restaurant – seeing god naked

On a warm August evening in 2020, Bob and I sat at a table on the uneven sidewalk outside Union Square Cafe (USC) for the first time since the pandemic began, watching the patchwork staff somehow making it work. USC’s new Chef Lena Ciardullo was back in her kitchen, but so was Chef Tom Allen from the Modern, who was serving as her sous chef until whenever his restaurant would reopen. Denez Moss, who’d left Manhatta to become the new general manager at USC only a month before lockdown, was pouring drinks, and Halle Murcek, now Guest Experience Manager for the entire restaurant group, was waiting tables. Together they managed just about everything at the front of the house (or should I say out in front of the house) with the skeleton crew they’d assembled.

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Since yesterday’s explosion on Second Avenue at Seventh Street in the East Village, I’ve been thinking about this photograph.

I took it about a month ago while sitting at a window table in San Marzano restaurant, looking up Second, during one of our February snow storms.

The building on the left, the former home of the quintessential East Village vintage clothing and novelty shop Love Saves The Day, is one of the buildings that collapsed. The woman with the white umbrella is passing in front of the restaurant that was the source of the explosion.

I’ve also been thinking about the staff at Pomme Frites, Sushi Park, Paul’s Burger, San Marzano and the other shops along this avenue. And especially about the residents who lost their homes. We’re anxious to check on acquaintances who work at the restaurants.

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