Bar Review
151 RIVINGTON ST. (BETW. SUFFOLK & CLINTON STS.), NO PHONE
HE EMERGES FROM a basement carrying thick bags of clinking trash. His long hair and thick gloves catch my attention, halting my rain-splotched stroll across the Lower East Side. He deposits trash on the curb, then descends a graffiti-scrawled flight.
My bar radar goes bonkers. I inch across the street, avoiding puddles, and investigate. No name. However, the Holy Grail, scribed in chalk handwriting: "2 for 1 Happy Hour 'til 10." I shake off rain like a wet poodle and step inside.
Typically, subterranean bars rock a certain, oh, sleazy charm. One expects coke binges and vomit. At quick glance, 151 appears appropriately inequitable. Dark lighting. Make-out corner festooned with love beads. A cash register with an electronic ticker reading, "You Need a Shot."
However, as I plop myself at the brown linoleum bar, I realize I'm in 1973. Psychedelic brown oval wallpaper lines walls. Stacked silver cylinders imitate Austin Powers mod. A bumpy rock wall is painted white. Only things missing are lava lamps.
However, the bartendress is deliciously incongruousan indie dream with short curls and forearm-to-shoulder tattoos, lighting several green pear-shaped candles. She greets me with a nod, I order a Brooklyn Lager, try to decipher her tattoos. Are those trees? Crosses? Flames? A graveyard burning in hell!
A feverish gentleman with gapped teeth and a blue jean jacket bursts inside. "Whiskey! I really need it!"
He presses his palms on the bar and waits. The bartender pours several fingers of Maker's Mark.
Ineedadrink lifts the glass, appraises, and pauses: "Is it still happy hour?"
"Yes."
"A'ight," he says, kicking the liquor into his gut. He sets his empty glass down. "I'll roll back in about 10 seconds." He holds up 10 fingers in case she missed the message. Fifteen minutes later, he returns, frantic again.
"I just paid my barber," he says, apropos of nothing. The waitress nods, and refills.
I would've liked to assess the barber's skill, but he's wearing a trucker hat. Ineedadrink devours the whiskey, then hustles on to other business.
Soon after, a gaggle of friends bumbles inside. They are talking about Bushwick. "My building has every luxury but the neighborhood," a shorn cue ball says. He orders a round of vodka tonics.
A young suit sits next to me, orders Stella. His sideburns creep low. The tie is loose. A phone call: "Hey, Jay, dude, I'm in a bar drinkin' some beeeeeeeeeeeeer. I'll see you in a few."
He hangs up and takes a long, hard swallow. I follow suit. Then we turn toward the open door and watch torso-less legs trudge past, too fast to notice our eyes.