People flooded the streets as plumes of smoke rose from lower Manhattan; nowhere seemed safe. Amid the chaos, many restaurant-bars did a remarkable, atypical thing. They stayed open. While the majority of the city was closing up shop and either trying to get out or searching for a safe place to hole up, a few blessed establishments kept their doors open, their TVs on and their service going. All along Third Avenue, people packed these places, staring at the news or trying to get through to loved ones on the phone.
That night, a few friends and I gathered at the local pub to watch President Bush's address and otherwise take comfort in some quiet company. No one drank much (there would be plenty of that in the coming weeks, as reality set in). We just wanted to be someplace that was at once familiar, comfortable and neutral. It felt safe. It offered community. In this context, the term "public house" did not seem so antiquated.
The restaurants of TriBeCa became one symbol of rebirth in the aftermath of the attacks. Many reopened admirably quickly, despite extensive damage. Others operated to provide free food to workers at Ground Zero, and to raise funds for victims of the attacks. They led the charge in beckoning visitors back to the neighborhood, and the city at large. They offered hope of rebuilding and restoring some sense of normalcy.
That same solace and hope is now being repeated in New Orleans, where the few bars that stayed open became refuges for those who had nowhere else to go. Web sites for the bigger clubs, such as Tipitina's, became clearinghouses for help and information.
Once, when I was a student in London trudging through a dreary, rainy afternoon and feeling desperately homesick, I came upon a small, brightly-painted tea and sandwich shop called Parker Brown's. The counter staff were cracking jokes with customers as jazz played and china clattered. The place was such a welcome comfort that I asked for a job there, even though I didn't need one. I worked in that shop for my whole year abroad, and always felt more at home there than at school or my dormitory. I wasn't the only one who got attached: When Parker Brown's was bought out by a grocery store chain, customer after customer streamed in to lament, say goodbye or take a teacup as a souvenir.
It's hyperbolic to say the work of providing a comfortable place to eat and drink is heroic, but that is the first word that comes to my mind. Let's say noble and underappreciated, then. It's easy to take such a thing for granted when there are so many places to go have a meal or meet for drinks. But to me there is always a bit of gratitude in finding a good place to share a table or a bar.
Sure, it's not as if the food industry lacks for adulation. Much is made of celebrity chefs and bar "chefs" who concoct extravagant items for consumption. Our whole culture places emphasis on the status and showmanship of cuisine. But the wider field in which these rarefied species operate carries with it a societal function inordinately more substantive than gustatory entertainment (or even just plain food and drink). The restaurant business is worth a bit of reverence, not for any status or creativity, but because even the plainest cafe can accomplish the feat of offering a place that's better than home.
September 2005
I was among the many people who poured out of their office buildings in New York City on the morning of Sept. 11, aware that something terrible had happened but not sure of more than that. Rumors flew in the minutes after the second plane hit the World Trade Center about other possible targets in the city, about other planes in the air.