Mostly there was Armstrong's.

Christ, I lived there. I had my room to sleep in and I had other bars and restaurants to go to, but for a few years there, Jimmy Armstrong's was home to me. People who were looking for me knew to check for me there, and sometimes they called Armstrong's before they called the hotel. The place opened up around eleven, with a Filipino kid named Dennis behind the stick days. Billie Keegan took over around seven and closed at two or three or four, depending on the crowd and how he was feeling. (That was the weekday routine. There were different day and night bartenders on weekends, and the turnover among them was high.)

Waitresses came and went. They got acting jobs or broke up with their boyfriends or got new boyfriends or moved toLos Angeles or went home toSioux Falls or had a fight with the Dominican kid in the kitchen or got fired for stealing or quit or got pregnant. Jimmy himself wasn't around much that summer. I think that was the year he was looking to buy land inNorth Carolina.

What can I say about the place? A long bar on the right hand side as you came in, tables on the left.Blue-checkered cloths on them.Dark wood-paneled walls.Pictures on the walls, and framed advertisements from old magazines. A deer's head was mounted incongruously on the back wall; my favorite table was right under the thing, so I didn't have to look at it.

The crowd was a mixed bag. Doctors and nurses fromRooseveltHospital across the street.Professors and students from Fordham. People from the television studios- CBS was a block away, and ABC a short walk. And people who lived nearby, or kept shops in the neighborhood.A couple of classical musicians.A writer. Two Lebanese brothers who had just opened a shoe store.

Not many kids. When I first moved into the neighborhood Armstrong's had a jukebox with a nice selection of jazz and country blues, but Jimmy took it out early on and replaced it with a stereo system and classical music on tape. That kept the younger crowd out, to the delight of the waitresses who hated the kids for staying late, ordering little, and tipping hardly at all. It also kept the noise level down and made the room more suitable for long-haul maintenance drinking.