The London Lounge

Dear NYC Lounge-ites,

My wife and I will be in the Big Apple over President's Day weekend for a little late Valentine's Day mini-vacation. Being in the military, we get stationed in some rather provincial places, so it will be nice to get away from our current duty station, Norfolk, Virginia.

No offense meant to those who hold Norfolk near and dear, of course!

Any recomendations on must see places? Shops? Restaurants?

We are looking forward to the bounty that awaist us...

Thanks in advance!

Dear Mr. Kane:

I think you will find much to see and do on your coming trip. On the main Forum page for the Lounge, for registered guests, are sections for a City Guide, Travel Room and an East Coast Chapter subsection which contains a lot of New York related discussion.

Hope you enjoy your visit. You are approaching high season for the art world. You may wish to stop in and check out a gallery show or a museum. Please feel free to pm me for additional feedback. Don't let a little snow concern you.

Assuming you're following the lounger instinct...

Pegu Club (77 W. Houston St), Employees Only (510 Hudson St), Hudson Bar & Books (636 Hudson St), Little Branch (20 Seventh Ave), East Side Company (49 Essex St) and The Back Room (102 Norfolk St), are your pick on the island. If, for some reason, you find yourself bridge and tunneling for Brooklyn, look no farther than Brooklyn Social (335 Smith St).

Master G & E Tage Larsen,

Thanks for the tips!

We never quite made it to the Pegu Culb, maybe next time.

On Sunday, after taking in a Broadway show, we ended up in the lobby of the Algonquin for drinks and a snack. There were several quite talented ladies and gentlemen singing old tunes and playing the piano. They were really quite a talented bunch!

Especially the (quite attractive blonde) lady who sang (very lustily) about lechery!

Regards!

...

DESCENDISSENT

I'm not a New Yorker,
Though I do own a monocle,
While my ol' Pict patrimony
points to an apple-eyed,
retroactiview of
amalgamation,
emendation,
integration,
occupation,
and unification,
as the static,
pentagrammatic avowals
of all new nouns, towns,
and nations.

There is something enigmatic and endearing about the East River. It is only about two-thirds of a mile wide, but looking out and overby from the Manhattan-side, one is struck with a keen sense of emergent pride. Brooklyn looks the business, while Queens means goodness. Apart from a couple of 'scrapers—with the emerald CitiBank having the most modern taper—it's all lowdown, olde and urbanized; tunnelled, funnelled, if somehow resistent to enfranchise. Eyes draw to the sky, of course, but before that are wide apartments on the waterside, the land lie, and the burnt-out warehouse blocks. One's brow is roused and engaged by the unthreatening vertical yearnings of the chimneymen, the water towers, the dot-dot of cranes, all-about and around the everyman, in his Corven urban sprawl; from where only there, perhaps, are claps of built-up rage. In the foreground: that tidal strait, toling discreetly. She throes. The grace in her push-pull disguising a menacing toll. Her bed is cluttered, no doubt, with his jetsam, like a depth charge hold. But it's on-the-surface, with her jousting dance, open-hands, far-advanced above any burial ground cold; where uneven currents seem leeward-leaning, as if measured more to the Fro: kissing forth comely, squarely, in the ceaseless round of a Delphian do-si-do.