Food Cart Nightshift Workers @9:30 pm Various Locations Midtown Manhattan Every Wednesday I’m going to be going somewhere and taking photos of people working the night shift. Food trucks have become all the rage these days. Mobile kitchens roam the town selling everything from burgers to steaks to tacos to (of course) cupcakes. They have Twitter and facebook accounts and update constantly to let the hungry masses know which corner the restaurant on wheels will be parked and for how long. However, before the food truck, there was the street vendor selling food from a cart. Usually simple fare, like hot dogs, sausages, meat skewers and pretzels. These vendors are still out there and I thought I’d go out and get some shots of them before the food trucks run them over and put them out of business. I hope you’re hungry!
Okay, one block away from work and we've found a nighttime cart already.
It's a Halal food cart. A lot of late-night carts are Halal vendors. Remember our 53rd and 3rd friend?
And here's the fellow inside of the cart. I ordered a hotdog from him.
And he flew into action. He's got a grill in here, this isn't your average New York dirty water dog.
And a liberal dose of mustard seals the deal. He almost put ketchup on it, but luckily I stopped him in the nick of time. Ketchup does not belong on a hotdog.
And there you go, a perfectly cooked, New York street dog. Delicious!
This woman waved at me as I took a picture of her and her cart.
She was a very nice Russian woman and she happily served me up a pretzel.
Here's a loaded Sabrett cart. I'm not hungry after the hotdog and pretzil, but let's see who's manning this food cart.
He was a nice guy waiting for customers on a chilly evening.
Okay, let's go down the block and see who we can find.
It's the Nuts 4 Nuts man!
Here he is, displaying a bag of his product. Pretty nuts, huh?
That cart has an electric sign on top of it. Let's go check it out.
Pretty fancy, let's see who's manning this food cart.
There's a lot of choices here, foodwise. I kind of wish I wouldn't have filled up earlier.
There's no one in here though. An empty cart.
Hey, here he is, he was taking a break outside of his cart. He told me business was a little slow tonight. Hopefully it'll pick up when it warms up outside.
Speaking of warming up, I was freezing, so it's time to head homeward bound. We'll go down 7th Avenue.
Graffiti on a window on 7th Avenue.
Holy smokes!
Look, it's a station wagon with a thyroid problem.
Health is wealth...
But liquor is quicker. Goodnight everybody and see you tomorrow after dark.
Eating from street vendor carts is a little like eating a buffets in delis around town. You’re kind of taking your stomach on a little bit of a joy ride that sometimes doesn’t end up quite so joyous. I’ve heard street vendors carts referred to as “roach coaches,” and the most disgusting thing I’ve ever witnessed was in Times Square, a long time ago. I can’t remember where I was going, this is years ago, I was probably headed to Show World to go watch the cum cleaners in action, but all of a sudden I realized I was starving. There was a food cart a few feet away, so I went over and ordered a hot dog from the guy. It was the middle of summer, hot and while the cart didn’t look like the cleanest thing in the world, I was starving so I tried to ignore the grime the cart was covered in. I asked him to put mustard on it, but I got a bonus. Right after he applied a liberal dose of mustard to the dog from a dirty, generic yellow squirt bottle, he sneezed. Directly on the hot dog. And then acting like nothing was wrong he spat out, “Buck and a quarter.” He was a big guy and he was holding the hot dog with one hand and held the other out for the money.
“But you sneezed on it,” I said in horror.
“You order, you pay,” the guy said in a clipped accent I didn’t recognize. Wherever he was from, I guess it’s okay to sneeze and serve.
“Forget it,” I said, raising my hands in defense and then turned to walk away. Seconds later and just a step away I felt something hit me in the back. I stopped looked down and saw a hotdog. He threw it at me. I looked up at him in the cart and he was giving me the finger. At least he didn’t hit me with the mustard side.
Fireside Chat @11:00 pm My Apartment/Chelsea As I wrote on Monday, one of the pleasures of doing this blog is I can do whatever I feel like doing, as long as it’s after dark. So I can go wherever I want and do the night’s post and then put it up the next day. And that includes my apartment, which will be nice for night’s like tonight. As I wrote yesterday, I had to go to work early today and this process is going to happen all week. Anyway, I’m really beat tonight and thought I’d just go home and make a fire and have a few beers and so that’s tonight’s destination and after hours journey. I’ll take some photos on my walk home and think about something to write about on my laptop while sitting in front of my fireplace. And here we go. It's straight up 6th Avenue and then we're home.
Sandwiches, bagels and coffee, the holy trinity of delis.
Same caption as the last, just replace sandwiches and coffee for paninis and wraps.
In case you're wondering if this store is closing...
Just check out their other windows. Gee, this is just a guess, but maybe you mismanaged yourself. You know, like maybe just puttting up one big sign saying you're closing as opposed to a thousand hand written ones all over your four windows.
Oh no, another one of these, let's just get home, I think the dollar pizza joints have officially outnumbered bedbugs at this point!
Ah, the log is in the fireplace and all is well. Let's fire it up.
There we go, now we're talking. Well, not yet, let me think of something to write about.
Tonight I thought I’d write about the very thing you’re on if you’re reading this: The internet. I have a love/hate relationship with the internet. What I love about it is the wealth of information that’s available to you at the tip of your fingers. Google didn’t even start up until 1998 and now I probably go there at least a dozen times a day. In fact I had to Google the word “Google” to see when it started. I was half afraid I’d turn to dust while doing that, but I survived.
For all the good the internet has done for the world, it’s also fucked a lot of shit up. Record stores are becoming a dying thing now because everyone downloads music on the internet, no one buys albums or CD’s anymore and it’s killing the thing that we knew as the record store. Going to the record store was a social thing. Even if you went alone, maybe you’d strike up a conversation with someone looking at the same record as you were, or you’d talk to the person behind the counter about the music they were playing in the store that you had never heard of. I had a conversation with two kids in a bar last year (where else) and they tried to tell me that going to the Apples iTunes store was the same thing as going to a record store. I told them it wasn’t a social thing to go to the iTunes store and they argued that it was, because you can leave comments and communicate that way. I gave up and went back to my beer.
And speaking of comments, that’s another thing that bugs me about the internet. It used to be if you wanted to sound off on something that was in the paper, you had to sit down and compose a letter to the editor of that paper. And then the editors of that paper would decide if they would run it or not. Doesn’t sound democratic? Well, that’s because newspaper editors are smarter than most of the people writing in to them. Most people read their news online now and almost every paper online has a comments button after every story. And you don’t have to leave your real name. This has turned every half-brained, drooling idiot out there into an instant critic and pundit and they now can have their inane and imbecilic thoughts plastered out there for millions of people to read. The only problem is a good portion of these nitwits don’t know how to spell. The New York Post’s gossip column ran an item today on Rosie O’Donnell breaking up wth her girlfriend. Someone who’s handle is “a2z” left this comment: “I lost 25 lbs All you need to do is think of being stuck that discusting beast. YOU EAT ALL YOU WANT THEN THROW THE FUC UP” I swear to God I didn’t alter that comment one bit. I was written up on somebody’s blog for my 365 bars blog last year and I was called an “alkaholic looser” in someone’s comment. Skary...I mean scary stuff! Another thing that the internet is affecting is porn. I’m not saying it’s ruining porn, it’s hard (no pun intended, okay pun intended somewhat) to ruin such a time-treasured part of our society, but I think there’s so much of it readily available in the privacy of your home or apartment that it’s making people numb to it. I was on a porn site a couple months ago...doing research of course, thanks for that excuse, Pete Townshend!, and you could click a button and see what the most watched video of that day was. Know what it was? Two obese women shitting into their hands and spreading it on each other. It was discusting...I mean disgusting. When that’s the most popular video of the day, I think we’ve all seen a little too much porn. The internet also takes a lot of the excitement out of porn. I think we’ve all had that moment in the past when you’re renting, “Titty Titty Gang Bang” at the video store and your next door neighbor comes up to say hello. Awkward! But it led to the excitement of getting the tape. Now all you have to do is type in the word “porn” on Google and a whole universe of porn awaits you. The only trouble is, a lot of people these days don’t know how to spell porn.
Okay, I have to run. I haven’t checked my email in ten minutes. I’m way overdue.
Tad's Steaks @8:23 pm Herald Square Most New Yorkers have eaten at Tad’s Steaks once...and then they never go back again. I think there’s four of them, all near Times Square, but they’re all kind of identical. There’s neon out front and usually there’s a long line consisting of tourists and local New Yorkers who are craving a steak, yet who’s address is a cardboard box three and a a half blocks away. When you get up to the front of the line, you can order your steak from a cook who if you’re lucky is in possession of about two thirds of the English language. Once your steak is cooked you’ll snake down the cafeteria-styled aisle as they throw on a baked potato (somehow they manage to make a baked potato greasy), onions, garlic bread and you can add items such as a saran-wrapped glass of wine (red or white, vintage 2011, poured from a screw-topped bottle) well aged desserts, limp salads and soda or beer. And then you can enjoy your dinner in the dining room which has the ambience of a grade school lunch room desperately in need of city-funding meets the day room from “One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest.” Can we have our A-1 sauce now, Nurse Ratched? I haven’t eaten at a Tad’s for a long, long time. I have to go to work early tomorrow (they want me in before the crack of noon, oh the inhumanity of it all!) so I’m going out earlier than usual for my after dark adventure and I thought I’d go out to eat, since I skipped my Sunday dinner yesterday and I’ve got the night off tonight due to Presiden’s' Day. And I’ve decided to go to Tad’s. Maybe I’ll get food poisoning and then I won’t feel guilty about calling in sick to work tomorrow.
I thought I'd splurge and take a taxi there since it's a holiday and I'm in a hurry to get it over with.
And we're off, into the night.
And here we are, Tad's on 34th street. There's one closer to Times Square, but I didn't feel like dealing with that madness tonight.
I have to confess, I do like the neon in the window.
Okay, time for Tad's!
There's always a line at Tad's and tonight is no exception.
I've decided to go with number 10, The Big Daddy. As long as we're here, might as well take the full ride!
And here's the chef for the evening.
As you can see, he's pleased to meat us.
The line of trays waiting for dinner to be served is queued up.
And now we're moving and the dance begins!
You can almost see the germs swimming around in the pools of water along the way.
And dinner is served. Those gloves make me wonder if this man doubles as a proctologist.
You have the option of adding some of these side dishes. I passed as I wasn't really sure what sort of food groups they fell into.
This section scared me as it looks empty except for a couple of deep fried bugs.
And to the left may I present Tad's leaning tower of plates.
At Tad's you can have your cake and eat it too, but I decided to pass as the frosting was pink and it scared me a little.
And here's the famous Saran-wrapped wine.
But if you'd rather have a bottle, here you go. And you don't even have to bother with a cork!
Personally, I'm only here for the beer. And they have 24 ounce bottles at Tad's! Gotta love that!
What, you expected a hostess at Tad's?
And here we are in the dining room. Luckily you don't have to hear the bad '80s rock that's being piped into this room.
I think I'll sit here.
And here's the dinner, still alive and kicking.
All done, is it too early to call in sick to work now?
Okay, out the door and home to raid the Rolaids vat. Goodnight everybody, see you tomorrow after dark.
Review Tad’s answers the age-old question: “It’s steak, how bad can it be?” Tad's Steaks 152 West 34th Street (Near 7th Ave.) 212-630-0318
If you followed the 365 blog, you'll probably remember my friend Lex. Well she recently had a holiday skiing weekend and sent in this photo. While it's not an after dark photo, I do appreciate her friends on the gondola's style. Here's the photo and the caption Lex sent in.
I had the honor of sharing the gondola with these two, and had to get their photo! Pete (on the right) and Jordan were enjoying a day off from their Adventure Tour Guide degree program. Thought you might approve of the way they spend their 15 minute ride to the top!
Wandering around @8:45 pm Bleecker St. in Greenwich Village One thing I like about this blog is I can do whatever the fuck I want to do. Some nights I may just wander around and take pictures and that’s the plan for this evening. I’m going to try and go to one bar a week, but I just am not in the mood tonight. It’s one of those nights I don’t feel like talking or being sociable, so maybe I’ll go to one tomorrow. This is what I love about this blog. If I don’t want to mingle with people I don’t have to. Do you know how many nights I didn’t want to go to a bar last year, but still had to drag my sorry ass to one and then be the motherfucking life of the goddamned party, I’m breaking out in sweats just thinking about it. So, no bar tonight, I think I’ll walk down towards Greenwich Village and see what’s happening.
Here I am, ready to go out outfitted in my recently purchased Jaws the Cabbie jersey. Check out the Jaws the Cabbie store here: Jaws the Cabbie Store.
I've wandered down towards Bleecker Street and thought we'd take a little tour of this fine street in Greenwich Village.
The walking man says, "Walk," so that's what we'll do.
And so, here we go. A journey of Bleecker Street begins.
Here's Caleb who's manning the counter at the store.
A sight for sore eyes in this day of mp3's, a wall of vinyl records.
It's time for Regis...to retire, from what I've read in the papers lately.
Mick Jagger's first solo outing, the soundtrack to "Performance."
Buttshakers!
Here's the store's security cat. Hey, wake up fella!
Night time shoppers around an outside jewelry sales table.
That's one bold statement!
The Back Fence Bar. This place has been on the block for years, maybe I'll go here tomorrow night.
I had a late lunch of a grilled salami and swiss cheese sandwich on rye and it's giving me heartburn like crazy, so I'm stopping in here to get some Rolaids. Maybe I can get a shot of a deli man in my travels.
The Chinese deli man was shy and didn't want his picture taken, but Sammy, who was buying some bagels was happy to pose for the MAD camera.
Sammy told me he works two doors down here at the Trattoria restaurant.
Here's the legendary Bleecker Street nightclub, The Bitter End.
Tom Howes was having a cigarette outside. I had a nice conversation with Tom about New York, The Lovin' Spoonful and other topics. Tom's a singer, guitarist and writer who'll be performing here in a few weeks.
And they say there's no jobs in New York these days.
And they say there's no jobs in New York these days, part II, the search for a cook.
A shadowy portrait of Kari and Mike who were relaxing on a bench on Bleecker Street.
Guitars behind bars.
Racks of postcards on Bleecker Street.
Alfrey was decked out in a suit and tie and waiting for friends to show up on Bleecker Street.
I wonder if this place is any relation to Frank Booth?
The question here is, do you really want your teeth whitened by someone who can't spell, "guaranteed?"
This is one of the best pizza joints in New York City.
Hookah pipes in a window on Bleecker Street.
The biggest margarita in the world atop the Caliente Cab Co.
Eye spy.
This store has legs.
Okay, up Sixth Avenue and homeward bound.
Boy, there's just no escape from this shit! Goodnight everybody and see you tomorrow, after dark.
Bleecker St. One of the chapters in my book, “99 Beers Off The Wall,” was spent on Bleecker St. Here’s the introduction to that chapter.
Yesterday’s scattered, all-over-the-city bar battles have left me fatigued and a true General Patton-like weariness has sunk into my battered body. My head aches, my eyes are reduced to sunken globes of a pinkish hue and my jeans stink of blood, sweat and beers. Today will be a more relaxed day as I plan to keep close to home by leisurely reviewing bars close by the homefront on Bleecker St., a mere pebble’s throw away.
The reason I chose Bleecker St., other than the fact that it’s close by, is because in my wild-eyed youth when I was in high school in the midwest town of Peoria, Illinois, my friends and I would pile in a couple of cars and park in a field on the outskirts of town where we’d proceed to get high on a variety of pills, powders, smoke and beer. When it was winter we’d sit in the beat up cars with the heaters on like they were our little apartments, stoned out of our gourds, jabbering, joking and being silly in a carefree way only a stoned 16-year-old can be. When it was an exceptionally clear night we tuned up and down the FM dial for a late night show called “Bleecker St.” The DJ/Emcee of the Bleecker St. show was one of those low-voiced, stoned/smooth talking DJ’s that emanated “cool” in the mid ’70s. He’d play music unknown and unheard of in Peoria, Illinois—the first time I ever heard The Velvet Underground was on “Bleecker St.”—and we’d get high, drink and listen intently to these new and wonderful sounds. We all wondered where this elusive Bleecker St. was until one night the stoned DJ, announced, “You’re listening to Bleecker St., here in New York City, maaan.” I remember trying to imagine what Bleecker St. and New York were like. Even my imagination stoked to the gills on pot, various pills and cheap cans of Blatz beer failed to conjure up the proper imagery, but I knew it was world’s away from sitting in a car in the middle of a field, stoned to the bone in Peoria, Illinois.
Most of the people I used to sit in cars and get high and drink cheap beer with are still in Peoria. The majority of them are married with kids, cars, jobs, house payments and lives steeped in the middle class world of midwest America. And as I consider my life of freelance writing, being single, working a goofy, responsibility-free night-shift job to pay my rent in New York City while I count the 56 bucks in my only pair of jeans, gather up my cigarettes and head out the door to drink 14 beers in 14 bars on Bleecker Street, I feel like the luckiest son of a bitch in the land.
Big Nick’s @9:50 pm Upper West Side Live, from New York, it’s Cheeseburger Saturday Night! Tonight’s host is Big Nick’s on the Upper West Side and featuring the ready for prime beef player, Marty Wombacher. Ladies and gentlemen...Big Nick’s!
That's right, I've decided to keep the Cheeseburger Saturday Night tradition alive. I just don't have to do it in a bar anymore, so I can go out later on a Saturday night and go somewhere where it's not crawling with drunken idiots. I've decided to go to a place that's legendary on the Upper West Side. It's restaurant that's been in business since 1962 called Big Nick's and they have over 60 kinds of burgers there. We'll take the 14th street subway up there. Jesus, it's freezing out here tonight!
And here we are, at least it'll be warmer down there.
It's a bit of a hike to get to the stop.
I stopped and took a break and listened to this guy play saxophone. He was really good, it's amazing some of the music you can experience down in the subways of New York. I flipped him a couple bucks and was on my way.
Holy shitballs, a train is pulling in just as I'm at the top of the stairs! What luck!
No waiting tonight! I love it when this happens.
The train's not that crowded for 9:30 on a Saturday night.
This couple texted the whole time I was on the train. God forbid they put those things down and actually talk to each other.
And here we are at the 72nd street exit.
This is where I first lived when I moved here over 17 years ago, my old stomping grounds, the Upper West Side.
Here's the Beacon Hotel, where my first apartment was located. It was a little shabbier when I lived there, they've fixed it up a bit and it's pretty nice now.
This is the newsstand where I'd buy my newspapers and magazines back in the pre-internet days.
Goddamn, it's cold out here, Big Nick's is just two blocks away, let's hightail it there.
And here it is, the legendary Big Nick's.
There's neon and signs plastered all over the front window.
There's tables outside, but it's too freezing out here to be sitting at one of them tonight.
Some publicity for Big Nick's. I have to watch Midnight Cowboy and see if I can find it.
Okay, let's go in. I love the fact that they're open "23 hours." Ha!
The place is divided into two rooms. This is the front of the left room, there's wooden booths up front to sit at.
This neon light on the wall casts a magenta hue on the room.
Here's the back of the room, tables are packed in here close together and you get to know your neighbors in here. In addition to burgers, sandwiches, a big breakfast menu, Big Nick's also has a wide variety of pizza, as the neon sign announces.
The walls are plastered with pictures and signs and it would take you days to look at all of them.
Here's the other room, off to the left. A waiter told me there was a single table, so I went off to get it. It's pretty crowded in here tonight.
Big Nick's is a friendly place and you're packed in close to each other, so it's easy to get to know your dining neighbors. Seated next to me is: Abe, Kristina and Melodie. I found out that Kristina had just gotten engaged. Congratulations, Kristina!
There's plenty of pictures back here as well. If you look closely to the right you'll see a vintage Allman Brothers poster.
There's tons of things to order here, the menu is like a little 10 page fanzine. Check it out online: Big Nick's menu.
And here's Jon, the pretty and friendly waitress who took my order. In spite of the fact she was busy, she still stopped to pose for the MAD camera. Nice!
Here's a view of the kitchen area from where I was seated.
And here's the counter in front of the kitchen area.
My vanilla shake was promptly served. The shakes here are out of this world!
I love the sign that just says, "TALK." Ha ha ha!
And here we go, Cheeseburger Saturday night! I got the cheddar burger and seasoned waffle fries.
It was delicious, but I have to confess I couldn't eat the whole thing. It was like a pound of ground beef!
The counter had cleared out by the time I was getting ready to leave.
And here we are, back out into the night, walking down Broadway.
Since it's Saturday night, I splurged and took a cab home and snapped this photo out the window. Goodnight everybody and see you tomorrow after dark.
Big Nick’s 2175 Broadway (77th @Broadway) (212) 362-9238 Upper West Side Going to Big Nick’s on the Upper West Side made me think about the the day I moved to New York. On July 7th, 1993 I boarded a plane in Peoria, Illinois that was headed to Chicago and then I got on one bound for LaGuardia airport in New York. I was 35-years-old, had quit my job as a film stripper where I had worked the last 13 years of my life, sold my car, my furniture, my stereo, my records and most of my clothes and cashed in my pension fund from my job and was moving to New York City that day. I had been so busy for the three months before I moved, I didn’t really think about the fact that I only knew about four people there, I had no job waiting for me and the odds of me getting a staff writing job in New York City were certainly stacked against me. One thought started racing through my brain like a hyperactive marathon runner on amphemines: “What in the living name of holy fuck have you just done?” I had a few beers on the flight and calmed down a little. When I landed in New York, I gathered up my suitcases and went out into the blazing heat (the week I moved there it shattered all kinds of heat records and was probably the hottest I’ve ever seen it in my 17 and a half years out here) and trudged to the cab stand. In the two minutes it took me to walk there I was covered in sweat. I believe it was over 100 degrees and the humidity was as thick as Sarah Palin’s gray matter. Of course the air conditioner was “broken” in the cab, I soon learned that air conditioners “break” in cabs a lot in the summer, so they don’t burn up extra gas. Anyway it delivered me to my new home, 2130 Broadway near 75th street on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. I had found a small studio apartment in the Beacon Hotel (back then about 10% of it was residential.) The room was about as big as a college dorm room, with a tiny kitchen and a bathroom about as big as a phone booth. The hotel itself was a budget hotel and was a little run down, they’ve since remodeled and it’s a lot fancier, but it wasn’t so when I moved in. Anyway, I signed some papers and the hotel manager, Tom, a fortysomething man with grey hair and a moustache, gave me my keys.
“Welcome to New York,” he said shaking my hand, “if you have any problems or questions, I’m here till at least six every night, don’t hesitate to call or stop by my office.” He was a nice guy and I thought I was getting off to a good start having just planted myself in the Big Apple. I took the elevator up to the ninth floor and made my way to my new home: Apartment 915. I had looked for it and put a deposit down about two weeks earlier when the last tenant was still living there. I put my key in the lock, opened the door and found out I had roomates. There were cockroaches crawling everywhere, the room was infested. I hate bugs and stood there frozen watching the black bugs roaming around with the greatest of ease in my new home. I snatched my bags ran back into the hallway and locked the door. Within a couple minutes I was back at Tom’s office, bag’s in hand. He looked at me, then at my bags and I’m sure I look freaked out. “You’re not moving back to Peoria, already, are you,” he said laughingly.
“There’s cockroaches all over my apartment,” I blurted out nervously. “I have a thing about bugs.”
I could tell he was stifling laughter as he said, “You’re going to have get over that if you want to live in New York.”
“Huh?” I asked, still in ful-tiltl freak out mode.
“Some buildings are infested with cockroaches and short of tearing the building down, there’s not much you can do. We have exterminators come in once a month and try to keep it down as much as we can, but it’s a problem,” he explained. “The reason there’s so many in your apartment is because it’s been empty for over two weeks, when you live here if you spray and put traps up, it’s not that bad, but you will see a couple every now and again. I really should’ve checked that out before you moved in. Here’s what we’ll do, I’m going to have one of the maintenence men set off a bug bomb in there and we’ll clean it out tomorrow in the morning. I hate to have you do this, but we’re all booked up here, and when we set off the bug bomb, it’s got to be empty for at lleast twelve hours. If you want to check into another hotel for the night, just bring a receipt tomorrow afternoon and I’ll reimburse you. Just do me a favor and don’t get a suite at the Waldorf Astoria? I’m going to have to expense this out through my boss and he’ll be pissed I didn’t think to bomb out your place before you got here,” he explained.
I smiled, feeling relieved he was going to take care of the problem and said, “There’s a budget hotel in midtown called The Wellington. I stayed there when I was here looking for apartments, the rates there aren’t bad.”
“Oh, look at the seasoned New Yorker! He already knows budget hotels in midtown!” He said laughing. “I know that place, if they’ve got a room that would be great, just bring the receipt tomorrow and I’ll take the amount off of next month’s rent, if that’s okay.”
I told him that would be fine, called the Wellington and got a room for the night. I took a cab there, I still didn’t know the subway system and checked into the Wellington. I put my bags in the closet of the modest room and turned the air conditioner on and layed down on the bed, soaking up the air conditioner and trying to relax. After about fifteen minutes I sat up and was just sitting there listlessy and I looked over at the wall and there making a beeline towards the floor was a cockroach. I grabbed a TV Guide off the TV and walked over and with one fell swat, killed the nasty cockroach.
Then I went to a hardware store and got some spray and traps and brought them back to my hotel room in anticipation of moving into my first apartment in New York City.
Bonus Photo From Gene! MAD commenter and one third of the BBC, Gene sent in this photo from his Saturday night out with Smoopy. Thanks for the photo, Gene! If you have an after dark photo of a place you’ve been to, feel free to send it in. And now, take it away, Gene!
Woody's Bar ... Savage, MD Small bar behind a liquor store - that nobody knows that it even exists. They only have Bud and Bud Light on draft ... made me think of you ! First time we've ever been here. Apparently the bar has existed here for decades ... real old school and 365 worthy. Me and Smoops have driven by here and mentioned that we should go in sometime ... and today was the day. This bar doesn't exist on Yelp, or even Google. An almost secret hideaway!
My Apartment @12:39 am Friday Night Midnight Movie—Glengarry Glen Ross One of the things with this new blog that will be nice for me is I don’t have to go out if I don’t want to. I didn’t make any self-imposed rules like I did with the 365 blog, so it could be looser and a little more relaxed, because last year just about killed me. I am going to update it every day though and most nights I will go out and do something, even if it’s just some random photos in a section of town. But the one night I’m not going out is going to be the night I dreaded every week while doing the 365 blog. Those of you who followed it (and that’s pretty much everybody who’s following this one, and I thank all of you for being loyal and continuing to read MAD) know which night I’m talking about because every week I would go on a whining spree that would make Doug and Wendy Whiner blush. That’s right, tonight, Friday night.
I hate going out on Friday and Saturday nights. They’re the amateur nights of the week and everything is crowded, especially here in New York and every other person is blotto on booze or one thing or another. And on Fridays I don’t get out of work till around 11pm at the earliest, so it was a real nightmare going to bars last year and dealing with babbling idiots schlocked out of their gourds and trying to get them to pose for a photo. So what I’m going to do on Friday’s instead is watch a movie and take photos of key scenes and then put together a mini-still movie of the original complete with dialogue. Oh and if the movie is in color, I’m going to pull the opposite of what they did to “It’s A Wonderful Life” and take the color out of it to keep it true to the MAD black and white color scheme.
Tonight’s movie is one of my all time favorite films—Glengarry Glen Ross. The film itself reminds me somewhat of the movie, “Reservoir Dogs.” Both are dialogue-driven films and both of them have an almost exclusive male-only cast. The only female in Glengarry Glen Ross is the coat check woman at the Chinese restaurant. Plus both have a surprise twist involving a key character towards the end. So without any further whoop-dee-do, for tonight’s Friday Night Midnight Movie, I present: Glengarry Glen Ross.
I'm having trouble uploading pictures today, my hosting site is a little wonky. They're telling me in an hour or so it should be fixed, so check back around three for today's post. Thanks and have a lovely Saturday!
When I moved to New York in 1993, Times Square wasn’t as sleazy and skeezy as the ‘70’s or ‘80’s were, but it definitely had its spots. There were 24 hour triple-X movie houses, massage parlors, adult bookstores, strip clubs and one place had them all in one handy location: Show World.
Show World was the place I would always take friends who were visiting and had never been to New York and I wanted to show them a real slice of sleazy porno cheese. It was like a mall of porn. It was a multi-level building with peepshows, X-rated magazines, X-rated videos for sale, sex toys, sex dolls, and on one floor scantily clad women were standing outside of rooms divided into two with a wall of glass dividing the space. For a fee you could go in the room and then instruct the woman via a two-way phone to do whatever you wanted her to do with herself. I don’t know if you had to tip extra for really weird things, because I never employed the services of these women, they were too scary looking to even be in a room with a solid glass wall between the two of you. Half of them had needle tracks running up and down their arms and they looked like spaced-out zombie skanks, with dark grey circles under their glassy eyes.
It was always interesting and kind of creepy hanging out in there and seeing the different kinds of customers and bathing in the sometimes uneasy and awkward amibiance of a sex mall. It was exclusively male customers, I never saw a female customer in there once. But there were guys from every walk of life: High rollers in custom made suits, construction workers taking a break or indulging in some X-rated action before going home to the wife and kids out on Long Island, out-of-towners looking for some quick action in the Big Apple and even homeless guys who had managed to panhandle enough to afford a token for entry.
Well, in 1994, Rudolph William Louis “Rudy” Giuliani became the 107th Mayor of New York City. And he vowed to clean this city up. And XXX marked one of the spots that he decided to take his lily-white mop and bucket to and scrub it all away and turn Times Square into a sea of G-rated candy-coated glop. Strict city zoning ordinances were put in place and the porn and strippers and sex stores turned into a Disney Store, a Hard Rock Cafe and the world’s largest Forever 21 store. All of a sudden those track-marked skanks are looking pretty good to me.
I was thinking about this today and I remembered that one of the last hold-outs in the porno market in Times Square was Show World. I remember when the shit was going down and everything was being shuttered and turned into shiny new family-friendly outlets that they had escaped through a loophole back then. If I remember correctly they turned the top floor into an actual theater that hosted plays, music and comedy. This gave them status as a theater and I read the other floors retained the porn and the skeezy vibe. I haven’t been near Show World in years, because I try to avoid going near Times Square and seeing things like the world’s biggest Red Lobster restaurant and a Hershey Store as big as Macy’s, but I thought it might be a good destination for MAD. I’ve heard conflicting stories about whether it’s still open or not, so now my curiosity has got the best of me and so that’s tonight’s after dark destination. It’ll be really dicey getting photos inside (if by chance I get a picture with someone’s face, I will blur it out to protect identities), but at the very least I can get some photos of the outside and document it that way.
Okay, here we are at 30th and 8th, just about 12 blocks up and we'll be there.
Goddamn, these dollar pizza joints are really starting to get on my last nerve. And, yeah, I admit I eat at them now and again, but it always feels like you've raped your stomach when you're finished eating this slop.
Oh boy, now here's a welcome sight, Gray's Papaya. I love their hot dogs.
Hell yeah! And there's a little Papaya man working here that's really nice, and was really friendly, I'm going to eat this dog and see if I can get a photo of him.
I asked him for a photo and he stood up and posed for me. I kind of felt like we bonded at this moment.
Franks For Your Business!! Love the Grays Papaya!
40th and 8th, just about two more blocks and we're there.
Bright lights, big city, but is there still a Show World? Only about a block away and we'll find our answer.
Private booths, great, I know in there I can take photos. Looks like a promising evening indeed.
The burned out lights are perfect.
I found a little crack in the windows where I can take a picture inside at someone fishing through the porn. And if you look closely on the left: Unintentional Show World windw reflection shot!
I'm pushing my luck a little and taking a shot from the front door. This guy looks like he's really stocking up. He's going to really hand it to himself when he gets home tonight. Okay, I'm a little nervous to go in. I'm afraid I won't be able to get any pictures and that hotdog left me a little thirsty. I think I'll have a beer and put together a game plan.
Ha! I've walked less than a block and ran into one of my old 365 spots! Let's stop in and see if we know anyone in here.
There's a seat at the end of the bar with our name on it. Let's snag it.
And look, there's Tracy and John, looking even better than the last time we saw them! It was great to see them and I had a beer and worked up a game plan for Show World. I'd go to a viewing booth first, take some pictures in there and then try and take some pictures of the outside room.
And awaaay we go!
Okay, I made it into one of the viewing booths, that's the good news. The bad news is your dollar to watch a movie goes here, and there's...well...stains everywhere. Stains of what I like to call manonaise. This isn't an easy moment.
In fact I just had a flashback of this and I feel just a tad bit queasy. But, as they say, the show must go on. Luckily, even though it was warm outside today, I still have my gloves in my coat. I'll put them on and put a dollar in the machine and see what happens.
Okay, the movie has started but there's four going on at once and it's a little nerve-wracking.
Oh, I looked over here and see you have to pick which movie you want to watch by pushing a button. Boy, I really don't like touching stuff in here, even with a glove on my hand.
But these four movies all going at once are driving me insane. Okay, time to push the button, I'll throw the gloves away when I leave, winter's almost over anyway.
This is the one I chose.
She's cute, but a little bit of a trash taiker, I have to confess.
The plot line was a bit confusing, but I'm in agreement with these two fine fellows, she sure is one saucy vixen! Right after this scene the movie stopped. You only get about two minutes for a buck and that was fine with me, I really wanted out of this room. The stains and close quarters were starting to creep me out big time.
Okay, now I'm out in the main room. Show World has turned into a sad and dilapidated place of what it used to be. Just rows of X-rated DVD's, some magazines and a wall of sex toys. It was tough taking pictures because there's couple of security guys watching everything. I took this one with the camera at my side while pretending to browse.
Here's another shot, yeah I know it sucks, but what am I supposed to do under these conditions? At least I'm trying.
Here's a shot of the back of the room and some of the viewing booths back here. Oh shit, just as I took this someone yelled, "Hey, what are you doing?" Maybe they have wall cameras or something. I jammed the camera in my coat pocket and a burly Hispanic guy came running over to me. "What the hell are you doing?" he screamed at me. I just smiled, pointed to my mouth and ears and then gave him some fake sign language with my fingers, pretending to be deaf and dumb. "You get out of here!" He screamed, while pointing to the door. At least I got a couple photos, so I scrambled out the door and lit out into Times Square.
I walked aimlessly for a block looking at the pictures on my camera and laughing about what had just happened and when I looked up, what did I see but this. Holy smoking Jesus, there's just no escape. To quote Richard Hell: "Please kill me." Goodnight everybody and see you tomorrow after dark.
I once pitched a Show World idea to my editor at Time Out New York when I used to do some freelance writing for them. They usually have some sort of theme to the issue (the first piece I ever wrote for them was about working a night job, I should’ve included that in yesterday’s post!) and one of the upcoming feature sections was going to be about the worst jobs in New York City. I laughed and told him I had a great idea.
The first time I ever went to Show World was about a month after I had lived in New York. I had heard about the place and walked by it, but felt weird going in alone. I was brand new to the city and was still in a little bit of a state of shock about living in New York City. But my older brother Jim came to see me after I was here for about a month and we tore the town up during his visit. One of the first spots we hit was Times Square and we went to all the sleazy joints. There used to be one store that billed itself as the largest XXX video store in the world a couple blocks from Show World near 8th avenue. The place was huge and we went in and started laughing at all the porno film names like: “Backsides to the Future,” “On Golden Blonde” and “Sperms of Endearment.” My personal favorite was one that simply billed itself as, “Blowin’ in the Wind.” Subtlety at its finest hour. Anyway, we ended up at Show World half in the bag and we were goofing around. We started watching guys going into video booths. They’d run in and then in a few minutes they’d run back out again all red-faced and heading towards the door, hoping good neighbor Sam didn’t see him after he had just polished the pope in a public pulpit. We noticed that as soon as a guy would rush out of the booth, a little guy with a mop and bucket would run over and mop the inside.
“Holy shitballs,” I remember saying to my brother, “that guy’s a fucking cum-cleaner!” And we both fell over in laughter. Now if that’s not the worst fucking job in New York City, I don’t know what is. I mean can you imagine meeting someone at a party or a bar and they ask you what you do? And you have to answer, “Oh, I clean up the cum over at Show World, but I just do it to pay the rent. I’m really a writer, honest, I’ve got a blog!”
So I pitched the idea to my editor to either go there and try to talk to a cum-cleaner or better still, maybe apply for the job and do an undercover piece about being a cum-cleaner at Show World. I told him if I could pull it off it could be a cover story.
I don’t remember his exact words, but it was something to the effect of, “You’ve got to be out of your fucking mind.”
Maybe that’s why I never got a staff-writing job there.
Every Wednesday I’m going to be going somewhere and taking photos of people working the night shift.
Okay, one block away from work and we've found a nighttime cart already.
It's a Halal food cart. A lot of late-night carts are Halal vendors. Remember our 53rd and 3rd friend?
And here's the fellow inside of the cart. I ordered a hotdog from him.
And he flew into action. He's got a grill in here, this isn't your average New York dirty water dog.
And a liberal dose of mustard seals the deal. He almost put ketchup on it, but luckily I stopped him in the nick of time. Ketchup does not belong on a hotdog.
And there you go, a perfectly cooked, New York street dog. Delicious!
This woman waved at me as I took a picture of her and her cart.
She was a very nice Russian woman and she happily served me up a pretzel.
Here's a loaded Sabrett cart. I'm not hungry after the hotdog and pretzil, but let's see who's manning this food cart.
He was a nice guy waiting for customers on a chilly evening.
Okay, let's go down the block and see who we can find.
It's the Nuts 4 Nuts man!
Here he is, displaying a bag of his product. Pretty nuts, huh?
That cart has an electric sign on top of it. Let's go check it out.
Pretty fancy, let's see who's manning this food cart.
There's a lot of choices here, foodwise. I kind of wish I wouldn't have filled up earlier.
There's no one in here though. An empty cart.
Hey, here he is, he was taking a break outside of his cart. He told me business was a little slow tonight. Hopefully it'll pick up when it warms up outside.
Speaking of warming up, I was freezing, so it's time to head homeward bound. We'll go down 7th Avenue.
Graffiti on a window on 7th Avenue.
Holy smokes!
Look, it's a station wagon with a thyroid problem.
Health is wealth...
But liquor is quicker. Goodnight everybody and see you tomorrow after dark.
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