It’s Tuesday and that means it’s time for the weekly hunt for a bar that uses swizzle sticks in it’s mixed drinks. Tonight I’ve chosen a bar up on the Upper West Side called Hi-Life Bar and Grill. I kept meaning to go there on my 365 Bar Crawl and never made it, so that’s tonight swizzle destination.
It's another really nice night out, I really like this time of year.
And here we are, The Hi-Life Bar & Grill. I love their neon sign. It looks pretty packed out here, I hope there's room inside at the bar.
Shit, it's really crowded in here. There's no seats at the bar and it would be tough to take any photos in here. Looks like it's time to take that lonely walk.
Let's see what we can find down the road.
This place doesn't look too bad, let's check it out inside.
Wow, the entire bar is open, let's snag a seat and get a drink. Could a swizzle stick be in our future?
We'll see in a moment. Here's friendly bartender Caesar mixing the drink up.
No swizzle tonight! They just use a straw. But it's friendly in here and I like the bar, let's take a look around.
Some of the lit up bottles behind the bar.
There's stools in front of the bar that look out onto Amsterdam Avenue.
Here's Lars who was seated at the front of the bar. He's from Oslo, Norway and is visiting New York to attend the Comic Con this week. Cheers, Lars!
Some of the beers on draft.
There's tables and chairs in the front corner of the bar with wall to wall windows overlooking the Upper West Side. Nice view in here.
And speaking of nice views, here's Elena who's just joined Caesar behind the bar. I told them I was going to title this photo, "The Beauty and the Beast," and Caesar was a good sport about it and told me to go ahead. So here you have it, "The Beauty and the Beast."
And an obligatory mirror shot and I'm out of here. Goodnight everybody and see you tomorrow after dark.
Swizzle Stick? No swizzle stick tonight. Price of double gin and tonic: Fourteen bucks.
420 Bar & Lounge 420 Amsterdam Ave. (@ W. 80th St.) 212-579-8450
Mad commenter, Ragin' RR sent in this link about Google memorializing Gumby and the man who created him, Art Clokey on what would have been Clokey's 90th birthday. Biff also acknowledged it in yesterday's comments. Here's the link: Gumby!
A couple of weeks ago after a failed attempt at hanging out at the Chillmaster’s, I just bought a bag of beer and wandered around the East Village and took a few photos. It turned out to be a good, relaxing night, so I thought I’d try it again. This time I thought I’d go visit my old neighborhood on the Upper West Side around 75th and Broadway.
Here we are. This is the park area at 72nd and Broadway. It used to be called Verdi Square Park, but I don't think it's called that anymore. I'd research it, but it would give me a headache. They filmed "Panic in Needle Park" here.
I thought I'd get the beer at a deli I used to go to about three times a day when I lived up here. I hate it when people travel in big clusters like this on the sidewalk. Two by two, people!
Shit, the deli is now a travel agency! This sucks, it was on the block for years. Time to see if Andy's deli is still open, it was my secondary deli in the neighborhood. I hope it's not turned into a Starbucks or something.
Whew, it's still open. Let's get the beer.
Here's the beer.
I got four cans of Modela.
And the beer is bagged and a straw is inserted to make it look more like a can of soda to a cop. I spent a morning in jail once for drinking an open can of beer up here. I'm not taking any chances!
Glad to see the cleaners store is still here. Love that blue neon sign.
A portrait of a late night seller of fruit.
Here's another deli on the block. Back when Bill Maher did "Politically Incorrect" on Comedy Central he lived in this neighborhood and I saw him in here once late at night. I did a double take while seeing him and he gave me the dirtiest look, as if it's a crime to recognize him. I think he's funny and I really like his show, but I've heard he's one of the biggest assholes around and that proved it. If you don't want people to recognize you, maybe you shouldn't be on TV every week!
Here's an Upper West Side institution, Freddie and Pepper's Pizza.
They do a brisk business in here and they make a lot of dough. Oof!
Ha! Here's the Beacon Theater and look who's coming back to the neighborhood! I'll have to go and run up to the stage and do a double take and re-live a moment.
Here's the entrance to the theater.
Coming attraction posters behind bars.
Huh?
What, does this thing shoot out popcorn at show time? I'll take extra butter please!
And here's the hotel Beacon, the first place I lived when I moved here in 1993. They had residential apartments mixed in with the hotel rooms back in the day. It was a lot more run down back then. A few years ago they completely renovated it. I lived in a tiny room with a tiny kitchen and a tinier bathroom.
I went inside and there was a night manager and a guy behind the desk. I told them I lived here for four years and they didn't appear to be very interested. I asked if I could take a picture of the door where I used to live, room number 915. I was told that there was no way I could do that. The staff was a lot friendlier when I lived there.
Well, we'll just continue our tour elsewhere. You should lose the attitude Beacon Hotel people!
Here's another sad sight, the corner building that used to be the P&G bar. It once looked like this.
Now it's a yuppie cafe, Gina lasomethingorother. The logo is a woman with a breadhead. How...cute. Boy do I miss the P&G right now!
Boy, it just keeps getting worse. This used to be an old time newsstand where I bought my newspapers every day. Now it's one of these newfangled ugly metal boxes. Sad.
Another legendary place on the Upper West Side, The Fairway Market.
Great fruit and produce here.
But these Cardboard Box Men don't look too happy to be working late on a Friday night. Let's get out of here before they attack. Aaaahhh!
Something was buggy with the comments here yesterday, both Gene and csp told me they left comments, but I never got them. And last night I tried commenting back and it wouldn’t take my comment. It looked like it took it, but it didn’t show up, I realized right away because my comments aren’t moderated. Next to the red type where it says, “Post A New Comment” it said: (Unable to Post Comment.) I talked to Squarespace about this and it’s something that’s never happened. One of their support staff says if it does happen to try clearing out your cache. When it happened to me, I quit and restarted my browser and then my comment went through. I apologize if your comment was lost yesterday and hopefully it was just a bug that’s worked itself out.
Last night I was going to go and wander around Columbus Circle but it was pouring rain, so I went home and wrote my Johnnie Johnson story. Tonight it’s nice out, so it’s off to Columbus Circle we go!
Here we are at Penn Station, I think you know what's coming next...
The dreaded escalator ride. At first allis well, no one's pushing or shoving, but then...
This big fat slob has to ruin it all. He was pushing and shoving everyone out of the way. I was standing as far to the right as you can and still got pushed. And the stairway two inches away was almost empty. Asshole!
The good news is that as soon as I get to my platform the train is pulling up. I love it when that happens!
And here we are, the stairway to Columbus Circle.
A woman texting outside...what's everyone texting about? I don't do it.
Columbus Circle park is right across the street here.
I think the no smoking rule in the parks is ridiculous. They charge 13 bucks a pack for cigarettes here and then you can't smoke them anywhere.
A shot of the perimeter of the park.
Here's a shitty shot of the statue in the middle of the park. I really need to learn how to work this camera one of these days.
Colorful lit-up fountains spray around the entire circle of the park.
It's really pretty and creates a nice mist when you're standing close by.
But this nimrod chooses to ignore the surroundings and is texting wth someone instead.
More texting from this woman.
And yet another person hypnotized by their texting device.
What the fuck is everyone texting about? Is there something going on i don't know about? Because I just want to everyone to shut the fuck up.
But I guess that's not going to happen.
SHUT UP!
This guy has the right idea. Goodnight everybody and see you tomorrow after dark.
I couldn’t think of anything to do tonight and didn’t feel like wandering or doing a Fortress of Solitude post, so I Googled, “late night things to do on the upper west side nyc” And this is what popped up: So I clicked on the link and I got this: It turns out that Super Tacos is a late night food truck. They’re open till two in the morning on weeknights and three in the AM on weekend nights. Plus they have two dollar tacos that are supposed to be really good. So that’s tonight’s destination, Thanks, Google!
We'll be traveling uptown via a subway car from Penn Station.
It's been a while since I've checked out the greeting cards here. Regular readers of MAD will recall this place has sold some filthy and vile greeting cards in the past. Let's see if they've cleaned up their act.
(Only funny if you work with me alert!) Aaaahhh! Carlstadt, New Jersey...three of the most vile and obscene words known to mankind! I need to talk to management here about these offensive cards!
And as soon as I get to the tracks a train is pulling up, i always love that!
And it was the express train, so five minutes later we've traveled from 34th Street to 96th Street. Now let's find that Taco Truck, I skipped dinner and I'm starvin' like Marvin over here.
Okay, here we are at 96th and Broadway. From what I've read the truck is close to the Southwest corner, but I'm directionally challenged, so let's just start looking for it.
I don't see it here.
It's not around this one either, that's two down and two to go.
Hey, look, a Two Boots Pizza, I had no idea they had one up here. They have great pizza here. If we don't find the taco truck we can always get a consolation slice here.
What's with the "Walk Up Service" sign? Isn't that a given at McDonald's? And does this mean that if you're a cripple you have to eat at Burger King? Rollin', rollin', rollin'...Rawhide!
Hey, that looks like a truck over there. Could it be? Let's go find out.
Yeah, this is the place and there's a lively taco eating crowd here.
There's lots of choices on the menu and most of them are under six bucks. I think I'll try the standard beef taco.
The guys working on the truck are nice and friendly.
And here they are working on my order.
And within minutes, here's my taco. It looks delicious and it is. And it was only two bucks. Okay, let's go say hi to a few of the other fellow taco eaters here on the block.
Here's John, Jose and Tom who were enjoying some tacos on their lunch break. John said they were working till six in the morning. Ouch!
Here's a quartet of pretty women enjoying themselves, let's go say hi.
They were very nice and said to identify them as "Jess X Four." Watch your back foursquare! Sounds like a new social media site in the works!
And here's the generator up front that powers the whole operation. Hey, wait a second...let's zoom in on something here...
Today while getting some lunch to go in a deli, I heard the song, “Be Bop A Lula” by John Lennon playing on the radio that was perched on a shelf behind the counter. That’s from his “Rock ‘n’ Roll” album and I’ve always liked his version. I don’t believe it was issued as a single and I don’t think I’ve heard it anywhere else but in my apartment. It was quite a happy surprise and I stayed and listened to it even after I had paid for my lunch. It made me think about the day after he was shot, right here in New York, in front of his apartment building, The Dakota. He was shot on December 8th, 1980, a Monday night. I didn’t realize he had been killed till the next Tuesday morning. I woke up that morning and was hungover and still feeling a little trippy. I had taken mescaline the night before and was feeling the after-effect from that and I think I had drank about seventeen beers. I had taken it right after work and then went to a lot of bars and got looped early. I don’t know why I had gone off on such a tear, but back in those days, I didn’t need much of an excuse.
I lived in a small, one bedroom apartment on the north side of Peoria in those days. I remember sitting up that morning and holding my aching noggin’ in my hands. My brain felt like a melted marshmallow that had been dipped in a vat of horse hair. I slowly got up and made my way to the kitchen, popped the top off of a diet Coke and chugged it. I felt a little bit better.
After throwing the can in the trash I made my way to the bathroom and was piecing my night together and trying to remember if I had to call anyone to apologize to them. Back in those days it seems I was always apologizing to someone for something I had done the night before. Then I remembered the weird dream I had had. I was brushing my teeth while thinking about it. The dream was kind of fuzzy, but I remembered that my friend Moon had called me in it and he had told me that John Lennon was dead. He said someone had shot him. I laughed to myself and thought: “Jesus, what a weird dream. Serves you right for going to bed with a headful of mescaline.” Then I showered, shaved and got dressed. I’m sure sometime in the process I farted, but why would you want to know that? The fart probably smelled like a taco gone bad, mine often do, but again, why should I share that information with you? Why drag this story down in the gutter? But I digress.
I found myself back in the kitchen drinking more diet Coke. I walked out into the main room and turned on the portable TV set that sat right next to my turntable on top of an old brown wooden table. I flipped the channel to WEEK, channel 25 to watch a bit of the Today Show before I went to work.
I turned up the volume and I can’t remember who said the following because I think I went into a bit of a state of shock: “New York and the world is mourning the loss of musician John Lennon who was shot to death outside of the Dakota building where he lived with his wife Yoko Ono and their son Sean.” I dropped my diet Coke and my hand flew up to my mouth. Was this real? Was I still dreaming? All of a sudden everything went black and white and I felt like I had fallen into the Twilight Zone. Signpost ahead... I immediately ran to the phone and called my friend Moon. Luckily, he hadn’t left for work yet. He picked it up on the third ring.
“Hello,” he croaked out in a morning voice. It sounded like he had just woken up.
“Is John Lennon dead?” I blurted out as fast as I could spit the words out.
“What? Is this Marty?” Moon asked back.
“Yeah, it’s me, is John Lennon dead?” I asked again in a most feverish manner.
“Yeah,” Moon shot back, somewhat angrily.
“I thought I had dreamed that,” I told him somewhat relieved that I wasn’t going insane after all.
“Howard Cosell announced it on Monday Night Football. I thought you’d want to know so I called you. You sounded out of your mind, I tried telling you, but I couldn’t even understand what was coming out of your mouth, so I hung up,” Moon told me, in somewhat disgusted tones. I had lived with Moon the year before, so I had heard those tones before.
“Jesus Christ, I thought I was going insane,” I said while taking a deep breath.
“I think you still are, I gotta get ready for work,” Moon said while hanging up on me.
I went back to the front room with a towel and picked up the can of diet Coke and cleaned up the floor while listening to the news reports on the death of John Lennon.
I remember saying to myself as I put my jacket on, “Apparently, love isn’t all you need. It seems a bullet-proof helmet would come in handy as well.” Then I laughed out loud and went to work.
Yeah, I talk to myself, you got a problem with that?
------------------------------------
I thought in light of the John Lennon memories we’d take a little trip to the Upper West Side and get some photos of the Dakota building where he lived and was shot down in front of and of Strawberry Fields in Central Park. I’m a little nervous about going in Central Park at night, I’ve never done that, but then again, “Action” is my middle name!
Okay, it’s really David. Shut up.
And here we are at Penn Station once again.
The escalator is crowded, but for once, everyone is stationary on it. One of life's little rewards.
Knot Just Pretzels.
Well, I hate to be the one to break it to you, but it appears you are just pretzels after all. Sorry.
Through the magic of the internet you're spared a subway ride that included six screaming teenagers all talking at once and a smelly fat man that kept making weird burping noises seated next to me. He smelled like curdled cheese. Eeeks.
Here's a shitty photo of the Dakota building. The building's not lit at all and it's going to be rough getting a decent photo. I'll try again.
Fuck. When in doubt, Google it...
And rip the photo off from the internet. Here's the Dakota building with John and Yoko in the forefront before Mark David Chapstick blew John's mind out with a gun.
Authorized persons only sign.
And here's the authorized person on duty, security man, David. He told me people come here every day to take pictures and talk about John Lennon.
And here's the gates and area where John Lennon bought the farm. This is a little depressing, let's move on.
Okay, there's Central Park, it looks a little creepy in the dark, but onwards and upwards. I can't chicken out now.
Here's the Strawberry Fields section. There's one light and then it's pitch black in the park. This is beyond creepy, there's no one around...or is there?
Usually there's at least one person in here playing an acoustic guitar and butchering a John Lennon song, but tonight it's pitch black back here and I just heard a voice from somewhere around the bushes saying: "Hey, come here."
That was my cue to leave the park, very quickly.
And the last stop on the John Lennon late night walking tour of the Upper West Side.
John Lennon behind bars. This photo has been in this pharmacy's window since I moved here almost 18 years ago. It's my favorite John Lennon tribute in the city for some reason. I've always liked it. Okay time to head home.
Hey...look. Hmmm...
Old habits die hard. Goodnight everybody and see you tomorrow after dark.
Tonight I’m going to write about my favorite summer of all time, the summer of 1967. But before that, I’ve decided to go to 1967 Broadway. No, I don’t have a time machine, I mean the actual address and see what’s there and take a few photos. Alright Sherman, set the Wayback Machine for 1967!
Here we are, let's go find 1967 Broadway and see what it is today.
We're close, here's 1965 Broadway, it's the next door down, let's see what 1967 looks like in 2011.
A Pottery Barn. A little disappointing, but then we are on the Upper West Side. Let's see what the address looks like.
They don't have the address up! What a fucking gyp! Oh well, I'm going home to write my story and then we'll get a glimpse of 1967.
1967
I’ve always loved the summer, especially when I was a kid. School was out and you had three glorious months of freedom and warmth. My favorite summer of all time was the summer of 1967. I was nine-years-old.
The experience I remember the best about the summer of 1967 was that our family took a vacation to Fort Lauderdale, Florida. It was a great vacation. I remember swimming in the ocean for the first time and running on the white sandy beach outside of our hotel room. The skies were blue, the air was sweet and warm and I didn’t have a care in the world. We were in Florida for a week and while we were there my brother Jim celebrated his 11th birthday on Sunday, June 11th. We had a little party in one of the hotel rooms we were staying at and he opened his gifts. I can only remember one of his birthday presents, but it was a doozy.
It was the last gift he opened and it was slim and square, the size of a record album. We both knew what it was before he tore the wrapping paper off. On June 1st, 1967, The Beatles released “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band” and it was the only thing he wanted for his birthday. I was just as excited as he was. The Beatles were our favorite group and we had heard that this was the best thing they had ever done. We had already heard snippets of songs on the car radio and they sounded magical. It soon became the soundtrack for what history would call the “Summer of Love.” There was no record player in the hotel room, so we had to be content with just looking at the album cover. But there was enough on that cover for us to absorb and study till we got home. The front was a psychedelic collage of faces, wax figures, marijuana plants, a doll with a note to The Rolling Stones on it and The Beatles themselves in the center of all of it wearing colorful, military outfits. A big bass drum was emblazoned with the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band logo. They had moustaches and instead of guitars they were clutching horns and strange instruments. The wax figures were the old “mop-top” Beatles looking like they were at their own funeral and in a way they were. Some of the faces we recognized on the cover were Laurel and Hardy, W.C. Fields, Bob Dylan and Tony Curtis. The note to the Rolling Stones said, “Welcome the Rolling Stones, Good Guys.” Mick Jagger and Keith Richards had been arrested earlier in the year on drug charges. The times they were indeed changing. The back of the album cover had all the lyrics printed on a backdrop of red and a portrait of The Beatles decked out in their Sgt. Pepper gear. We read the lyrics to songs we couldn’t yet listen to. There was Billy Shears who got high with a little help from his friends. We were introduced to Lucy in the sky with diamonds, a girl with kaleidoscope eyes. There was a benefit for Mr. Kite and the Hendersons would all be there. Lovely Rita was a meter maid who wore a cap and the bag across her shoulders made her look a little like a military man. In the last song, “A Day in the Life,” we learned that The Beatles would love to “turn us on.” I guess they didn’t know that they already had.
As soon as we got back home from our vacation, we took the album out of the sleeve and put it on our parents fake wooden stereo console and put the needle on the vinyl. The act we’d known for all those years and all the other characters from Pepperland came to life and we played it over and over. About a week after we got home from Florida, the Monterey Pop Festival happened. It was the first rock and roll festival and it lasted for three days in June of 1967. I remember looking at photos of it in Life and Time magazine and wishing I could’ve been there. Images I remember from the Monterey Pop Festival include Jimi Hendrix setting his guitar on fire, The Who smashing their instruments, Mama Cass in the crowd gaping wide-eyed at Janis Joplin on stage belting out a tune like no one had heard before, Mickey Dolenz dressed up as an indian and kids dancing with their faces painted, long hair flowing and openly smoking pot. I was pissed that I was only nine-years-old and wasn’t able to go, but I remember looking at those photos and being filled with optimism and hope that when I got older, everything would be different. Everything would be better. All summer long we played Sgt. Pepper and it was the best summer of my life. I’ve never felt so hopeful and anxious for the future to come and I know I’ll never feel like that again in my life. 1967 drifted into 1968 with rallying cries from those under thirty for a revolution that never happened. In 1969 Woodstock morphed into Altamont and the hippie dream turned into a Helter Skelter nightmare. On May 4th, 1970 at a protest rally over the Amercian Invasion of Cambodia at Kent State University, Ohio National Guardsmen sprayed 67 rounds of ammunition at the protesters and killed four of them and wounded nine others. One would go on to suffer permanent paralysis. By then I was twelve-years-old and watching that on the nightly news sent a chill right down my soon to be teenaged spine. It drained any optimism out of me that was left over from that magical summer of 1967. The really sad thing is the fact that two of the students that were shot to death weren’t even involved with the protest. They were just walking from one class to another and got caught in the line of fire. I realized then that the future had bullets and if you didn’t do what you were told or if you had the balls to question authority, you might take one right between the eyes.Millionaire rock stars singing about revolution seemed a little naive and silly all of a sudden. Nobody can really say for sure when the ‘60’s ended. Most people acknowledge sometime in the early ‘70’s. Writer Hunter S. Thompson eulogized the ‘60’s free spirit vibe in his nerve-jangled novel, “Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas.” I think it’s one of his finest pieces of writing, here it is: “Strange memories on this nervous night in Las Vegas. Five years later? Six? It seems like a lifetime, or at least a Main Era—the kind of peak that never comes again. San Francisco in the middle sixties was a very special time and place to be a part of. Maybe it meant something. Maybe not, in the long run...but no explanation, no mix of words or music or memories can touch that sense of knowing that you were there and alive in that corner of time and the world. Whatever it meant...
History is hard to know, because of all the hired bullshit, but even without being sure of "history" it seems entirely reasonable to think that every now and then the energy of a whole generation comes to a head in a long fine flash, for reasons that nobody really understands at the time—and which never explain, in retrospect, what actually happened.
My central memory of that time seems to hang on one or five or maybe forty nights—or very early mornings—when I left the Fillmore half-crazy and, instead of going home, aimed the big 650 Lightning across the Bay Bridge at a hundred miles an hour wearing L. L. Bean shorts and a Butte sheepherder's jacket...booming through the Treasure Island tunnel at the lights of Oakland and Berkeley and Richmond, not quite sure which turn-off to take when I got to the other end (always stalling at the toll-gate, too twisted to find neutral while I fumbled for change)...but being absolutely certain that no matter which way I went I would come to a place where people were just as high and wild as I was: No doubt at all about that...
There was madness in any direction, at any hour. If not across the Bay, then up the Golden Gate or down 101 to Los Altos or La Honda...You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning...
And that, I think, was the handle—that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn’t need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting—on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave...
So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark—that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.”
—Hunter S. Thompson from “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.”
There will never be another summer like the summer of 1967. It came and went like a cool breeze and it didn’t last long enough. I’m sure happy I got to live through it and in some small way be a part of it. The song is over, but the memory lives on in an unending fadeout groove. Further reading: Wikipedia, Internet Sgt. Pepper’s, NPR and the NY Times.
Gray’s Papaya @11:33 pm Upper West Side Okay, the Papaya Wars continue tonight. So far we’ve gone to the Papaya in Penn Station, the one that got closed in Hell’s Kitchen and last week we hit Chelsea Papaya. Tonight we’re traveling to the Upper West Side to sample a dog at the first Papaya stand I ever hit when I moved to New York City. And tonight is a first, I’m going to try a Papaya drink for the first time in my life. The excitement is almost too much to endure! Well, not really, but let’s go anyway.
Okay, it's a little after 11:00 in the night and it's off we go.
We'll be taking the subway to the Upper West Side from the all-too familiar Penn Station.
And of course there's got to be some asshole walking down the escalator when there's a perfectly good set of stairs tight next to it. Asshole!
Through the turnstiles and up to the train we go.
This guy was wailing on the clarinet. I took his photo and threw him a buck.
And look at this, less than two minutes and the train is here! Looks like the start of a charmed evening!
The car is jam-packed, lots of people out on this Monday evening.
And here we are, 72nd and Amsterdam on the Upper West Side. The Papaya is just seconds away.
And there it is, right below the Sleepy's store. Let's go check it out.
Baboom! The Upper West Side Gray's Papaya in all its glory.
And there was entertainment as well. Brian was playing his guitar outside the hot doggery.
Get it? Not yet, but give me a minute to order and I will.
There's an STD joke somewhere here, but I'm not going near it.
Here's a window shot of Robert who was enjoying one of the fine dogs in this establishment.
Let's place our order and check out the dog and a papaya drink.
I had a bit of a communication breakdown with this gentleman. English isn't his first language and I couldn't speak the second one. He nervously posed for this photo. I hope it doesn't bring him any trouble.
And here's tonight's meal, a papaya dog and I ordered the pineapple papaya drink. I'm a little nervous about sampling the drink. It looks a little suspicious.
Okay, the hot dog was great, but the papaya drink was really horrific. If you've ever wondered what fermented rat piss tastes like, sadly, I now can tell you. Aaaahhhh!
This place is open 24 hours, so there's always a bundle of dogs on the grill.
Some of the signs on the wall inside.
Some of the vats that house the evil papaya drinks that I just sampled. I don't know if that taste will ever leave my mouth or mind. Yeccch!
And of course, we have to have the ebony and ivory mustard and ketchup shot. What's disturbing to me is that the kethcup is never labled in these places. It can't be Heinz and that makes me nervous.
They sell polite New Yorker buttons in here with Gray's Papaya at the bottom. After much negotiation and sign language, I bought one for a buck.
And after an even longer negotiation, I got him to snap a photo of me wearing it. Goodnight everybody and see you tomorrow after dark.
This Gray’s Papaya is a popular place. It’s right across from a Subway stop and it’s got the best signage of any Papaya place we’ve been to so far. The crowd is ever-changing in here and it brings back good memories of when I first moved here. Gray’s Papaya has been featured in several movies including: Die Hard with a Vengeance, You've Got Mail, Fools Rush In and Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist. But they don’t sell beer and I don’t know if I’ll ever get that horrible taste of the papaya drink out of my mouth or mind. So, here’s my Papaya order so far (from worst to best):
4. Hell’s Kitchen Papaya because it’s not there anymore. 3. Chelsea Papaya, it’s clean, people were nice in there, but there’s no beer. 2. Gray’s Papaya, it brings back good memories and the signage is nice, but there’s no beer here and I don’t know if I’ll ever get that horrible taste of the papaya drink out of my mouth or mind. 1. Penn Station Papaya...they’ve got beer! Stay tuned to see who wins in the ratings of the Papaya Wars only here on MAD! Gray’s Papaya 2090 Broadway (between 72nd & 73rd St.) New York, NY 10023 212-799-0243
Tim "Clacky" Clack sent in this bonus photo of a meeting between himself and funny guy Billy Connolly! Check out more of his shenanigans at his fine blog, Tales From The Bunt's Side.
Big Nick’s @9:50 pm Upper West Side Live, from New York, it’s Cheeseburger Saturday Night! Tonight’s host is Big Nick’s on the Upper West Side and featuring the ready for prime beef player, Marty Wombacher. Ladies and gentlemen...Big Nick’s!
That's right, I've decided to keep the Cheeseburger Saturday Night tradition alive. I just don't have to do it in a bar anymore, so I can go out later on a Saturday night and go somewhere where it's not crawling with drunken idiots. I've decided to go to a place that's legendary on the Upper West Side. It's restaurant that's been in business since 1962 called Big Nick's and they have over 60 kinds of burgers there. We'll take the 14th street subway up there. Jesus, it's freezing out here tonight!
And here we are, at least it'll be warmer down there.
It's a bit of a hike to get to the stop.
I stopped and took a break and listened to this guy play saxophone. He was really good, it's amazing some of the music you can experience down in the subways of New York. I flipped him a couple bucks and was on my way.
Holy shitballs, a train is pulling in just as I'm at the top of the stairs! What luck!
No waiting tonight! I love it when this happens.
The train's not that crowded for 9:30 on a Saturday night.
This couple texted the whole time I was on the train. God forbid they put those things down and actually talk to each other.
And here we are at the 72nd street exit.
This is where I first lived when I moved here over 17 years ago, my old stomping grounds, the Upper West Side.
Here's the Beacon Hotel, where my first apartment was located. It was a little shabbier when I lived there, they've fixed it up a bit and it's pretty nice now.
This is the newsstand where I'd buy my newspapers and magazines back in the pre-internet days.
Goddamn, it's cold out here, Big Nick's is just two blocks away, let's hightail it there.
And here it is, the legendary Big Nick's.
There's neon and signs plastered all over the front window.
There's tables outside, but it's too freezing out here to be sitting at one of them tonight.
Some publicity for Big Nick's. I have to watch Midnight Cowboy and see if I can find it.
Okay, let's go in. I love the fact that they're open "23 hours." Ha!
The place is divided into two rooms. This is the front of the left room, there's wooden booths up front to sit at.
This neon light on the wall casts a magenta hue on the room.
Here's the back of the room, tables are packed in here close together and you get to know your neighbors in here. In addition to burgers, sandwiches, a big breakfast menu, Big Nick's also has a wide variety of pizza, as the neon sign announces.
The walls are plastered with pictures and signs and it would take you days to look at all of them.
Here's the other room, off to the left. A waiter told me there was a single table, so I went off to get it. It's pretty crowded in here tonight.
Big Nick's is a friendly place and you're packed in close to each other, so it's easy to get to know your dining neighbors. Seated next to me is: Abe, Kristina and Melodie. I found out that Kristina had just gotten engaged. Congratulations, Kristina!
There's plenty of pictures back here as well. If you look closely to the right you'll see a vintage Allman Brothers poster.
There's tons of things to order here, the menu is like a little 10 page fanzine. Check it out online: Big Nick's menu.
And here's Jon, the pretty and friendly waitress who took my order. In spite of the fact she was busy, she still stopped to pose for the MAD camera. Nice!
Here's a view of the kitchen area from where I was seated.
And here's the counter in front of the kitchen area.
My vanilla shake was promptly served. The shakes here are out of this world!
I love the sign that just says, "TALK." Ha ha ha!
And here we go, Cheeseburger Saturday night! I got the cheddar burger and seasoned waffle fries.
It was delicious, but I have to confess I couldn't eat the whole thing. It was like a pound of ground beef!
The counter had cleared out by the time I was getting ready to leave.
And here we are, back out into the night, walking down Broadway.
Since it's Saturday night, I splurged and took a cab home and snapped this photo out the window. Goodnight everybody and see you tomorrow after dark.
Big Nick’s 2175 Broadway (77th @Broadway) (212) 362-9238 Upper West Side Going to Big Nick’s on the Upper West Side made me think about the the day I moved to New York. On July 7th, 1993 I boarded a plane in Peoria, Illinois that was headed to Chicago and then I got on one bound for LaGuardia airport in New York. I was 35-years-old, had quit my job as a film stripper where I had worked the last 13 years of my life, sold my car, my furniture, my stereo, my records and most of my clothes and cashed in my pension fund from my job and was moving to New York City that day. I had been so busy for the three months before I moved, I didn’t really think about the fact that I only knew about four people there, I had no job waiting for me and the odds of me getting a staff writing job in New York City were certainly stacked against me. One thought started racing through my brain like a hyperactive marathon runner on amphemines: “What in the living name of holy fuck have you just done?” I had a few beers on the flight and calmed down a little. When I landed in New York, I gathered up my suitcases and went out into the blazing heat (the week I moved there it shattered all kinds of heat records and was probably the hottest I’ve ever seen it in my 17 and a half years out here) and trudged to the cab stand. In the two minutes it took me to walk there I was covered in sweat. I believe it was over 100 degrees and the humidity was as thick as Sarah Palin’s gray matter. Of course the air conditioner was “broken” in the cab, I soon learned that air conditioners “break” in cabs a lot in the summer, so they don’t burn up extra gas. Anyway it delivered me to my new home, 2130 Broadway near 75th street on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. I had found a small studio apartment in the Beacon Hotel (back then about 10% of it was residential.) The room was about as big as a college dorm room, with a tiny kitchen and a bathroom about as big as a phone booth. The hotel itself was a budget hotel and was a little run down, they’ve since remodeled and it’s a lot fancier, but it wasn’t so when I moved in. Anyway, I signed some papers and the hotel manager, Tom, a fortysomething man with grey hair and a moustache, gave me my keys.
“Welcome to New York,” he said shaking my hand, “if you have any problems or questions, I’m here till at least six every night, don’t hesitate to call or stop by my office.” He was a nice guy and I thought I was getting off to a good start having just planted myself in the Big Apple. I took the elevator up to the ninth floor and made my way to my new home: Apartment 915. I had looked for it and put a deposit down about two weeks earlier when the last tenant was still living there. I put my key in the lock, opened the door and found out I had roomates. There were cockroaches crawling everywhere, the room was infested. I hate bugs and stood there frozen watching the black bugs roaming around with the greatest of ease in my new home. I snatched my bags ran back into the hallway and locked the door. Within a couple minutes I was back at Tom’s office, bag’s in hand. He looked at me, then at my bags and I’m sure I look freaked out. “You’re not moving back to Peoria, already, are you,” he said laughingly.
“There’s cockroaches all over my apartment,” I blurted out nervously. “I have a thing about bugs.”
I could tell he was stifling laughter as he said, “You’re going to have get over that if you want to live in New York.”
“Huh?” I asked, still in ful-tiltl freak out mode.
“Some buildings are infested with cockroaches and short of tearing the building down, there’s not much you can do. We have exterminators come in once a month and try to keep it down as much as we can, but it’s a problem,” he explained. “The reason there’s so many in your apartment is because it’s been empty for over two weeks, when you live here if you spray and put traps up, it’s not that bad, but you will see a couple every now and again. I really should’ve checked that out before you moved in. Here’s what we’ll do, I’m going to have one of the maintenence men set off a bug bomb in there and we’ll clean it out tomorrow in the morning. I hate to have you do this, but we’re all booked up here, and when we set off the bug bomb, it’s got to be empty for at lleast twelve hours. If you want to check into another hotel for the night, just bring a receipt tomorrow afternoon and I’ll reimburse you. Just do me a favor and don’t get a suite at the Waldorf Astoria? I’m going to have to expense this out through my boss and he’ll be pissed I didn’t think to bomb out your place before you got here,” he explained.
I smiled, feeling relieved he was going to take care of the problem and said, “There’s a budget hotel in midtown called The Wellington. I stayed there when I was here looking for apartments, the rates there aren’t bad.”
“Oh, look at the seasoned New Yorker! He already knows budget hotels in midtown!” He said laughing. “I know that place, if they’ve got a room that would be great, just bring the receipt tomorrow and I’ll take the amount off of next month’s rent, if that’s okay.”
I told him that would be fine, called the Wellington and got a room for the night. I took a cab there, I still didn’t know the subway system and checked into the Wellington. I put my bags in the closet of the modest room and turned the air conditioner on and layed down on the bed, soaking up the air conditioner and trying to relax. After about fifteen minutes I sat up and was just sitting there listlessy and I looked over at the wall and there making a beeline towards the floor was a cockroach. I grabbed a TV Guide off the TV and walked over and with one fell swat, killed the nasty cockroach.
Then I went to a hardware store and got some spray and traps and brought them back to my hotel room in anticipation of moving into my first apartment in New York City.
Bonus Photo From Gene! MAD commenter and one third of the BBC, Gene sent in this photo from his Saturday night out with Smoopy. Thanks for the photo, Gene! If you have an after dark photo of a place you’ve been to, feel free to send it in. And now, take it away, Gene!
Woody's Bar ... Savage, MD Small bar behind a liquor store - that nobody knows that it even exists. They only have Bud and Bud Light on draft ... made me think of you ! First time we've ever been here. Apparently the bar has existed here for decades ... real old school and 365 worthy. Me and Smoops have driven by here and mentioned that we should go in sometime ... and today was the day. This bar doesn't exist on Yelp, or even Google. An almost secret hideaway!
It’s Tuesday and that means it’s time for the weekly hunt for a bar that uses swizzle sticks in it’s mixed drinks. Tonight I’ve chosen a bar up on the Upper West Side called Hi-Life Bar and Grill. I kept meaning to go there on my 365 Bar Crawl and never made it, so that’s tonight swizzle destination.
It's another really nice night out, I really like this time of year.
And here we are, The Hi-Life Bar & Grill. I love their neon sign. It looks pretty packed out here, I hope there's room inside at the bar.
Shit, it's really crowded in here. There's no seats at the bar and it would be tough to take any photos in here. Looks like it's time to take that lonely walk.
Let's see what we can find down the road.
This place doesn't look too bad, let's check it out inside.
Wow, the entire bar is open, let's snag a seat and get a drink. Could a swizzle stick be in our future?
We'll see in a moment. Here's friendly bartender Caesar mixing the drink up.
No swizzle tonight! They just use a straw. But it's friendly in here and I like the bar, let's take a look around.
Some of the lit up bottles behind the bar.
There's stools in front of the bar that look out onto Amsterdam Avenue.
Here's Lars who was seated at the front of the bar. He's from Oslo, Norway and is visiting New York to attend the Comic Con this week. Cheers, Lars!
Some of the beers on draft.
There's tables and chairs in the front corner of the bar with wall to wall windows overlooking the Upper West Side. Nice view in here.
And speaking of nice views, here's Elena who's just joined Caesar behind the bar. I told them I was going to title this photo, "The Beauty and the Beast," and Caesar was a good sport about it and told me to go ahead. So here you have it, "The Beauty and the Beast."
And an obligatory mirror shot and I'm out of here. Goodnight everybody and see you tomorrow after dark.
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