Flaming Pablum

Back to The Bunker

I’ve evidently gotten to the age wherein I’m forgetting about stuff I’ve already written about here. I got about one third into a strenuously long-winded post about carving things in wet cement in Manhattan that was eventually going to meander around, after a few tenuous anecdotes, to the main point of the post, that being the cryptic concrete carving outside of 93 Avenue B, the former “bunker” of Michael Gira and Jarboe and SWANS headquarters (pictured above, courtesy of the Living Jarboe), only to remember that I’d already devoted a big ol’ post to it in 2013. Whoops.

In any event, that little strip of East Village has been on my mind, in the last few weeks, for another reason, that being the somewhat half-baked series, “Russian Doll” on Netflix. I enjoyed Season One as sort of a cloying hipster version of “Groundhog Day,” but I’m really struggling with Season Two. In any case, a lot of the action happens in and around Tompkins Square Park and its surrounding environs.  I took a stroll over there this morning, now a destination for mimosa-swigging brunches, to see if the SWANS tag was still etched into the concrete. 

Once again, this is the spiraling vortex motif that adorned their releases circa 1987’s Children of God, which found the band slowly evolving their sound out of slave-ship stern-und-drang and into more accessibly melodic terrain, largely via the addition of Jarboe, whose soaring vocals and introspective songwriting leant the band a more versatile palette.

The album in question, however, was sort of mired by the unwitting albatross of an ill-considered (to my mind) Joy Division cover (“Love Will Tear Us Apart”) which really did no one any favors apart from possibly the coffers of Ian Curtis’ estate. While it also featured SWANS favorites like “New Mind” (which prompted the band’s first ever “proper” music video, finding Gira lip-synching into a flashlight, drooling and brandishing an axe) and the strikingly delicate “In My Garden” (a full-on Jarboe contribution), my favorite moment of the album has always been the title track. Though still anchored by SWANS’ signature, pummeling rhythm section, the studio version features a haunting performance by Jarboe, harmonizing with herself a recurring, ominous mantra about the hollow promises of religious dogma.

It’s the live version, however, from 1988’s Feel Good Now that really defines it, for me. While his voice is absent from the comparatively ethereal studio version, Gira’s terrifying vocals duet with Jarboe’s in the live setting, providing the tyrannical counterpoint of a vengeful Pentecostal preacher. To my ears, this track is the perfect balance of the band’s brutal beginnings and its embrace of a broader aesthetic.

Today, SWANS are recording a new album with yet another new line-up. While she contributed to their 2012 album, The Seer, Jarboe is no longer a member of SWANS. The space that had been the SWANS Bunker is still a hookah bar/restaurant called The Horus Cafe, and the surrounding neighborhood is no longer quite as fearsomely dicey as it had been.

The carving in the cement in front of their old front door, however? That’s still there.

Astor Place 1983

A photographer named Peter Bennett captured the shot below in 1983, presumably from within (or on top?) of 770 Broadway (formerly Wannamaker's and later K-Mart, and allegedly soon-to-be Wegman's). I spotted it on Facebook, and it stopped me dead in my tracks, as they say.

Here we're looking east over Astor Place and its surrounding, East Village environs. This was obviously taken well before the Cooper Union dormitory was erected in 1992, before the comparatively squat NYU building on the left was razed to accommodate the giant Death Star/Rubik's Cube building went up, before the shampoo bottle condo tower was built in the southernly parking lot, before the corner of St. Marks & Third was razed and before the Gringo mural was painted over. 

This is the Astor Place I fell in love with. Click on it to enlarge. For more of Bennett's work, but sure to check out his website. 

Farewell & Goodnight, Howie Pyro

I was shocked and saddened to learn, this morning, of the passing of bona fide New York City Punk legend, Howie Pyro (above, as captured by Manel Armengol). There was certainly nobody cooler, but he was also just a genuinely nice, funny and inclusive guy. He actually left a couple of comments on this blog, over the years.

Rest In Peace, sir.

Here he is on bass detail with DGeneration in 1994 at Irving Plaza.

Turn it up and pour one out.

Back to The Village

I’ve spoken about the late Nelson Sullivan here many times before, but in a nutshell, he was this sort of visionary character who took tremendous pains to document his life and his experiences on video, which, circa the `80s when he was doing so, involved some comparatively unwieldly equipment.

This particular strip below was actually shot be Nelson on Super8 film, which is not quite as clunky an affair as video. In any case, there isn’t a date on this, but here Nelson captures some revealing footage of Greenwich Village and what is now frequently referred to as “the West Village” (usually incorrectly) from the 1970's. It’s striking how some aspects of it don’t look that different, even this many decades later. Here’s the official description.

Super 8 films shot by Nelson Sullivan on and around Christopher Street in the 1970s. These five reels feature shots of everyday life, focusing on pedestrians, traffic, and the buildings in the area, beginning with a long shot of the vacant Stonewall Inn. Other scenes feature Paws and Claws pet shop, the intersection of Christopher and Gay Street, Tor Restaurant, Rastro Importers (383 Bleecker Street), Frankel Pharmacy, Village Cigars, Riker's, the Christopher Street-Sheridan Square 1 Train station, St. Veronica's Church, and the inside of the former post office at 152 Christopher Street. The final reel begins on the uptown platform of the 1 station, where Nelson boards the train and rides for several stops before the film runs out.

Check it out....

Status Report

Forgiving Young Americans

Like so much of what would become my favorite music, my introduction to David Bowie came via my older sister, Victoria, specifically her copy of Changesonebowie. A seismic compilation (although I don’t think either of us realized that, at the time), Changesonebowie arrived onto the stack of LP’s next to the family stereo circa summer 1978, and swiftly became an all-killer/no-filler favorite of the household (and a much-needed respite from the otherwise tireless airings of the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack and my well-loved copy of Dressed to Kill by KISS). A jaw-dropping array of seamless pop, balls-out rock, sinuous funk, spacey weirdness and glammy panache, Changesonebowie really had just about everything one could ever want, and like certain crucial records before it, notably Mothership Connection by Parliament, Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd and A Night at the Opera by Queen, it was a record we both completely adored in equal measure.

That said, we may have been more divided on the track listing itself. While my sister warmed to the poppier aspects of the record, like “Fame” and “Golden Years,” I tended to lean toward the more riff-driven barnburners like “Diamond Dogs” and “Suffragette City.” I could never quite reconcile the specific sequencing of side two, wherein the cocky guitar stomp of “Rebel Rebel” slid right into the faux-Philly soul shenanigans of “Young Americans,” largely signaling the end of the big rock portion of the record. I didn’t know it, at the time, but it was that very accomplished versatility to shape-shift that ultimately made the man the renowned artist he was, but everyone knows that, now.

If anything, that bemoaned sequencing of that compilation was no accident, itself being a canny encapsulation of what had occurred in that era of Bowie’s trajectory. While touring the grimly dystopian Diamond Dogs (far and away my favorite album by the great man), Bowie grew fatigued with its spiky guitars and proto-goth melodrama and started ditching its trappings for a different sound and style entirely, swapping corroded glam rock for so-called blue-eyed soul. This somewhat bewildering transition is best captured on the live projects David Live and Cracked Actor.

By the release of next studio LP, Young Americans, the transformation was complete. Smitten as I’d been by my first taste of Bowie’s oeuvre, when I started investing in his back catalog in the ensuing years, I deliberately eschewed Young Americans, unable to shake the stigma of that first association. The title track alone started to get on my nerves, a brazen crowd-pleaser for drunken sorority girls who couldn't seem to remember — let alone parse — the actually-quite-complicated lyrics when shouting along to it at keg parties, I considered “Young Americans” a pandering cop-out. Fuck that populist shit, I thought. Give me the weird stuff.

I, of course, was a stupid, young American myself, at the time.

In time, my ironclad adherence to solely “that which rocked” relaxed a bit. As ideally comes with gradual maturity, my tastes broadened to embrace bits of music outside of the parameters of whatever flimsy tribal affiliations I might have previously assigned to myself. Decades later, as a perplexed 54 year old trying to navigate the shifting tectonic plates of popular culture, I no longer care about how my listening habits might be perceived. In terms of my Bowie fandom, I became deeply enamored of all aspects of his discography, from the hard angles of his Berlin period to the folksy whimsy of his first recordings to the brazen accessibility of the Let’s Dance era and all points between and beyond.

But I never bought Young Americans. Or not until today, at least.

My friend John made a coyly telling declaration on Facebook, a couple of days ago, that being…

my cranky old hipster level is "I thought your movie looked cool until the trailer had a 70s Bowie tune in it and then you seemed real basic”

I smiled and hit “like” immediately, assuming he was talking about the clunkily witless placement of “Starman” in the preview to the new Pixar movie about Buzz Lightyear. Turns out he wasn’t. He was actually referring to the use of “Time” from Aladdin Sane in the trailer for “Everything Everywhere All At Once,” (a film he’d later concede was crazy well done). But the point remained the same. While not quite a deep cut, the employment of even a lesser-celebrated single like “Time” in a film’s trailer just seems like a lazy stab at broadcasting some aspired connotation of cool invariably well beyond the scope of your movie. Points off.

But then last night, while chugging through several episodes of Season 1 of Netflix’s “Mindhunter” (yes, I realize I’ve been leaning a bit too uncomfortably into serial-killer content, of late) I was struck by a nuanced, period-specific placement of a libidinously undulating funk track that I immediately recognized as David Bowie, but had still never heard before. Turns out, that song is called “Right,” and it’s the fourth track off of —WAIT FOR IT — Young Americans.

It’s, of course, brilliant.

Today, I strolled up to Academy Records on West 18th, ponied up eight bucks and finally succumbed to the charms of Young Americans.

Crank it.

The Photograph

Okay, here’s another kinda convoluted one.

At some point in the spring or summer of about 1997, I snapped a picture of the storefront at 35 West 19th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues, which was a shop called Magickal Childe. I’ve spoken about it before, here, quite a few times, but Magickal Childe was essentially an occult emporium, selling esoteric books and black magic knickknacks for spells, rituals, ceremonies, conjurings and the like. It was the perfect gift shop for all the Aleister Crowley acolytes in your family. A lot of folks spoke about Magickal Childe in hushed, ominous tones, but I never felt any sense of dread or unease in the place. The one item I remember actively buying there was an inverted pentagram pendant because,….well… METAL!

Personally speaking, Magickal Childe, to me, always embodied that now-rarefied essence of New York City. It was this wildly niche sorta concern that catered to a very specific demographic, but was still a thriving venture, very much an “only in New York” sorta place. It was there for several years, as I remember, until it closed in 1999, in the wake of the death of its proprietor, a guy named Herman. The vacated space at 35 West 19th Street became a tapas restaurant, as reported here, named Sala in 2004 and lasted until the pandemic forced its closure in 2020. Today, the space is in transition, but there are signs in the window that say “VINYL STEAKHOUSE,” suggesting a strange amalgam of record store and steak joint. Not quite sure how that works, but I being that I like both records and red meat, I wish them all success.

In any case, back in 1997, I was genuinely fascinated with Magickal Childe, so I snapped that picture. Those with a sharp eye for detail might notice that I even appear in the photograph, reflected in a mirror in the center of the shop’s window (just underneath and slightly to the left of the gold pentagram). I had no agenda in capturing the image beyond thinking it just looked cool.

Some years went by, and I ended up posting the photograph, along with several others, on an entry on this stupid blog under the title “Things That Are Not There.” As it turns out, photographs of Magickal Childe must be few and far between, as people started to reach out to me about it. I fielded a request from one reader to sell a print of it to him. I think I just ended up sending him a copy of it free of charge. I didn’t think much of it.

Years after that, some readers might remember my laborious search for the location of a certain photograph of the Lunachicks. When I finally got in touch with the photographer, a guy named Joe Dilworth, he graciously emailed me the contact sheet with the mystery photo in it. Along with the answer to my quest, that contact sheet also boasted a shot of the Lunachicks chatting with this guy who looked strangely familiar. I swiftly deduced that the guy in question was the same kid depicted in some age-old hardcore matinee photos by Drew Carolan. I realize this is all very confusing, but bear with me. As if on cue, that kid — named Anderson Slade — bizarrely got in touch with me out of the blue on Facebook. By this point, he was no longer a little punk rock kid from Staten Island, but now an aspiring actor and filmmaker who was putting together a documentary about Magickal Childe and wanted to use my photograph. I said “sure,” and then let him know about the photo of him and the Lunachicks, which blew his mind. You can read a more detailed about that whole chapter here.

Slade’s documentary, entitled “Horrible Herman’s Warlock Shop,” was in development for quite a while, and even had some trailers posted on YouTube, but those have since been taken down and there’s no news of any release dates. Anderson Slade is also no longer on Facebook. The plot thickened.

Cut to 2022. With the wife in London for the London Book Fair, I am suddenly free to watch stuff on television that I wouldn’t normally be able to. As such, I start watching “Sons of Sam: Descent into Darkness,” a four-part documentary series on Netflix that explores one investigative reporter’s feverish quest to break the story that David “Son of Sam" Berkowitz did not act alone. Even as a sniveling ten year old during the summer of 1977, I still vividly remember the atmosphere of paranoia that gripped New York City, so have always been fascinated with the story. Here’s the trailer…

In any case, halfway through the first episode, they start discussing the uptick in fascination with the occult in the `70s, stemming from disillusionment with the hippy ideal of the late `60s. In doing so, they start showing images of Wiccan ceremonies, illustrations from the Rosicrucian secret histories of the world, Anton LaVey’s Church of Satan, Aleister Crowley and …. fleetingly … MY PHOTOGRAPH OF MAGICKAL CHILDE.

I instantly sat up from my bowl of General Tso’s chicken and hit pause. What the fuck, Netflix? I don’t remember being asked about use in any Son of Sam doc. Laughably, I suddenly felt sort of violated, but then…. given the already-established paucity of images of the exterior of Magickal Childe, outside of screenshots from the Nicholas Cage film “Vampire’s Kiss” in which the shop makes a cameo, mine seems to be the first thing that comes up in a Google image search. Being no stranger to liberally appropriating images for this blog, I shouldn’t be surprised. But still, having a rinkydink blog post a pic without due credit is one thing — use in a major feature film on Netflix is another.

I started combing through my emails, with friends' voices in my head shouting “you can SUE them!” I wasn’t really interested in any financial gain from this, I was just kind of curious how they found it and a little hurt that they didn’t see fit to ask me if they could use it.

Then I figured it out.

Chalk it up to the fog of the pandemic or the steady erosion of my short-term memory, but in July of 2020, a company called “Radical Media” apparently reached out to me to say they were putting together “a documentary series for Netflix that features a storyline about the occult presence in NYC back in the 1970s and 80s, and we wanted to feature a photograph of the occult book shop Magickal Childe. It turns our there are very few photographs easily accessible, but a photo that you took of the storefront is one that comes up and is of good quality."

Evidently, I said “sure, no problem,” and even signed a release. I did not charge them anything for the use. They asked how I’d like to be credited, and apparently I wrote “Alex S./Flaming Pablum” in the email.

I watched the first episode to the end credits. Under the “photos courtesy of…” section, neither my name nor my blog’s dumb name came up. I watched the second, third and final episodes. A credit was never mentioned. I guess my signed release absolved them of that necessity, but that still kind of bummed me out.

That petty affront notwithstanding, I still recommend “Sons of Sam.” If you’re a bona fide New Yorker and a true crime buff, it’s a fascinating series, however grim (what? you were expecting frivolity??)

I was running errands earlier this week, and found myself not far from 35 West 19th Street, so took a short detour to revisit it.

Here’s how it looks today.

Please Bear With Me...

As I've been alluding in several recent posts, I have a lot going on, at the moment, on multiple fronts. Work is crazy demanding, we're nearing the end of the college selection process for Charlotte and I'm continuing to have some disconcerting health issues.

As such, regular service might be a little slower here for a little while.

Apologies. 

 

So Then Leave Already, Cash!

Regular readers -– if they exist -– might remember a post I penned here back in 2018 that was basically a curmudgeonly dressing-down of a young “vlogger” named Brett Conti. At the time, Conti was this prolific YouTube personality with his own “channel” who produced an unwieldy amount of videos showcasing his idealized life in New York City and other parts of the globe, offering cloying tips and annoying millennial lingo while not-so-subtly pushing his shamelessly aspirational streetwear brand. That all left a bad taste in my mouth, so I talked a bunch of shit about it, albeit prefaced with the acknowledgment that, as an arguably equally insufferable blogger, I ultimately was not really all that different from him. He just had a wider reach, I guess.

Four years later, I can only assume that Brett Conti is still at it, but I haven’t bothered to check. In any case, this post targets a similarly inclined character, although I doubt I’ll be as charitable and forgiving as I was to Conti. Like anyone cares.

Cash Jordan (above) is another young, presumably transplanted New Yorker (not that that means anything, as I mentioned here) who has made a name for himself, since 2019, posting videos on YouTube and TikTok. A self-described “rental expert,” Jordan devotes most of his content to real estate, highlighting what he considers quirky finds and amazing luxury opportunities amidst New York City’s roiling sea of rentable residences. I have no problem with that, necessarily. Real estate is indeed a hustle – my own mother was a real estate agent for many years – and it really does require a sharp savvy and a spine of steel. I don’t know if Jordan has either, but he does seem to be reaching a good amount of folks – like, in the millions -- with his clips.

No, my problem is with the persistent bent of his content. Viewing New York City exclusively through a prism of amenities-&-conveniences and seemingly without any real reverence or curiosity about the back histories or cultural significances of the neighborhoods, places and locales he’s focusing on, Jordan seems to perceive New York City simply as one, amorphous pile of potential revenue opportunity.

Again, he’s a real estate agent, so I understand that that’s his gig. But he couches his videos with such an alarmist, defeatist tone. Typical titles include “NYC May Never Recover,” “New York City is Getting Worse,” “The Worst Part of NYC is…,” “I’m Leaving NYC…,” “NYC is Running Out of Apartments Like This,” “We Had to Leave NYC,” “The Sad Truth About New York City,” etc. etc. etc.

Pardon me, Cash, but if you’re so down on it, why don’t you go on back to whatever rinkydink divot on the map you crawled out of and fuck right off? Here’s a typical example of one of Cash’s video. Let’s watch, shall we?

Now, for a start, this building on the corner or Lafayette & Bleecker is very decidedly not “NYC’s Weirdest Building.” While it may slightly deviate from the norm given the contours of the block it occupies, that doesn’t really make it bizarre or even slightly weird in any meaningful capacity. The narrowest part he alludes to at the northerly end of the block isn’t even technically part of the overall structure, but a separate, enclosed portion unto itself. Formerly housing retail ventures of one sort or another, this chunk has been dormant for over a decade or so, by this point. A million years ago, it was actually a gas station. It’s also made cameos, in the past, in music videos like “Just Got Paid” by Johnny Kemp (which was shot before they put in that narrow, pointed part at the end). Those bits of history aren’t especially difficult to discover, but I guess Cash wasn’t up for any Googling the day he put this together. He’s more interested in its utilization as a placement for ads.

While it’s ostensibly the subject of this video, the allegedly mysterious building is really only window dressing, here. Cash doesn’t really delve into, reveal anything or reward his viewers with any sort of fruition. He just uses it as hollow springboard to remind viewers how difficult it is to make it all work in this city and show you a different apartment that has nothing to do with this corner.

Now, look, he seems like a perfectly nice guy, and he should be congratulated for this lucrative niche he's carved out for himself, but friggin' DO BETTER, Cash. Treat New York City with the respect it deserves. 

That "weird building" back in the day...

 

 

NYC Standard Fare: A Quick List for a Friend

As a director of content and editorial services for the corporate communications department of my company, I was initially hired for my writing abilities. But when our in-house video editor abruptly resigned shortly after I started back in late 2015, I somehow absorbed his duties, despite not being in any real way versed in the realms of video editing. As a result, I swiftly established a network of regular vendors to tackle our needs. One of those vendors is a Nashville-based videographer named Brian who has saved my hide more times than can be quantified. He and his team do rock-solid work and never part with their cool, even under the tightest of deadlines. I remain eternally indebted to him.

So when Brian postulated the query below to me, earlier this week, I felt duty-bound to help him out.

“Hey, my friend! I have a very close friend of mine coming to NYC later this month … they are staying a block off Times Square. Can you recommend…

1. A pizza place

2. A hot dog place

3. Any other “NYC standard” you can think of…”

It looks pretty cut-&-dry, but if you’re a bona fide New Yorker, you know there is rarely ever a single, clear-cut answer to questions like these. Even post-gentrification and post-pandemic, we still live in a city literally teeming with options. Which does one cite?

I’ve done a few posts about this sort stuff before, notably my two Flaming Pablum Grub Guides and the Big City Survey, but I’m always slightly hesitant to use descriptors like “Best,” being that it’s all relative. I prefer to use the term “favorite.”

As such, let’s dig into this….

"A PIZZA PLACE"

As expressed above, cripes …. where does one even begin?

For a start, not to deflect the question, but there are different types of pizza places. There are your standard pizzerias tailored to quick slices on paper plates to be eaten at counters or taken to go. Then there are more formal joints where one orders an entire pie and eats at a table with a table cloth and waiters and the whole nine. There is also a league of high-end, bespoke pizza restaurants, although the fare here is usually a more refined dining experience that owes precious little to the afore-cited, street-side pizzerias. Whatever your preference, budget or social status, there’s a pizza place for you.

Not to be a downer, but as expressed elsewhere on this blog, as far as I’m concerned, the heyday of grab-n-go Manhattan slices is lamentably behind us. When I was a kid, it seemed like there was a credible pizza joint every three blocks, or so. Every neighborhood had at least one, and they were usually all pretty decent. Today, for whatever reason, this is no longer the case. I mean, sure, there are still droves of middling-to-dismal places wherein to get a quick slice. Just this week, I ruefully ducked into one on Cortlandt Street (not to be confused with Cortlandt Alley) in the Financial District and had a perfunctory slice that, while still technically “pizza,” lacked pretty much everything that the dish is supposed to embody. Then, of course, there is also the more recent trend of “one-dollar pizza” places which I’ve bemoaned here before. While I respect that people need to be able to eat on the cheap, “one-dollar pizza” is a strenuous affront to the rich culinary heritage of New York City and should be duly shunned with an extra topping of contempt.

So, yeah, anyway….

For the purposes of my friend Brian’s query, I would steer his friend to John’s Pizza of Times Square. This is a sit-down establishment of deserving renown. I personally prefer the original John’s down near me on Bleecker Street, but the Times Square location is roomy and atmospheric and the pies are still pretty goddamn great. It’s also nearby where this guy is staying, so everyone wins.

Beyond that, though, I would also cite Lombardi’s Pizza on Spring Street in SoHo, although they’ve become a bit touristy, it has to be acknowledged. Their brick-oven pizza remains fucking outstanding. A nice place to go without so much fuss would be Numero 28 Pizza on Carmine Street. They don’t come out in conventional pie shapes so much as gooey rectangles, but their pizza is simply delicious.

A recent addition to my favorite pizza joints is right here on my own University Place, that being Simo Pizza. They don’t serve slices, but their pies are light with amazing, soft crusts. You cannot go wrong with this place. Ribalta Pizza, for a similar sit-down situation, on East 12th between Broadway and University Place is also mighty nice.

With regards to quick and greasy slices, most of the favorite places from my youth are long gone, but you can still get a great slice at Joe’s Pizza, also on Carmine Street, but they, too, have been discovered.

I’m also partial to the slices at Champion Pizza in Soho on Cleveland Place.

Begrudgingly, I also truly have to give it up for Little Italy III on University Place, which is the favorite pizzeria-du-jour of Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore. I wrote about how I thought he had his head up his ass about this, but I went shortly afterwards, and despite the place still being something of a depressing bus-station-without-the-bussses, the slices are indeed pretty goddamn good.

Do not, under any circumstances, go to a Domino’s Pizza when you are in NYC.

“A HOT DOG PLACE”

This may sound weird, but I’ve never really considered New York City that much of a hot dog town. I mean, yeah, they’re everywhere, and while the “dirty-water dogs” you get from the Sabrett carts may seem iconic — and they kind of are — they’re really the sort of food you eat only when you have no other alternatives. No time to stop for lunch? Grab a street-side dog, and you’ll at least have something in your system, so to speak. Don’t expect it to make a huge, flavorful impression on you. I’m just being honest.

When I was kid, the Papaya King on the corner of East 86th Street & Third Avenue was a way better bet for hot dogs, even if it meant standing in that narrow chamber to consume them (best with a tall cup of papaya juice). Amazingly, Papaya King is still there, as are a few of the similarly inclined Gray’s Papaya places, albeit not the storied one on the corner of West 8th and Sixth Avenue (which turned into Liquiteria before closing during the pandemic). It has been said that this Gray’s Papaya was Lou Reed’s favorite place to eat in New York City.

There is also Crif Dogs on the eastern end of St. Marks Place for a higher-end variant of the hot dog, if that’s your thing. I like Crif because there’s a secret speakeasy bar tucked in its rear interior.

Lastly, of course, there’s the famous Nathan’s, but that involves going way the Hell out to Coney Island. That’s fun, but that’s a day in itself.

“ANY OTHER ’NYC STANDARD’ YOU CAN THINK OF…”

Okay, this is the one that really does my head in, because I can think of quite a lot.

But, if we’re simply talking about food, I’d say….

Get a five-dollar order of the fried dumplings from the scary fried dumpling closet on Mosco Street in Chinatown.

Get a big, fuckoff steak at Keen’s Chophouse on West 36th Street

If you can afford it — and I generally can’t — treat yourself to sushi at Nobu on 195 Broadway

Get the Korean barbecue at Dons Bogam on East 32nd Street. Yeah, it’s still Korean BBQ, but they still do the cooking for you, so no one feels like throwing up the next day, if you know what I mean.

Get the dim-sum at Dim Sum Go-Go on East Broadway. It is fucking special.

Get a burger at the Corner Bistro on West 4th Street.

Have the pierogis at timeless Ukrainian eatery Veselka on East 9th, and raise a middle-finger to Mother Russia.

Hope that helps!! Bon appetit!!!