• The East Village’s Love Saves the Day. It’s where Madonna sold her jacket in Desperately Seeking Susan. A little piece of history.
• The Brooks Brothers on Fifth Avenue has closed. I used to be able to drop by after work with ease, so sad.
• Last night a few of us went to Le Gamin on Houston, such a neighborhood goody, and the waiter told us it’s closing this weekend. I loved going there for a summer dinner when they’d open the front doors
• The New York Sun
• Black Orchid Bookshop on East 81st Street.
DT-UT on Second Avenue and 84th Street … best grunge coffee bar in the city. I went on many first dates there over the years—one became a girlfriend for four years.
• Every last shoe store on 8th Street between Broadway and Sixth Avenue. Those blocks were my Mecca back in high school. Doc Martens as far as the eye could see.
• Key, a boutique on Grand Street near Thompson, closed about a month ago. One of the owners, Mary, would pick out things for me try on. I really should have continued to shop there—I still have my job, my economics haven’t changed. But I didn’t, and now there’s nothing I can do about it.
• Fresh on Reade Street. It was a fish distributor, too, and so had great fresh fish, at (too) cheap prices … always could get a window seat at lunch.
• I miss Jefferson Market on Sixth Avenue, particularly the personal attention, old world of men, and the best roast chicken. Also would accept a phone call and pack a bag of groceries and deliver it.
• Old Devil Moon in the East Village: My favorite spot to fuel up for a daylong excursion to Coney Island or the Bronx Zoo. The biscuits and gravy would keep you sated till 8 p.m.
• Trout in Boerum Hill. If you didn’t have a beach house for the summer, at least you had Trout.
• Chocolate Bar. “Our” hot-chocolate place. It moved out of the West Village because of the overhead. My boyfriend and I looked with puppy-dog eyes on the empty storefront and decided to hike over to the new East Village location, only to find it also closed.
• Our favorite diner closed out of nowhere—Café 79. Had been on the corner of 79th Street and First Avenue for like 35 years! My neighbors owned it. We were devastated. “Velvet rope” places come and go in this city, but to see a neighborhood staple fail, it is just plain sad.
• Kim’s Video, on upper Broadway. We even miss the sneers on the staff’s faces every time we’d check out a romantic comedy.