This Is A Sad Day

I can't tell you the number of hours I spent at this magnificent little shithole. Between 1996 and 2000, I lived in a tiny studio right across the street. I was working as a bartender myself at various places in the neighborhood at the time, and I would always come here after I closed up my bar for a post-closing time shift drink. This was the first bar I went to with my old high school pal Eddie after discovering that we lived only a block apart. So many, many good times.

After I got to be friends with Shane and Alex, the bartender & barback, they would close up the bar and kick everybody else out at 4:00 and we -- along with a couple of other stalwarts -- would play pool or cards until the sun came up, drinking as much as we wanted for a $20 tip. I'd never felt so cool, and at this stage of my life I probably won't ever again. I watched this guy lose $200 in a game of 25-cent ante poker, with as much aplomb as a guy who probably made $23,000 a year possibly could. That fucker ate ramen noodles for a month.


Fuck you, East Village. You're dead to me.