Class Act, Cool Cats

(The Village Vanguad, still the vintage jazz-lover's Mecca it always was. Image from I Blog What I Hear.)

Continuing with my appraisal of those places that weathered Greenwich Village’s transition from low-rent bohemia to swank opulence – all while retaining their charm and distinction – I’d like to point out a tiny but internationally-renowned jazz club on Seventh Avenue near Sheridan Square.

To an unknowing eye, the plain red awning and neon sign outside might not seem worthy of much attention, being situated in an area bloated with must-see hotspots. But down the narrow stairs, in a tight basement space, 75 years of invaluable jazz history have transpired, during which countless giants in American music performed, recorded and debuted for the world.

The Village Vanguard, opened by Max Gordon in 1935, is for many musicians a jazz Mecca, having seen nearly every well-known name in the genre pass through its doors and wail on its cramped, barely elevated stage. (Black and white photographic portraits on the walls depict only a handful of the legends that once called it home.) It gives off that unmistakable Old New York vibe – dim, slight, and understated. A bit worn, but with taste, preserving a mélange of grit, class and intrigue that every jazz club ought to have.

And living up to its bold title, it has stayed inarguably relevant. A surprising number of people can squeeze into the main room to sit at the low tables and chairs, but the Vanguard usually fills up on a nightly basis, even when (or especially when) its stellar house band performs each Monday. Patrons should reserve tickets in advance. Shows generally cost $30, which includes $10 toward a two-drink minimum – not a lousy deal, considering the regular cocktail prices. In keeping with the music’s traditional practices, each night offers two sets from the same act – one at 9 p.m. and one at 11 p.m. – which the artist in question will repeat over a tenure of several days.

When the performance begins, be it a long-established luminary or promising up-and-comer, the room fills with a refreshing wave of silence. Popular music lost something over the past few decades, and it has to do with the how the audience receives the art that it pays for. Attend any medium-profile gig or open mic at a lesser-known venue, and bear witness to the sheer amount of talking that goes on while the musicians play. (Once, while checking out an open jam session at HR-57 in Washington, I suffered through a din so loud that it drowned out everything but the highest notes from a trumpet.)

I don’t want bash appropriate socializing, but certain mediums demand a certain degree of reverence. DJ nights allow for loud conversation. Not jazz. But with an ever-shrinking pool of aficionados and traditionalists, many ignorant (thought well-meaning, I’m sure) listeners treat frequenting a jazz club as they would a noisome wine bar.

This does not happen at the Village Vanguard, and I hope that this aphorism drives home the sort of landmark it is. In that dark, enigmatic room, where I imagine a cloud of thick tobacco smoke once hung over crowds of rapt enthusiasts, one pure factor reigns above all else. Even when I once saw Tony Bennett in the audience, checking out a Bill Charlap concert, the humbled, ordinary schmucks held their tongue until after the show. In the Vanguard, it is about the jazz happening right in the moment. And it is only about that.

Coffee, Café Reggio, and What the Village is All About

(Reggio's exterior at night. Image from FLIPIX.)

Greenwich Village reached its zenith as an artistic, intellectual and progressive hub decades ago, and has since met the fate common to many urban neighborhoods of similar character. Traces of its onetime bohemia – notably its dingy taverns and cafés, where coffee and beer were cheap, performers made a living off tips, and oddballs and eccentrics chatted uninterrupted far into the morning hours – have largely disappeared, making way for condos and chain stores and high-end retail.

With the Gaslight gone, the White Horse pricey, and Bleecker Street filled with irksome out-of-towners – not to mention a cost of living unaccommodating to most young artist types – a sad void emerged in the area, though some entrepreneurs have tried their hand at filling it. They open new venues and taverns on the spots where Bob Dylan strummed and Dylan Thomas drank. They try to recall the intensely literate 50s, the fiercely left-wing 60s, the gritty 70s.

Frequently they fail, succeeding in only capturing an ersatz forgery of what the Village once was. The prices just seem too high, the patronage too run-of-the-mill, the bohemianism too contrived.

They cannot compare to the few longstanding Village staples left, like Café Reggio, a European-style coffee shop and eatery on MacDougal Street now nearly 85 years old. Amid the cacophony of bar-hopping tourists, Reggio stands out as a quiet haven with pastries, paninis, and late hours, making coffee in a style predating the ubiquitous assembly-line service popularized by Starbucks and Dunkin’ Donuts.

The goods here hearken to the area’s past as a settlement for Italian immigrants in New York. Not until Mulberry Street can one find cannolis and sfogliatella like these. A cup of the myriad of teas and coffees (not all of which are European) can cost anywhere from $3-$5 – granted, it’s a comparatively steep price for a single serving. But the fresh paninis don’t run much higher than that, and as a heavy tea drinker, I’ve refilled my cup a gratifying number of times from one order. With both food and drink offerings being top-notch, one can find a satisfying meal with a hot beverage for about $10 or less, and spend hours loitering in an unobtrusive environment besides.

Stepping past the sidewalk tables and quiet green storefront into the dim interior feels like stepping through a time warp to the Jazz Age. Busts of philosophers, composers and other historical figures line the walls along with busy Renaissance paintings. Antiques like a mammoth espresso machine, garish benches and a rustic cash register still in use delight even before any food arrives.

And it may take a while before it does. The one factor that some might consider a drawback is that an old-fashioned European café moves at an old-fashioned European pace – tantalizingly slow. But while the waitresses take their time, they also never hurry their customers through anything, be it a daytime meal or midnight cup of tea. The ambiance remains conducive to lengthy socializing or private thought, to group discussion or solitary time with a laptop and book. Don’t come to Reggio seeking a quick bite at lunch. Expect to linger and relax with an accordingly laid-back staff.

A Scoop from the Golden Age

(Eddie's exterior. Image from Yelp.)

Occupying a beloved corner space on Metropolitan Avenue for over a century, Eddie’s Sweet Shop in Forest Hills maintains its reputation due to an old-fashioned approach to serving America’s favorite dessert. Antiquity radiates from within this ice-cream parlor, as everything from the marble countertop, to the homemade soda floats, to the vintage cash register seems embalmed in a long-gone era when sweets, prepared with a localized family-owned passion, felt equally splendid on the tongue and heart.

[Note: Let me acknowledge that the past, when viewed from posterity, always seems infinitely better than it in fact was. That’s beside the point here. When a store can in the present encapsulate the past’s ideal and keep it feeling genuine, it has inarguably achieved something great.]

But nostalgia for those chrome postwar years aside (how many Hollywood cameras have passed through its doors?), Eddie’s can still deliver on its renowned signature product. The ice-cream – and especially the beverages, be they milkshakes, malts or floats with the soda brewed right in front of you – is usually thick, rich, and poised to clean the most soiled pallet. Ice-cream scooped from a vat in a freezer, however, can be inconsistent no matter where it comes from, so I advise the uninitiated customer to stick with soft-serve. No other such shop in the immediate vicinity (read: all of New York City) could match it.

The milkshakes, though, hold a notable distinction among my taste buds. Every time, Eddie’s serves me what is easily the best milkshake I have ever tasted. I’ve slurped up some fine milkshakes in my day. A handful of anonymous diners come close. Marvel, a seasonal parlor out on Long Island, comes close. Larry’s, which I plan to profile once I return to Washington, can hold its own. But Eddie’s has invariably proven itself to reign high above the rest, and probably always will.

Rustic entities have a hard time avoiding obsolescence. Quite often they visibly decline, and the shop’s cracked floors and rickety metal stools might put off an unknowing patron. Admittedly, any old building comes afflicted with the petty nuisances of age. But should an ice-cream parlor that looks fit for James Dean appear pristine and squeaky-clean fifty years after the Eisenhower Age ended? For me, the shop’s archaic qualities, be they charming or inconvenient, validate its relevance and enhance the overall experience of frequenting it.

In a time when everything we eat and enjoy seems pre-prepared by dispassionate machines in a far-off factory, a taste of some down-home, simplistic, fundamentally humane ice-cream from a longtime local staple goes to show that we have done, and continue to do, better that what we are used to. Thankfully shops like Eddie’s, despite growing rarer with each passing year, are still around to remind us.

An Orange Feeding Den in the EV

(At right: S'MAC's interior. Image from their website, http://www.smacnyc.com/home.html)

It was mid-afternoon on St. Patrick’s Day in New York, and we were getting agitated. Already an unmemorable uptown bar had denied us, presentable fakes notwithstanding. It played bad music anyhow. So we made the trying journey downtown, enduring a crowded subway and then block after block in the sun. Our breakfasts of hot toddies and car bombs steadily wore off. Hangovers started to set in. And we were hungry.

Some in our party just wanted to get to the next pub and put our setbacks behind us. But in others, hunger began to override even the anticipation of further bacchanalia. I thought and thought as we emerged in the East Village, my longtime stomping ground. Our situation demanded good drunk food – dishes that come in large quantities, are inexpensive, and are filling but not overwhelming. Then I remembered a very dear orange eatery over on 12th Street and First Avenue that sells macaroni and cheese.

S’MAC (short for Sarita’s Macaroni and Cheese) has beckoned to passers-by from adjacent dine-in and carryout storefronts since 2006. Therein, one finds a simple menu featuring 12 variations on the classic pasta/dairy mashup and little else. But no matter how peculiar (and they go pretty far out there), these renditions reign supreme in the New York area. Not many respectable establishments could pull off a mélange of the eponymous dish with buffalo chicken. But S’MAC does. And that warrants my utmost respect.

Should you choose to stick around, the staff will bring out your order in the skillet in which it was cooked, available in four sizes; I ordered the second-smallest ( Major Munch ) and it filled my famished stomach with ease. I couldn’t imagine what Partay, the largest, possibly looks like. A gargantuan pot, maybe, filled to the brim with cheesy elbow macaronis?

Reasonable orders don’t strain the wallet. Pasta can be normal, multigrain or gluten-free, according the company’s website. Additional shreds of cheese and, if you so choose, breadcrumb line the top with a crust in a serving style increasingly scarce. The staff wasted little time behind the counter, and prepared our order with remarkable speed considering the amount of other customers before us. On my last visit, at a time after lunch but not quite evening, the place was moderately full. I’ve seen nights when a line spills onto the street. Understand that this is a neighborhood favorite, and attracts a coinciding crowd.

My other companion who took a detour to S’MAC that day is now among that crowd. I was coming down from a St. Patrick’s Day reverie, he abstains from alcohol, and we both enjoyed our All-Americans (standard order – American and cheddar) on an equal level. No matter what sort of hunger afflicts you, S’MAC is here. It’s waiting.