Was 32 degrees this morning at the usual time. Wind chill made it feel like 27, said the Weather Channel. On the bus, people from the neighborhood were dressed for a trip to Siberia. The boy was cranky. He told his mother he was too hot. "You can't take off your scarf or you'll get sick," she threatened. He continued to whine. She finally relented. "OK, you can take off one of your hats."
Thank God that dingy little corners of New York City still exist that house the likes of Port 41.
To hear some people describe Port 41, you'd think they had been hanging out upstairs with Dean Stockwell and Dennis Hopper at This Is It in Blue Velvet. Hardly. C'mon, the place has a Web site and flat-screen TVs showing sports, mind you. But! Depending on what time of day (they open at 10 a.m.!) you hit Port 41, conveniently located underneath the Port Authority bus ramp on the north side of 41st Street near Ninth Avenue, you may sense a menacing undercurrent. Which I find comforting. Anyway, any place located 100 feet from Port Authority will attract a variety of interesting characters. Like the hustlers with some great "I-just-got-out-of-prison-can-you-loan-me-$50-I'll-pay-you-back-next-week" stories. Or the people who wander in and stay a suspiciously long time in the men's room.
So there are plenty of attractions here. The beer is mostly reasonable. And, like Rudy's, there are free hot dogs. Which I've never actually tried. Not to mention the bartenders wear bikinis. (Yes, yes -- a few other places in Manhattan have bikini-clad bartenders...)
Has the place has been spruced up a little bit? There are now three 42-inch flat-screen TVs strategically placed around the bar. And weren't there more pool tables in that huge back room? And has there always been a neon coat check sign? (Usually not in a bar-reviewing mode when I'm here.) That's OK. Despite the newish additions, Port 41 still looks on the, uh, rundown side. Which I also find comforting. I'm sticking to one of the booths, by the way. The stuffed hippopotamus is still mounted on the wall. And hey, where did that MP3 juke come from? Ohh! Van Halen! Slayer! Perfect! Now if I could only see.
I hesitated writing about Port 41, which took over the space that once housed Tobacco Road and Savoy Road. But I want to appreciate this place while it's around. In any event, given my most frequent visits, it's hardly a secret. The after-work crowd was split between construction workers and back-slapping chuckleheads in shirts and ties. (And several women in office attire.) Everyone got along just fine, too.
Oh, there's this. My failed attempt at capturing a little slice of the evening, and the people singing along to Van Halen's "Unchained."
[The bikini photos are via Dive In New York City. It was too dark for my shots. Of the bartender]
Bonus! Reviews of Port 41 by the always entertaining yelpers at Yelp:
I think I have officially found the shadiest bar in New York.. Death Metal blaring, the waitress looked like a meth head, was wearing a bikini top.. Another girl in a bikini top sat there getting felt up by this disgusting guy.. And when I say being felt up, it was close to nudity.. All the while he kept saying "I am the devil, you are an angel, do you want to f*ck the devil" He kept saying this over and over again.. He eventually slammed a bottle of beer on the ground and thats when I left.. This was at 4 pm mind you.. The place was completely dark, it was so weird.. If you are looking for trouble, I think you can find it there.. Its directly across the street from Port Authority, I couldnt imagine this place after dark..
One star? Jesus! This sounds like a rare six-out-of-five-star review!
Here's a more reasonable three-star review:
Probably one of the crappiest dive bars left in Midtown. So crappy it was entertaining. Some homeless guy was passed out in the booth behind us. The bartender was wearing a bikini top, and the crowd was entirely men and some looked like they were on drugs. Drink prices were on the cheap side.
And FIVE stars:
As you read my review of Port 41, please imagine that I am speaking these words to you in a heavy German accent and it is 1925 and the Velvet Underground's "Sister Ray" is playing on the jukebox.
I realize that this request is as strange as it is impossible, but that is Port 41: strange and impossible. You see, Port 41 should not be. Port 41 is the giant hippo head hanging on the wall. It is missing an eye, and it wants you to stay for another round. Port 41 is the homeless kid, who says he is a marine. He has dirty finger nails,and says he has a Polynesian wife he married on the telephone whom he has never seen.
This doesn't even begin to explain Port 41. Go there and you might find dullness, you might find horror, or you might find magic. Anything is possible.
Gene Simmons rang the Opening Bell at the NYSE yesterday. This after the clown did the honors last Friday. Oh, and the Dow dropped 427 points yesterday. Can't wait to watch Family Jewels! (Dealbreaker)
"Over the past two years, Frank Bruni, the New York Times' restaurant critic has mentioned the East Village in articles over 35 times, according to a Lexis-Nexis search, while at the other end of the spectrum, neighborhoods like Harlem (7 mentions), Chinatown (4), Washington Heights (1), and East Harlem (0) were written about much less frequently." (Portfolio)
Exclusive research from East Village Podcasts: The East Village dominates in hookah bars per square mile worldwide.
Rehab on Avenue B can be all yours for $350,000 (Grub Street)
In case you need a vintage Pucci pantsuit on the fly, just head over to Cooper Square. (Colonnade Row)
The stuff workers leave lying around (BoweryBoogie)
There's now a company selling the New York Cheesecake Head for Jets fans. (Or someone who really likes cheesecake.) As a response to the Green Bay Packer Cheeseheads, I suppose.
Citysearch busts out a new look. (It's still in beta...) As Cnet reports, "there's a more streamlined and Ajax-y interface, but a few important features have been tweaked as well." Citysearch has expanded to 75,000 towns and neighborhoods, "meaning that you can narrow down your focus to New York's East Village or Los Angeles' Culver City."
Indeed, you can now narrow down your focus to either the East Village OR Alphabet City! Subtle!
The Post gets into the dive bar spirit today, offering up its listicle of the city's top-10 dives. I can't say there are any surprises on the list. Or let's say shockers. Was glad to see the International get some love. Co-owner Shawn Dahl is also quoted. In any event, I always find such lists pointless, except when I make them. (Joking!)
Uh, here's the list:
MARS BAR, 25 E. First St.
RUDY'S BAR & GRILL, 627 Ninth Ave.
BLARNEY COVE, 510 E. 14th St.
TURKEY'S NEST, 94 Bedford Ave., Brooklyn
HOLIDAY COCKTAIL LOUNGE, 75 St. Mark's Place
MILANO'S BAR, 51 E. Houston St.
SUBWAY INN, 143 E. 60th St.
JOHNNY'S, 90 Greenwich Ave.
O'CONNOR'S, 39 Fifth Ave, Brooklyn
INTERNATIONAL BAR, 120 ½ First Ave.
Guess there are no dive bars in Queens or the Bronx or Staten Island. Anyway! Quibble away.
Been keeping my eye on the new development at 215 Avenue B at 13th Street that was once home to The Sylvia del Villard Program of the Roberto Clemente Center. The outpatient clinic was taken down in less than a week in September 2007. As Curbed reported in May, this site will be home to really-out-of-place-looking digs designed by the Stephen B. Jacobs Group, who did the Gansevoort Hotel, among many other things. (Oddly enough, I don't see this project listed anymore on the Jacobs Group Web site.) Whatever is going in here, it seems to be happening quickly. It appears as if another level is completed every time I walk by. Which is fairly often. The two shots were taken just a few weeks apart.
And workers have even been there in the early evening hours.
Meanwhile, I can't help but notice how many empty storefronts line Avenue B from 12th Street to 14th Street. I counted six. Or maybe seven. And I'm just thinking of some of the bigger names that have come and gone, like Sonic Groove at 206 Avenue B (Sonic Groove is online only now) and Luca Lounge at 220 Avenue B. And that lingerie shop that sold bras next to the coffee shop B Cup. (Heh.)
People say they miss the old New York. Do you like it better now?
Only the things that I miss. it was cheaper. When you went out you never expected to spend a lot of money, so this whole bottle service, when someone goes out and has to spend $1,000 for a good night out, that’s just absurd. In the late 80s and the early 90s everybody could afford to live in the East Village, so everybody lived and worked and went out in the same neighborhood, and it just made everything a lot much nicer. So now, its almost like the NYC diaspora has happened where some people live in Bushwick, some people live in Redhook, some people live in Jersey City, some people live in Inwood, so the good old days where everybody lives on top of each other, those are gone. New York is always going to be big enough to accommodate anyone who wants to live here. There’s always going to be some new derelict neighborhood where 20-year-old artists are going to move to. That’s what Soho was, that’s what the East Village was, that’s what Tribeca was, and that’s certainly what the Lower East Side was.
For the post I did earlier on Hop Devil Grill closing, I Iooked around for information on that space's former tenant, Stingy Lulu's. I came across this article in the July 6, 1996, Times that's worth highlighting:
Not long ago, Avenue A was a drug-infested no man's land, a forlorn strip given over to vagrants, anarchists and punks. At least that's how Karazona Cinar, 30, a local entrepreneur, remembers it. "Because of businessmen like me, things are much better," said Mr. Cinar, a Kurdish immigrant who owns Stingy Lulu's, a restaurant on St. Marks Place off Avenue A, and Robots, a bar on Avenue B.
Krystyna Piorkowska has different memories of Avenue A. Ms. Piorkowska, 47, who has lived in the neighborhood for 22 years, laments the loss of beloved merchants like the kosher butcher, the cobbler and the pirogi maker, all of them driven out by the forces of gentrification. To her dismay, the old mom-and-pop stores have been supplanted by nightclubs and bars, businesses that can afford the avenue's pumped-up rents. In her view, Avenue A has become a place for unbridled carousing, where bar-hopping youths keep residents awake until dawn and where broken glass and the stench of urine greet early risers. "Avenue A has become the East Village theme park," she said last week, standing amid a late-night crush of thrill-seekers. "It's now a place where you come to get drunk and see tattooed girls with spiked hair."
By the way, all the places mentioned in the article -- Stingy Lulu's, Robots, Arca and Nation -- have since closed.
And I also feel as if I've read variations of this article about 300 times in the last 12 years...
OK, OK...just a point of clarification after a conversation about the Hop Devil Grill closing with a friend. The Belgian Room, an extension of Hop Devil Grill at 125 St. Mark's Place, also closed. All part of the same deal: Will reopen on Dec. 3 with a new concept, management, etc.
On 13th Street between Avenue A and First Avenue. Someone hung a large photo of the what the street looked like before the A Building was completed. You know, the A Building, where people shit in the laundry room.
First things first. There's a Vitamin Shoppe coming to the corner of 14th Street and First Avenue at the site of the former First Federal Savings and Loan Association. This thing had been carved up some time ago. I recall it being one of the last Love Stores...and more recently a Duane Reade.
This spot makes perfect sense for a store that sells vitamins given that GNC is one block away on the corner of 13th Street and First Avenue.
Anyway, seems as if so many of the city's impressive old banks have all been turned into, say, high-end food shops, condos, performance spaces, clothing stores, etc., in recent years. This topic was discussed in a February 2005Times article.
Why build such evocative Greek temples to begin with? To inspire confidence. When the United States economy collapsed in the Panic of 1893, many people blamed banks for the depression that followed and withdrew their money. So, banks built in that era (until the end of the Great Depression, when banks began to demystify themselves with glass-fronted branches) were meant to suggest strength, as if they had been there forever.
I'm sure the new generation of high-end clothing stores appreciates these qualities in a building.
The Hop Devil Grill on St. Mark's near Avenue A is gone. Was way too bland and fratty for our liking, but they had some tasty suds on tap -- 31 or so on a rotating basis.
Looks like it will reopen....and be completely different. New concept? Why does this give us the fear?
P.S.S. Thanks to Jeremiah for reminding me in the comments that this space used to be Stingy Lulu's, which was there 1992 to, what, 2004? Hop Devil opened in March 2005.
