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Ever since....well, ever since I came to New York, The Riviera Café held a very important place in my life. In the heart of the West Village, along Seventh Avenue South, it made the best Bloody Marys--I once drank three!!!!!!!!--and was a place one could count on for reasonably priced, tasteful, but quick, cuisine--burgers, sandwiches and such.
Unbeknownst to me, during my spinster years, it was to play a more far reaching part in my life, and it did. On Saturday evening, May 8, 2010, a date etched in my memory, this place brought two happy souls together--my husband, David, and myself.
Yes, this is where it all began. And while we never made going back into an anniversary event, we did occasionally dine, and socialize with others there, when in the area, over the last seven years. It had always been there. It always would.
Au contraire, my dears!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Yesterday, I had to do a prescription run, into the city. So, as long as I was in Manhattan, I decided to pay a visit to Three Lives Bookstore. To get there, I take the Number One Downtown IRT, and get off at Christopher Street. I have to walk past the café, in order to cross the street, to get to Three Lives.
As I gradually approached the building, it looked disturbingly closed. Maybe, the day before having been Labor Day, management gave the staff an extra day off. But, when I peered in to the window, the place had an emptiness about it. All the tables and chairs were turned up, and the bar area had been covered over, by a blue wall façade.
I walked up to the entrance, and there I saw the R.I.P. sign--a notice, written presumably by the management, thanking patrons for their attendance, and posting the opening and closing dates of the establishment--August 28, 1970-August 31, 2017.
Can you believe it? After 47 years? I always glanced at the place with affection, it being meeting place of David and I. What horror will go in its place? Nothing that will conjure up romantic feelings I am sure, even though that space will always have a special meaning for us.
It is sad the city is changing into something I so do not want it to be. Every touchstone of my life within it is vanishing.
Will the IFC Center (aka, The Waverly) be next?
Where the hell, then, will I sing "Frank Mills????????????"
2 comments:
Wow, how depressing to hear this! I could have sworn it was still open just a few weeks ago.
I never much cared for Riviera myself, but its been a Village fixture since I first took the subway into town as a teenager. Always there as a landmark, never changing, same type of clientele year after year. Riviera survived the disappearance of nearby Homers (around the corner from also-defunct icon Village Paper), the huge Tiffany Diner that once anchored the east end of Christopher St, even legendary Florent that had kept the sordid Meat Packing District livable until developers discovered it.
The saddest thing about losing a diner is that they are never replaced: much like losing ones hair, once they're gone, they're gone forever. When they vacate, its always the same damned routine: the space sits vacant and useless for months or even years while the greedy landlord waits patiently for some idiot bank to offer an insane amount of rent. After the bank moves in, the space is wasted for a generation. One need only look at poor Tiffany on the next corner, which became a dull Bank Of America in 2001, depriving us forever of the best people-watching vantage point to have a coffee.
After the Tiffany disappeared,
that area of the Village was never
the same again. Now, there is
not one single reasonably priced
place to eat in that area.
I agree a bank or some luxury
building will go up. The NYC
people came to for reasons known
to them is disapeearing.
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