous shenanigans. As I was turning to walk away, I watched Sam obliviously raise his now-broken bottle back towards his mouth, and time started to move in slow motion. I frantically flung my arm out to intercept the sharp end before it reached Sam’s face, slamming the bottle to the ground where it shattered, and practically tripping over myself in the process. Not knowing that he’d been about to puncture his face (which also would have been entirely my fault), Sam was understandably confused and angry, compounding the already embarrassing circumstances of the whole scenario. I explained the whole sequence of events, which frankly sounded dubious at best, and I’m not entirely sure either of them believed me.

I started skulking in the direction of the subway back to my then-home on the Upper East Side, until I realized that in only a few short hours’ time, I’d have to come back down to SoHo to open up at the art gallery on Mercer Street where I was working, at the time. I ended up drearily walking to the gallery at about four in the morning, unlocking the door and sleeping on a narrow bench behind the rickety metal desk until opening time. It was not a great evening.

Be that as it may, that deli lasted well into the new millennium. I’m not sure when it officially closed up shop, but in the last few years, the façade was all boarded up.

Sure enough, here in late July of 2024, all that remains of the deli and the location of Club Berlin is a hole in the ground.

Today, 296 Spring Street is gone. McGovern's closed at some point and became a club called Sway, although the McGovern's sign still hangs out front. Madelene ended up breezily fooling around with both Sam and I before repairing back to Australia, never to be seen again. Sam moved to Portland, Maine, then to Seattle, got married, had kids and moved to Portland, Oregon, where he still lives today. 

This, meanwhile, was Club Berlin....