We'll Always Have Paris [Cafe]
Photo by UntappedCities.Com
This would normally be the time of year where we would all start to see a flood of "best of 2020" clickbait stories around the web. Lists of all the things that made the past year so great. The best music, movies, books and even the best place in cities like New York. All of it, a way to quantify the year that was.
However, 2020 was a not-so-great year and, cities across the country have seen more places have a meek closing rather than a grand opening.
New York Magazine was one publication that didn't have much to work with when it came for them to publish their annual "Reasons to Love New York" round-up for 2020. So like many of us this year, they had to pivot and shift their focus on the mainstays that have made the neighborhoods of New York great but were unable to survive the COVID lockdown.
"Reasons we've loved New York," was a feature published earlier this week that focuses on nearly 500 places that shuttered their doors for good this year. The everyday shops, restaurants, and bars helped to define what a neighborhood meant to people who lived there. If you've spent any time in New York, these are all places you've likely been to, or at the very least, they've been on your radar.
Places like corner store, Gem Spa in the East Village, longtime LES watering hole Max Fish, and midtown dive bar mainstays like Foley's all were forced out of business during the COVID pandemic. Scores of restaurants also met their end in 2020. Not just foodie finds like Uncle Boon's in Nolita and Brooklyn Cider House in Bushwick, but neighborhood mainstays like Odessa, a late-night diner staple in the East Village. The type of joints that define the city for its various inhabitants.
Screenshot of “Reasons We’ve Loved New York” from NYMAG.COM
As I scrawled through the list that was posted online, it was one of the first places in the long list that immediately caught my eye. A place that helped define my New York.
The Paris Cafe, located near the South Street Seaport and the area that was once the Fulton Fish Market, was one of the oldest bars in Lower Manhattan. It had been in the neighborhood since 1873 and survived the Great Depression and other highs and lows of the 20th Century. The place has been a constant on the banks of New York Harbor. It even survived a seven-month closure back in 2012 when the decimation caused by Hurricane Sandy led to them completely gutting and renovating the bar.
But the shutdown this past spring was too much for The Paris to endure.
"Hope springs eternal and perhaps with a change in the economic climate, we may find our way back," read a statement from owner Pete O'Connell back in May. "With all our hearts we say thank you for all the fun, friendships, and laughter as well as the few shillings spent."
It has been many years, but I have also spent quite a few shillings at The Paris. The bar had become my local while I was starting my career in journalism as a crime reporter assigned to the outpost at 1 Police Plaza for the New York Post in my mid-20s. I was working the night shift at what was referred to as the Police Shack, a nickname for the area of NYPD HQ where space was allotted to most local media outlets. Because of its proximity to 1PP, The Paris was often and end of shift hangout for cops, including many of those who worked with the Deputy Commissioner of Public Information, the division that handled PR and comms for the Department. Many reporters at the Shack, especially those of us who worked the lobster shift, would head to the Paris and share a few drinks with the same DCPI officers who were combative with us in the office as we inquired about breaking news just a few hours earlier on any given evening.
The Paris was the type of place where both sides could have a cease-fire and let their guards down after a long night. These late-night drinking sessions were the best way for a cub reporter to earn trust and build sources. There were many a night where I reported on shootings, fires, and other news from a stool at the old mahogany bar of The Paris. Going there for drinks was an unwritten job requirement if you were working the cop beat.
But the longer I worked those nights at 1PP, the more the Paris became my local haunt. Often to wound up to head home for bed when I knocked off at two in the morning, I would go to the Paris for a late-night bite and a few drinks, regardless of whether anyone from DCPI was there or not. I wound up becoming a regular. Even though I was a bridge and tunnel guy -- living in New Jersey, but spending most of my time in Manhattan, The Paris was the type of neighborhood haunt that gave me a connection to the place that I worked and played in. The Paris was just one of the many places that defined my New York.
I have a lot of good memories due to The Paris Cafe. Scores of parties and gatherings with my fellow tabloid hacks, going there after a hellacious week covering the Republican National Convention to unwind and commiserate with both the cops and other reporters. Being able to stay past closing time many nights thanks to a generous bartender, and even seeing the movie I Am Legend filmed right outside. The Paris Cafe made working shitty late-night shifts more bearable than it should have been. It was a place that felt like home during those earlier years as a tabloid hack.
I'll miss this piece of vanishing New York.