[This was first posted on December 3, 2010. Yesterday, it was announced that Elaine's will close on May 26, 2011. Ancient moral: go for it -- if there's somewhere you want to experience, do it, because it -- or you -- may not be here as long as you'd hoped. Second ancient moral: Much can be done if you put your mind to it -- where there's a will, there's a way, where there's lack of will, there's lack of way. Third ancient moral in the form of a question: what do you really want in life beyond survival and what are you doing to make it happen?]
Elaine Kaufman, RIP. She died today at age 81. Elaine's is one of the handful of Manhattan places I always aim to get to during visits to NYC. Hopefully, it will continue in operation in her honor.
Another place I always go when anywhere in the vicinity, the Hotel Chelsea, is up for sale as of October. Tavern on the Green, where I last ate at a few years ago, closed at the end of celebrating this past New Year's Eve. CBGB, which I first got to in the early 1980s, closed in mid-October, 2006. I watched the streaming video of Debbie Harry, Patti Smith and many others performing their finales for this from my apartment in Detroit.
Though I'm glad to have seen and heard all of this, it's sad to note these developments.
Here's a relevant "Erik's Choice" entry originally posted on April 6, 2009:
Like Baker's Keyboard Lounge in Detroit, Elaine's in Manhattan is an international treasure highly recommended for its ambiance and cultural charge.
Opened in 1963 by Elaine Kaufman (b. 2/10/1929) Elaine's is a medium-priced Upper East Side restaurant and bar located at 1703 2nd Avenue -- between 88th and 89th Streets --New York, NY 10128; (212) 534-8103. Reservations taken. Writers very welcomed. Old school, low-key, sweet. No one has ever bitten me there, or scowled. Given that Elaine Kaufman is eighty now, I'd like to get back before anything major changes at Elaine's. Because as we all know, everything does change, sooner or later.
Related books: A.E. Hotchner, Everyone Comes to Elaine's: Forty Years of Movie Stars, All-Stars, Literary Lions, Financial Scions, Top Cops, Politicians, and Power Brokers at the Legendary Hot Spot (2004). An anecdotal recounting of goings on at Elaine's over the past near half-century.
Brian McDonald, Last Call at Elaine's: A Journey from One Side of the Bar to the Other (2008). Memoir by a sometimes self-destructive but resilient son of a cop and bartender turned writer.
Today's Rune: Journey.
2 comments:
Erik, I read that they are closing it along with her demise. Damn, I never made it there..
I was particularly struck by change during our road trip, when we went to some places I'd been to 15 years ago. I would have hardly recognized Sedona and Meteor Crater was a much more involved & commercialized site.
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