Last night I left work and took the 6 train down to Union Square, where I changed for the N train to Brooklyn. It was the first time I’d crossed the East River since December, and I’m slightly ashamed to admit my motive this time was discount shopping mecca Target, but I needed cheap fairy lights for the garden. Anyway, as the train crossed the Manhattan Bridge I was treated to the awesome views looking south towards lower Manhattan and the Brooklyn Bridge. The subway car was pretty crowded and I was pressed up against the door, and I even managed to record a short filmino. After I’d bought my lights (and stocked up on cereal), I got back on the train already excited at the prospect of enjoying the view a second time. It was almost 8 o’clock, the sky was darkening, and twinkly lights (not unlike those I’d just purchased) were dotted along the Brooklyn Bridge’s steel wires. I immediately recalled the scene in Ghostbusters when Ray and Winston are driving back across the Manhattan bridge in ECTO-1:

As New York braces itself for the release of the Sex and the City movie, could the city in question be generating a backlash already? The answer is a resounding yes if last week’s cover of Time Out is anything to go by. Thanks to some clever (if blatant) photoshopping the ubiquitous Carrie & Co. were rendered speechless by strategically-placed duct tape, while the headline read, “NO SEX! ENOUGH ALREADY–we love ‘em, but it’s just too much. Inside: 1,965 ways to enjoy your New York, guaranteed Carrie-free.“

Last weekend I went to Steve & Barry’s, located somewhere within the ghastly Manhattan Mall near Herald Square, but which happens to be the only store carrying Sarah Jessica Parker’s clothing line, Bitten. In giant billboards surrounding the store SJP claims that fashion should not be a luxury for the privileged few, which is why all Bitten items cost less than twenty dollars. Clearly word of this had got out by the time I arrived, as the actress/fashion icon’s attempt to please the masses had clearly backfired, leaving nothing more than the debris of scattered coathangers and empty shoeboxes.

]]> http://newyorkology.wordpress.com/2008/05/15/nyc-vs-sjp/feed/ 1 Newyorkologist http://newyorkology.wordpress.com/2008/04/28/al-dente/ http://newyorkology.wordpress.com/2008/04/28/al-dente/#comments Mon, 28 Apr 2008 21:22:03 +0000 James http://newyorkology.wordpress.com/?p=135 Continue reading →]]>

This photo of Al Dente (on the corner with the umbrellas) was taken from the corner of Amsterdam Avenue and 81st Street. I couldn’t bring myself to get any closer.

Though I try to keep this blog up-to-date with what is going on in my New York life, there is one tale I have yet to tell. In fact, the subject matter is of such a dark and depressing nature I have had to wait until the onset of Spring to even discuss it. And after I write this, I hope to erase the entire experience from my memory. Here goes.

Around mid-January, I found myself to my surprise, still in New York, but also jobless and soon-to-be-homeless. Out of total desperation, I began handing out resumes in every cafe, bar or restaurant where I thought I could stand to work. With no prior experience in the food and beverage industry I was compelled to make up a phony resumé which stated I had worked at various places in Italy where I used to hang out. One afternoon I had an interview on the Upper West Side at Nice Matin, a spacious brasserie-type restaurant on the corner of Amsterdam Avenue and 79th Street, in the same building as the Hotel Lucerne. On the way I dropped my resumé off at a small unassuming Italian ristorante called Al Dente, a block further up and across the street, on located on the corner of Amsterdam Avenue and 80th Street. This turned out to be my first (and biggest) mistake.

I didn’t get the Nice Matin job as I wasn’t legal, but a couple of evenings later I got a call from Al Dente, and the next morning I went to meet with the manager, a slightly tense woman named Mona. She wanted someone to answer phones, make coffees, serve desserts, and whip up the occasional cocktail. It sounded like an easy, fun gig, so I started the next evening.

I thought my Italian experience would help, though I was clearly hired for this particular job as none of the current employees spoke decent English. Mona wasn’t just tense, but also uptight: a micro-managing, hands-on, control freak of boss I hope never to encounter again. She would criticize everything you did and treat you like a small child, constantly breathing down your neck as you’re trying to work. The place itself would get very busy at weekends and quite stressful. After a couple of weeks I realized I was in hell, but I needed the money so badly I had to stick it out. It was frustrating because I’m sure some restaurant jobs can be fun. This one wasn’t.

The food wasn’t bad and we had a number of regulars, including author Philip Roth (who always ordered a Sprite with no ice). Michael Richards (Kramer from Seinfeld) ate here one night, and former mayor Ed Koch came in once before quickly realizing he was in the wrong restaurant (this happened often). Sadly employees weren’t treated to the same fare, but the nights were so long I’d actually look forward to my 11 o’clock bowl of over-cooked rigatoni swimming in thinned tomato sauce washed down with a tumbler of Diet Pepsi.

I spent most of my time on the phone taking orders, which could often get out of control. Al Dente is the only restaurant in the western world which still uses the carbon paper check, which means that to change an order requires crossing out and rewriting on three separate pieces of paper, resulting in lots of scribbling and many screwed-up orders. You try mixing a flirtini, slicing a strawberry to be served atop a panna cotta, and making three decaf espressos while on the phone with an angry Central Park West resident who wants to know what happened to her side of grilled zucchini every night. Sometimes when the delivery boys were extra busy I’d be sent on local deliveries. This was always a thrill for three reasons: 1) it was a sudden chance to escape the hell of the restaurant and breathe; 2) I’d invariably receive a handsome personal tip; 3) and more importantly, I’d be afforded a sneak peak get to peek inside the home of an affluent Upper West Sider.

Mona herself knew very little about Italian food or wine, believing penne alla vodka or spaghetti and meatballs (her bestselling dishes) to be the height of European sophistication. She also refused to acknowledge that someone could be more informed than her on this (or any other) subject. I got the impression she felt she was doing people a huge favour just by letting them eat in her restaurant, and I felt her general the-customer-is-always-wrong philosophy was an unfortunate attitude with which for someone in the hospitality business to be burdened. On many occasions people took issue with her petty rules and extortionate drinks prices. I ended up losing count of the people who left saying something to the extent of “I’m never coming back.” She’d often tell busboys off with the line, “This is not a diner,” which she’d repeat, almost like a mantra, as if it were her who needed convincing.

But this was the least of her problems. She spied on us through a small camera connected to a computer, and when she wasn’t in the restaurant she would call to tell me not to talk to the other waiter or to ask the busboy not to stand in the window. Employees weren’t allowed to try the actual dishes we served, so when customers asked I had to say something stupid like “I wouldn’t know actually, but it sounds nice.” During the long day shifts, when the restaurant was generally empty, I wasn’t even allowed to make myself an espresso. When I decided to change the CDs in the CD changer (there’s only so much Norah Jones and k.d. lang a man can take) Mona scolded me for going through her private things. One day I saw actor Jerry Stiller (Frank Costanza on Seinfeld and Ben Stiller’s dad in real life) walk past the window. I wanted to chase after him shouting “SERENITY NOW!”

A particularly slow afternoon in March was livened up by an unexpected visit from the Health Department. Panicked, Mona immediately sent me upstairs to try and keep silent the cat which lives in the restaurant, but I guess she didn’t count on the inspectors finding the open can of cat food in the fridge. “You got a cat?!” one of them exclaimed. I could barely contain my laughter. Mona made up some lame story about the cat being there because her son was allergic, and they let it slide. That cat — whose name was Fusili — was arguably the most ridiculous aspect of a ridiculous job. At the end of the night we’d have to take it out of its cage, feed it and then barricade it in the kitchen, where it would no doubt eliminate any vermin that tried to enter. Of course, before being tucked in for the night, Fusili enjoyed roaming like cats do around the dining room floor and under the tables, and we were often let out several minutes late as Pedro the dishwasher chased after it with a napkin. On these occasions I’d just stand in the window and try and focus on the NBA game on the TV in the restaurant across the street, incidentally called Mona.

Towards the end of my time at Al Dente there were several changes in personnel. Bussers and delivery boys would rotate as often as the week’s specials, but the restaurant also went through its share of waiters. When the Nepalese head waiter suddenly quit, a series of potential replacements were brought in, none of whom lasted longer than a week. One of them was an American named John. Around thirty minutes into his first full shift his face had already turned ashen with horror. Needless to say, he failed to show up for his next shift after his girlfriend suffered a “freak injury rolling out of bed.” Mona also rehired a girl from Staten Island named Ann, who had worked at the restaurant previously before leaving to perform as a dancer in Las Vegas. Now, back in New York, she had agreed to return to her old job, which was evidently much worse than she’d remembered. About two weeks later she landed a mysterious position aboard a cruise ship.

So for almost three months I was working days at Mack (see previous post) and nights at Al Dente, leaving the house at nine in the morning and getting home after midnight. I’d squeeze in lunch (a bagel or a slice of pizza) around 4:30pm before my shift started. It wasn’t easy. I was barely eating, and when I was it was sloppy pasta cooked by a short, tired Mexican named José. I was spending more waking minutes per day hanging around on a crowded or deserted subway platform than at home. I was beyond miserable. And eventually I reached a point where I couldn’t take it anymore. In my final week at the restaurant Mona had just about pushed me to breaking point, criticizing my telephone manner, which she called “abrupt” (this after I’d answered the phone fifty times a night for the last three months) and even questioning my personal hygiene. So one day I called her saying there was work stuff I couldn’t get out of.

A couple of weeks passed, and I still had yet to receive my final check, so I went back one evening after work to ask for money. On one of my nights off, Paco, a smart former busboy who was still owed money, had shown up on a Saturday night with the NYPD in tow — perhaps the one time I’d wished I’d been at work. I arrived alone and Mona, without as much as a hello, told me I couldn’t call her on her cellphone, then berated me for leaving so suddenly and accused me of having “convenienced myself.” This was the tête-a-tête I’d fantasized about. I could have said she was lucky I’d lasted two and-a-half months longer than the average Al Dente employee. I could have told her that she was the most ungracious, unprofessional person I have ever come across. I could have told her keeping a live cat loose in the kitchen is a Condition IV violation of Code 4P of the New York City Food and Restaurant Services Act and that I could have her shut down with one phone call. But it really wasn’t worth the trouble — I wanted to rid myself of the whole scene, and erase the last three months which had unexpectedly managed to tarnish what was one of my favourite neighbourhoods in Manhattan. So I bit my tongue and walked out of there.

To this day I still suffer from a slight nausea whenever I’m on the Upper West Side.

Despite the name, and its jaunty Parisian sign, there’s nothing particularly French about Rue B. Indeed, the brilliant collection of black-and-white photographs which clutter the walls is a open-hearted celebration of mid-20th century American cultural or sporting greatness. The effect is quite comforting: these photographs attract your gaze, to the extent that each photo becomes so familiar, each time I return Rue B feels more and more like a second home.

The bathroom is devoted solely to Ol’ Blue Eyes himself. But Rue B, one of a string of establishments on Alphabet City’s Avenue B whose name references the address (B-Cup, B-Side, Bee Liquors), is something rare and special, somehow managing to be a bar, restaurant and jazz lounge. When lights are low a tight three-piece combo swings in the corner, under the watchful gaze of an aging Chet Baker. Last Tuesday I had an excellent cocktail, but I also love the brunch: how could anyone resist something called “Eggs Corleone”?

Drop Off Service is a bar on Avenue A, near the corner of 13th Street in the East Village. Having recently moved to the neighbourhood, I have no hesitations in calling it my new “local”. The bar gets its name from a large etched sign in the window — apparently it used to be a laundromat (ironically I usually go here for a pint while I’m waiting for my laundry). Due to its location Drop Off Service is obviously best enjoyed on a week night or weekend afternoon, where during a long happy hour you can sit back and sample some fine local and European beers. Refreshingly, there’s no big screen TV, instantly eliminating the frat boy crowd in search of college football. To top it all the joint boasts a jukebox selection which may or may not have been inspired by my own record collection. Steely Dan’s greatest hits is disc number 01 — what more could anyone ask for?

David Lynch-inspired graffiti at Corner Bistro in the West Village.

In late January I began another marketing internship at Mack Industries, an event branding agency located in SoHo. After a joint interview I was hired on the spot, probably by virtue of having not finished high school last week. I was excited from the moment I stepped inside the lofty, open-plan office. I filled out my application on a leather couch, as The Cure blasted from an iPod hooked up to a stereo. Other employees arrived on skateboards, while at one end of the room a man paced up and down speaking French into a telephone. The walls were adorned with oversize prints of Andy Warhol, Yoko Ono and other icons of popular culture. A series of blown-up images of John Lennon shooting hoops with Miles Davis hung behind the desk of Willie Mack, the company’s jet-setting, flip-flop-wearing boss.

I was immediately attracted to this position, even though I was vague about the job itself. Sadly I quickly learned the “job” was not all it seemed, and it soon transpired I was basically being used as a plumber, decorator, locksmith, DIY expert and general errand boy. In two-and-a-half months at Mack I changed a bathroom fitting, painted an exterior wall, changed a lock, fitted a curtain track rail to the ceiling, ran all over town fetching and buying equipment, and spent an entire day in the snow handing out flyers for a ridiculous “event” called Absolut Machines, in which the Swedish vodka giant had sponsored the creation of an ludicrous if ingenious internet-operated music box, housed at a what a colleague infuriatingly referred to as a “space” on the Lower East Side.

High points did include interviewing models at a Morgane Le Fay fashion show, in which I came up with the killer question, “Which is tougher: becoming a model or dating a model?” and even met a bleary-eyed Brittany Murphy. When I wasn’t running all over town, I was working on writing for Mack’s proposed online newsletter, but even that was impossible. Willie was mostly absent, and so there was little clear direction in the office. Sometimes meetings were held which only served to cloud issues further. No-one ever seemed to know what they were supposed to be doing. Equally infuriating was the office’s insistence on using Instant Messenger for all conversations. When I would ask a question to colleague (sitting three feet away), they’d reply, “Just IM me it, darling.”

I was surrounded by the very type of young person I loathe, and was mad at myself for having been fooled into thinking the place was cool. I wasn’t going to waste any more precious days performing menial tasks for young urban narcissists. On what turned out to be my last day I was sent to organize the picking-up of Willie’s new designer sofa. The following week I quit, demanding the money I’d been promised (I had yet to receive a cent from these guys). A very talented and yet-to-be-paid colleague had warned me early on that the company was “bulls**t” — I should’ve listened to him.

Giants defensive end Michael Strahan thanks his quarterback Eli Manning after New York’s dramatic Super Bowl victory on Sunday.

They say New Yorkers love an underdog, so they must have really enjoyed Super Bowl XLII. The New York Giants’ wholly unexpected 17-14 victory over the New England Patriots in Ariziona on Sunday was certainly one of the greatest upsets in the history of U.S. sports. As has been well documented, the Pats were looking to achieve an unprecedented 19-0 winning season. Only one team — the Miami Dolphins in 1972 — has gone an entire season unbeaten, but back then there were only 16 games. The ’72 Dolphins had their own celebration party on Sunday night when the Giants kept that long-standing record intact, for at least another season.

Opposing quarterbacks Tom Brady and Eli Manning exchange pleasantries before Super Bowl XLII.

The disparity between this year’s two conference-champions was refelcted best in their two wildly differing quarterbacks. New England’s Tom Brady is a ready-made all-American sports-star in the Namath/Montana mould. He has graced the cover of GQ, is dating Brazilian supermodel Gisele Bündchen and lives in the West Village. The Giants’ Eli Manning — the slightly dorky younger brother of Super Bowl-winning Colts QB Peyton Manning — is the antithesis of Brady. A traded draft-pick who had never quite convinced New York’s discerning and critical fans, Manning led the Giants to unlikely play-off victories in Dallas and Green Bay and ultimately to Glendale, AZ, where the streak was expected to end.

Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers rocked the halftime show with their classics hits “American Girl”, “I Won’t Back Down”, “Free Fallin’” and “Runnin’ Down A Dream”.

But as Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers reminded fans during the halftime show, “I Won’t Back Down” is a neat anthem for the American antihero. Manning must have taken note, as deep into the final quarter he created one of the most memorable plays in Super Bowl history. 14-10 down with 1:15 on the clock, Manning somehow wriggling out of a string of repeated sacks to fly a 23-yard pass to David Tyree, who completed a leaping catch by pinning the ball to his helmet. Manning then found wide receiver Plaxico Burress in the endzone for the winning touchdown with just 35 seconds remaining.

From my East Village apartment I could hear chants of “EE-LI! EE-LI!” in the street. Shortly after the game, Manning was elected MVP: Eli had finally arrived.

Located next to (but mysteriously with no public connection to) the Zabar’s store on the corner of Broadway and 80th Street, this café is not somewhere you should visit for great service or even great food. What makes Zabar’s Café such a fun experience is the unique public interaction. From students to parents to eccentric elderly Upper West Siders, you never quite know who you’ll get talking to at the large communal counter. On my first visit I spent an hour chatting with three middle-aged women, who seemed fascinated to hear about my life and my young foreigner’s view of New York. And if you don’t mind spreading your own cream cheese on your bagel, there’s really no better way to kill a half-hour on a Sunday afternoon. Listen out also for the hilarious live in-store announcements, which occasionally draw attention to exotic cheeses, but generally extol the virtues of Zabar’s own rye bread, as fresh batches are removed hot from the oven: “We feel it’s the best rye in Manhattan.”