That part of me, the 10011 part, was delt a savage blow today when I learned that Joe Jr.'s, my old across-the-street diner, lost its lease and is shutting down this weekend.
It's just a terrible thing to have happen to the spirit of the neighborhood to which I'm still endeared, no matter where I'm laying my head for the month. I know that not everyone who ever ate there had the best meal, but it was a fixture and it worked for me...a place for an early meal with visitors, coming of going, the place where I unwisely had the Lumberjack Breakfast before beginning my Trademarks take home final, the place where I watched the gruff lady packing gratis dinners for the neighborhood's homeless at night, the place where I eavesdropped on some of the most ridiculous conversations I've ever heard in New York while eating what had become my latenight comfort staple: a BLT with a split pea soup. One night I sat there taking in a trio of identically dressed and coiffed sinister New Jersey meat heads who had parked their drophead Bentley right in front, a few times I passed by to see Steve Forbes sitting in a front window seat. One time I went there the fellows and Duane impressed the gruff waitress by telling her in Greek that he had lived in Greece as a missionary, the result: a whipped cream dessert on the house.
I must have become a "real New Yorker" at some point because here I am, bemoaning the transformation of "my" neighborhood, looking back on the way things used to be. So many remember whens, they just pile up one after the other.
Perhaps the neighborhood will save it, who knows. Continuing coverage available at Eater.
1 comment:
Let me guess...they replaced it with a Red Mango.
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