Why is Joe's Bar closed?

Joe's Bar, the legendarily trashy/tacky/scary place on 6th Street between A & B has been shuttered since last weekend. This is the place that would force the bartenders to stay open till 4am on a Sunday night, just in case someone might stagger in.

I got into a conversation with the owner, an older woman with considerable disgust for pretty much everything, one misguided, drunk morning. I told her to try to look on the bright side but she wasn't having it. I'm a little worried for her, but the folks over at EV Grieve say that some neighbors told them it was some sort of paperwork glitch with the state. Let's hope so.

Yup the down Stairmaster

There was a recent NY Times article about how the recession (have your heard about it?) has hit us well-educated people in New York especially hard. It reminded me of that legendary and much-maligned Village Voice cover from the early nineties, "Yup the Down Stairmaster". It turns out that well-educated people are suffering from this recession, like, a lot!

I would know (but I still get that $430 a week, yo, for a while).

Can they just reopen Save the Robots again, please? See you at 5am with the sawdust on the floor.

Times are changing

Alphabet City in the 70s

Walking up Avenue A the other day I did a mental tally of all of the places that have closed down recently. It's like watching the 90s in reverse.

Here's a partial list of Avenue A (and adjacent) restaurants that have closed recently:

• Two Boots Restaurant
• Esashi (the so-so sushi place)
• Mo Pitkins (that bar/performance space formerly co-owned by Jimmy Fallon)
• Via Delle Zoccolette (which was actually quite good and pleasant)
• Hopscotch (that irritating child-friendly but still hip and happenin' cafe)
• Oriental Grill (home of an excellent pu pu platter)
  

Mo Pitkins has been for sale for like a year now with no takers.

When I first moved to New York in 1988 you could count the number of non-bar businesses on Avenue A on one hand. In fact, I think that the only semi-upscale restaurant was Avenue A Sushi. Now even they are struggling and experimenting with various 1/2-off deals at different times.

Actually I see this as a good thing. There were very few legitimate businesses in Alphabet City in the old days, but we had a lot of fun. The night didn't really get going until the after hours places opened at 4. Maybe we'll get a little of that action back.

Ultimately, we aren't suffering some great downturn, though. We are just getting back to reality. I remember several years ago wondering at what point did every yahoo with a 2 bedroom split level in Bayonne become a millionaire? Well it turns out that everybody was just worth a million in prizes and now we return to a world of fewer fancy restaurants, cheaper happy hours and, hopefully, less hubris.