Thus, we offer our navigate-via-dark-bar guide to New York City. We apologize in advance for the lack of photographs. We hadn't decided to do this bloggy thing yet and thus were not in document everything mode. Links will have to do.
After a morning in Little Italy, Chinatown, and the restaurant supply stores along Bowery (with an interesting stop at Faerman's Cash Register Store ...how we were tempted!), we stopped by the Spring Lounge, partly because we were parched and partly because it seemed like something real on the edge of something...else.
Phrodaux has taught me many things, not the least of which is that people don't typically go to bars to drink...they can do that at home. They go to bars to drink and talk to other people. Plus he'll talk to ANYBODY, so we end up having interesting conversations every single time we sit at a bar. In this case, we learned that the woman on my left was playing hookie from her regular life, because she'd been called to jury duty but dismissed by 11am. The man to Ph's right shared that he never had to do jury duty, because he was a felon, "but just for drugs."
Later that day, we had lunch at Fanelli's, my new favorite place in maybe the whole world except for my house and my farm. At this point, though, we were behaving ourselves at a table, just talking to the Swedish tourists beside us.
That afternoon, we wandered through things we could never buy at Elizabeth Street Gallery (but oh, how I long for the French gaming table and the carpenter's tools) then trekked off to the East Village in search of obscure antiques and hidden bars. Found the antiques, but the bar in question (enter through the phone booth of the hot dog restaurant, or some such rigamarole) was not yet open. We talked to a slightly scruffy young man on his way to work at the hot dog emporium, who said about the bar, "It's OK. Just a bar. Kind of expensive. People like us would like this place around the corner better." People like us! For middle-aged, fully-employed, mortgage-holding Ph & FQ, those words were like a secret handshake! We HAD to go to the place he mentioned! Which is how we ended up at International Bar. The locals weren't that keen to talk to us, but the bartender was full of stories once we asked her about the hand-written sign forbidding piggyback rides before 2 am. And if you're hungry while you're there? You can get an MRE (1200 calories).
It's happened twice now, so it must be a tradition: when we visit NYC, one day must be devoted to an endless trek through Brooklyn, preferably in challenging weather. After buying presents at Items of Interest, struggling through the stroller-clogged sidewalks of Park Slope, and chatting with the nice bartender at Alchemy, the march began. I can't remember what we were looking for, but at some point we found robots and movie props, took a short subway ride, and decided to just get a glimpse of the Brooklyn Bridge. But once you can see it, you're on it. At which point, Phrodaux's "in for a penny, in for a pound" motto kicked in and we said, Fine, I guess we are walking across the #$(&*(#$& bridge. Did I mention that it was hot? And we'd walked about 10 miles already? And it was hot?
[Side bar: This photo is from a flickr photostream belonging to Sue Waters,which is licensed this way.]
MANY miles later, droopy and worn out, there we were back at lovely Fanelli's, this time at the bar. While Ph chatted with his bar stool neighbors about New Mexico, Arizona, and the relative merits of various chile peppers, I noticed that the man who sat down beside me ordered eggs, bacon, and toast for supper, with an extra side of bacon and an extra side of butter. Which prompted me to ask: Has it been a very bad day, or are you celebrating something? He paused, considered, and at last said, "I suppose you could say celebrating." He did not elaborate.
But please, if you are out there reading this, elaborate! Tell us about a dark bar we must visit one day or what would make you celebrate with bacon x 2.
No comments:
Post a Comment