One more Bar Falls Victim to Rising Rents

[brianac]

One More Storied Bar Falls Victim to Rising Rents

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/10/24/nyregion/25allstate-600.jpg
Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times

By WINTER MILLER

Published: October 25, 2007
It seems to happen every day, a bar, a cafe, a mom-and-pop store linking New York to its past closes for the last time, usually swallowed up by rising rents. That’s the final chapter for the All State Café, where the last pint was poured in the early hours yesterday.

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Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times
Lyle Greenfield, right, a customer at the All State Café, had a story for Stephen L. Resnick, far left, the owner, on closing night.

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Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times

The All State Café on its last night. Opened in 1968 as W. M. Tweeds,
it was renamed after the murder of Roseann Quinn.

But this closing signifies the end of a bar whose history is darker than most — one with its own niche in the annals of New York crime.
On the night of New Year’s Day in 1973, Roseann Quinn, a schoolteacher and a regular, walked in for a drink at the bar, then called W. M. Tweeds. The man she left with raped her and stabbed her to death, a gruesome murder that became the inspiration for the book and movie “Looking for Mr. Goodbar” with Diane Keaton (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/k/diane_keaton/index.html?inline=nyt-per) as the doomed teacher.
Glenn Johnson, a bar regular, said he was there that night. “I knew the real Roseann Quinn,” said Mr. Johnson, a retired city police detective who did not work on the case. “She wasn’t like they made her out to be.
“She didn’t pick up the guy here. He was her boyfriend’s friend and she was showing him around N.Y.C. They went to a couple of places that night before going back to her apartment. He decided he wanted her to be his girlfriend, and she didn’t want that. He went nuts and he killed her. It had nothing to do with her picking up guys.”
Still, like many bars with a long shelf life, its history now includes a murder.
Mr. Johnson said the bar was full of “salt and pepper and riffraff,” referring to the diverse customers, but he said the bartenders always looked out for the women who came in alone.
In April 1968, Stephen L. Resnick opened W. M. Tweeds, named for the 19th century political boss William M. (Boss) Tweed. After the Quinn murder, Mr. Resnick closed the bar and restaurant for a few months and reopened it as the All State Café, at 250 West 72nd Street between West End Avenue and Broadway.
Customers went four steps down to enter the All State Café, and once inside passed a telephone booth with a working pay phone (beside which, lore has it, John F. Kennedy Jr. (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/k/john_f_jr_kennedy/index.html?inline=nyt-per) and Daryl Hannah used to argue) and a jukebox. Beneath plaques of Little League teams that the bar had sponsored sat rows of wooden tables covered with carved initials. A small TV in the corner was the spot for nightly “Jeopardy!” viewing.
None of the regulars or employees seemed surprised that the bar was closing. The bar’s lease was set to expire in January, and Mr. Resnick, 64, said he and the landlord could not agree on terms for a renewal. But after a fire last week in the exhaust system above the kitchen, Mr. Resnick decided to shut down sooner. Still, no one believed it would actually happen. Workers could not name a single colleague who had lined up a job.
“It cannot be true; this is terrible,” said one longtime customer, Maya Sharma Purcell, 66, echoing an oft-expressed sentiment. “My child learned to be an adult in this place. I had my after-wedding breakfast in this place.”
Katie Adrian’s mother, Vanessa Drake, worked at the bar for 17 years. And Katie, 15, was herself newly hired as a hostess. “They’re my brothers and sisters, and the older staff I’ve known all my life, they’re like my uncles and aunts,” said Katie, wiping tears away.
On Tuesday night, people nibbled from a plate of cold cuts some customers had brought. The more pragmatic passed a clipboard to collect e-mail addresses to come up with a new place to convene. The problem was no one could suggest an alternative. Mr. Resnick, who described the closing of his bar as “the end of a lifetime,” listened to a toast in his honor and ducked out into the humid October evening.
“I once tried to calculate the number of chickens I’d eaten,” said another longtime regular, Lyle Greenfield, 60. “Half a roast chicken three nights a week for let’s say 30 years.” Mr. Greenfield, who is a partner in a music production company, said he used to take first dates to the bar. A second date depended on whether they liked the place.
Hanging green lamps cast a smoky pall as patrons flouted the law and smoked indoors. The crowds thickened with a mix of bankers, Bohemians and baby boomers. Overwhelmingly, people compared the bar to the one in “Cheers.” Some even said James E. Burrows, one of the writers of “Cheers” and a regular customer, based Cliff Clavin, the pathetic postal worker, on another regular.
Mr. Burrows, reached by phone in Los Angeles, dismissed that rumor but remembered the bar fondly. “The All State influenced me in so many ways in knowing what a bar climate was,” he said. “There was a Norm in All State.” Norm, of course, was another regular at “Cheers.”
It was whispered that Kevin Bacon (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/b/kevin_bacon/index.html?inline=nyt-per), the actor who once waited tables here between films in the mid-80s, would swoop in and buy the building. But Mr. Bacon, the Chip, as he was known at the bar for his debut role in the movie “Animal House, “ was not going to save it.
Mr. Burrows summed it up for many, “It was a place, dare I say it, where everybody knows your name.” He would know.

[brianac]

Another Casualty of High Rents on the Upper West Side

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Henry Stram, actor and long-time patron of Cafe La Fortuna, putting a picture of John Lennon and Yoko Ono back on a cafe wall.

By JENNIFER 8. LEE (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/l/jennifer_8_lee/index.html?inline=nyt-per)
Published: February 22, 2008

Two deaths brought about the decision to close Cafe La Fortuna, a beloved three-decade-old cafe that drew John Lennon (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/l/john_lennon/index.html?inline=nyt-per), Yoko Ono (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/o/yoko_ono/index.html?inline=nyt-per) and other Upper West Side residents with its garden, opera music and Italian desserts.

The first death, a few years ago, was of the landlord, who had kept the rent for the space at 69 West 71st Street at a reasonable rate despite escalating real estate prices in the neighborhood.

The second death, in January, was of Alice Urwand, half of the husband-and-wife team that founded and owned the cafe. Her husband, Vincent Urwand, posted a large sign in the cafe window on Thursday announcing the closing of the cafe and saying, “With her a piece of me died.”

The death of the landlord led to a new landlord, who said the rent was going to jump to two and a half times what the cafe had been paying, said Michael Trapani, a family friend who later became one of the owners. “He just made it clear that the rate was going to be X amount of dollars,” Mr. Trapani said.

“To survive, we would have had to charge $10 for a cup of coffee.”
The higher rent set off an internal debate, and sparked rumors of the demise of the cafe, which Mr. Urwand denied.

Then came the death of Ms. Urwand, 80, who was considered the heart and soul of the establishment. (The cafe was named in honor of her mother.)

“The death of Alice, that kind of convinced us that it was over,” Mr. Trapani said.

The last day of business for the cafe, founded in 1976, is Sunday.

Shocked customers stopped to stare at the sign in the window announcing the closing, lamenting the loss of a relic of the old Upper West Side that existed before the gentle waves of gentrification climbed north along the border of Central Park, leaving Banana Republics, condominium buildings and socioeconomic homogeneity in their wake.

Marie Wallace, a neighborhood resident who was standing outside the cafe, looking at the announcement, said: “I have nothing against Starbucks. I like Starbucks. I have a card there, but you go in and out and no one knows you.”

Ms. Wallace, an actress who has been living in the neighborhood for 40 years and going to the cafe for 30 of them, added: “In the ’60s and early ’70s, there were like no restaurants. There were antique shops, cleaners and mom-and-pop shops where you passed and said, ‘Hello!’ Now there is no one to say hello to.”

Cafe La Fortuna charmed a steady clientele despite its cash-only policy. There were few changes over the years. A flat-screen television set was installed, which is still used to view operas. Wraps were added to the sandwich selection. But in many ways, the space remained constant: the same black tin ceiling and the same brick walls decorated with the same vinyl records and sepia-toned autographed photos accumulated over the years.

Among the photos were a series of pictures of Mr. Lennon and Ms. Ono.

Customers remember seeing Ms. Ono sitting in the back garden after Mr. Lennon was killed in 1980. Recently, the cafe owners gave her the table that Mr. Lennon used in the summer. Still on hand is the table he sat at in the winter. Mr. Trapani said he and Mr. Urwand were debating whether to donate it to a museum.

“It’s heartbreaking,” said Henry Stram, a customer who had been going to the cafe since it opened, when he was a Juilliard student, paying $165-a-month rent for an apartment. Mr. Stram said, “I’ve told many people, when this place closes, it’s time to leave New York.”

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company.

[Fahzee]

^ that's too bad. It's a nice place, quiet and affordable.

There's something about sitting in a well worn seat that makes an expresso taste all the better......

[MidtownGuy]

Very sad indeed. Maybe it will be replaced by a row of ATMs.:rolleyes: