WRITE ON NEW YORK
Manhattan is the richest of the boroughs but is no longer the most interesting. You can walk Manhattan a whole day and see only people who have everything—not the stuff of story. This isn’t an insult. I’m pretty sure that successful, beautiful, affluent people revel in their status and want the world to reflect their seamless luxury.
But to write a good story, or be one, something is needed that you can’t find in Manhattan any more: raw need. Writers require need. In lower Manhattan today, the average household income of a couple is $228,000, which probably means that need has been reduced to want. Where is the story when nobody’s craving?
This is why I treasure that disappearing breed of watering hole: the dive bar.
What exactly is a dive bar? The true dive bar doesn’t know it is, and is therefore not named Dive Bar. The true dive bar hasn’t seen the hand of Taniya Nayak. Décoris helter-skelter and dropped rather than designed; and there may be dirt. The jukebox may not work and the TVs are always on (but not big screen) and most likely, there is a dart board and a pool table, and a beautiful old bar, burnished wood, and a great selection of drink graced by a thin strip of mirror and defaced by signs proclaiming Bud & Shot at prices that people with real problems can afford.
If you live in Manhattan and want to haunt one, I hear that Rudy’s on Ninth is a classic and Subway Inn on 59th is still diving but if you really want to plunge to the murky, revelatory bottom, come to my local dive bar: the 773 Lounge.
773 sits on the ugliest street in America, Coney Island Avenue in Brooklyn. Nothing matches. Tire stores and seedy delis stand cheek by jowl with front windows that have never been dressed and colors that are not chic, such as yellow, and signs with big letters that scream commerce and are missing the A. There is constant honking and spraying of dirty slush from the buses that lumber by and not a single thing the eye can light upon; all is chaos.
On this repellent street, find a storefront with huge banner draping the front and two large windows decorated with all manner of stars, lights, snowflakes and bric-a-brac from the dreams of a drunken sailor, and a sign up top that’s a lucky clover in neon green flanked by yellow letters, and the phone number.
Come in. Need shows in every face. Keep a low profile. Don’t wear your statement coat and your skinny pants. I fit in because I’ve been living in boroughs Brooklyn so long, my hair really is undone. Try not to stare at people who aren’t young and handsome; don’t be surprised if the bartender is not an actor and don’t disturb the regulars, who are not observing themselves.
If you’re feeling brave, walk to the back where the room dives into darkness broken by broken Christmas lights. If you’re a writer or want to be one, float stories up out of the dark and see if they’re worthy: Can you stand up right now and tell your story to the folks here, and will they care? If not, have a drink and keep thinking.
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Stella
Diana,
What a picture this creates. Never drink out of a glass. Only beer in a bottle. And stay away from the restroom. But nice not having to worry about cramming a belly into skinny jeans.
Bethany Jacobson
As a native New Yorker, fellow Brooklynite and screenwriter/filmmaker, the local Irish bar is always a good place to discover stories and remember the working class, regular folk and local artists still need a common refuge where they can engage without a big wallet or agenda.
Charles Bukowski would have been at home.