Several good audiophile suggestions may be found
here. Some of same, Son of Sam, have been reiterated on this thread. Others have not.
Suggestions specific to the vicinity of 4th and Broadway may be found
here, since you'll want to exploit each location to the not-most.
If you still haven't heard the Arcam/RKV/RS-1 combination, it remained in place last month when I visited
Sound by Singer. Have a look at their CD library (if you forget to bring your own test CDs), as it's unusually useful. (By the nonny: The salesfoonts seem desperate to sell their demo RKV.)
So far as draft specialty ale houses are concerned, d.b.a and Hop Devil are excellent suggestions. So, for that matter, are
Croxley's Ale House and my fave Belgian Ale nozzle orgy,
Vol De Nuit.
If you're inclined to seek out shrines to pre-gentrified New York, you might want to have a cringe at the gaudy and touristy
Sin Sin/Leopard Lounge and settle in at the non-touristy
Fish Bar, the latter of which is awash in nostalgia. (Pity you can no longer visit the highly non-touristy
International, where I wrote and set many scenes from my very first novel.)
[size=xx-small]Another shrine to the soot of slimier days:
The Mars Bar (where the
Rivington School (cf. The
Rivington School Sculpture Garden) took up residence in the mid-90s and used to "put it," as we used to put it, "away"). In decades past, the most disease-tainted casualties ever glimpsed would approach the counter and attempt to attach themselves to one's arm while Motorhead spewed from the jukebox (one frightener I recall wore
improvised face metal, an authentically filthy graffiti-covered jacket and the names OZZY and HANK on the backs of her grimy Mitchum-worshiping hands). Ah, the plague-ridden days of New York urban
fin de siecle.[/size]
If you're inclined to visit wine bars instead, have a stool at
Il Posto Accanto on East Second Street. Otherwise, wander a few blocks to 4th/5th and A; decent wine spots abound. And do visit the
King Cole Bar Lounge at the Hotel St. Regis if you'd like to leer at an original Maxfield Parrish triptych of Old King Cole, eavesdrop on wealthy eccentrics and sample eye-bulgingly exorbitant single malt scotches. And if you drink at King Cole's, you'll want to dine at the nearby
Algonquin, if only to sit where Dorothy Parker and Robert Benchley traded ripostes. (Accounts of the ambitiously-named Vicious Circle, and the original drawings of
Edward Gorey, as peeped at New York's still-incomparable book store, the
Gotham Book Mart, might also compel you to play the Goreyesque game,
Rule of Rose, whenever you return from NYC.)
Here, for your hookah'd friends, is a list of smoke-friendly spots:
http://www.head-fi.org/forums/showpo...3&postcount=35
If at some point, you feel you'd like to accelerate the entire bachelor experience and attend what appears a grumpy gentleman's bar such as you might have haunted if you'd never met your betrothed, finish off at
Hudson Bar & Books on Hudson and Horatio (perilously near the closed-down Blind Tiger Alehouse, once the best beer spot in NYC). There you'll warm to the Gentleman's Club ambiance, leather-stacked bookshelves, cigar-puffing Euro-codgers, choice scotches and perennial James Bond flicks on the Monitor Above.
For last-sightings art/lit nostalgia, saunter through the White Horse Tavern (Dylan Thomas's final drinkhole), the Cedar Tavern (haunt of Pollack and His American Abstract Expressionists), the Ear Inn (most recently, Dorothea Tanning, the last 1st-gen surrealist, still alive and in her nineties).
For a fashion infusion that allows you to avoid Williamsburg and Greenpoint, have a look at Ludlow Street. If you fancy looking like a mussy-haired indie musician, have your coif fondled at Ringo Yip's Salon on Ludlow and Rivington (R's clients include certain Hoboken bands people listen to here). I'm not certain it's still open, but the Darkroom at 165 Ludlow St. is where Interpol, Auf der Maur and the like used to toss parties when not actually drinking at
Max Fish.
If you enjoy ogling famous models and negotiating space with suited CEO swine, then I suppose you might want to visit Marquee at Tenth Ave. and 27th. I was there once and found it depressingly generic and corporate, a veritable Sex in the City backdrop. (Besides, one always intersects with the famous here. Nicole Kidman and her two female pygmy bodyguards packed sacks at my corner
health food store again a few weeks back.) Still, the quest for beauty has been known to drive thirtyish men to endure evenings of self-mortification. Perhaps this quest and vigil will be yours.
If an intact velvet sleaze decor married to pro readings and faux literary talk are your text and butter, then you might prefer the Happy Ending on Broome St., between Forsyth and Eldridge (hunt for the hot pink awning emblazoned with the words "Health Club"), where your transcontinental cred might well pay off. For less-traveled and more intimate versions of same, simply wander about on Clinton Street between Houston and Delancey, where any number of soft spots will vie for your inattention.
