This used to be a weird little bar around the corner from Irving Plaza. (15th St bet Union Square East and Irving Place, north side of street). I think it might have been called “Belmont”?
It was shitty, with a banged-up crooked pool table on the left side, then a bar area with booths, and on the right side a small unsupervised room with a few dartboards and bathrooms where people used drugs or went for private time.
The setup was either comical or perhaps engineered to provoke fistfights: to get in and out of the restrooms, you had to walk between the drunken dart throwers and the dart boards.
I never really liked the place, just occasionally got dragged over by friends who wanted to be here.
Today I stopped in, hoping for a moment of nostalgia. The inside has been completely remodeled in “faux-vintage” wood, and the pool table is gone. The dart room is now kitchen or service area. But I can still recognize it, and see in my mind’s eye the ghost of what was here.
The beauty of NYC is the constant change, but that change inevitably includes the mournful loss of places we once loved. I don’t know why I have fond memories of this place, even though I never liked it. But I do. And today it made me very happy to see that a new venue inhabits the old bones. Indeed, the new place is nicer than what it replaced. I just treated myself to a cocktail, and enjoyed it immensely while writing this reminiscence.
