A Birthday Surprise

The Tribeca Tavern

The Tribeca Tavern was one of life’s small and affecting gifts, the kind you can still come across in New York City, although they are becoming fewer and more far between. It was an overcast February afternoon in 2003, my twenty-seventh birthday, and for lack of anything better to do that day I decided to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge. I had begrudgingly moved to Brooklyn two years earlier (an understatement if ever there was one), missing terribly my best friend at the time, who had moved to Berlin, and feeling like a bit of an outcast in the city I’d called home for so long. Solitude was becoming a constant in my life, so I figured I might as well get some exercise in the bargain. I’d been doing a lot of walking around Brooklyn, normally from my apartment in Crown Heights to the foot of the bridge, which was about a three-and-a-half-mile trek, but never seemed to get up the gumption to make it across. Perhaps the events of 9/11 were still too fresh in my mind, or maybe I was just exhausted by the time I reached the bridge (I was still pretty hefty and out of shape then – 3 ½ miles is a lot of wear and tear on the hooves when you’re not used to it). That particular day I had the radio on as I walked, some easy-listening station that provided a pleasantly non-thinky backdrop to the city scenery, and just as I reached the foot of the bridge, Bon Jovi’s song “It’s My Life,” came on.

This is for the ones who stood their ground
For Tommy and Gina who never backed down
Tomorrow’s getting harder make no mistake
Luck ain’t even lucky
Got to make your own breaks

It’s my life
And it’s now or never
I ain’t gonna live forever
I just want to live while I’m alive
It’s my life
My heart is like an open highway
Like Frankie said
I did it my way
I just want to live while I’m alive
‘Cause it’s my life

In retrospect it does seem like such an insignificant thing, walking the bridge, something so many people do every day, but trust me, it wasn’t. We were just about to go to war. People were still so goddamned scared and confused. I was so goddamned scared and confused. The Brooklyn Bridge is high, and a juicy target for a bombing. But I thought, whatever misguided reasons those soldiers are going to war for, they certainly aren’t going so I can stand at the foot of this bridge like a chickenshit. So I took a small breath and kept going myself. And it was beautiful, overcast day, droplets of rain and all. It was quiet up there, and the swishing sounds of tires across the damp pavement became soothing and hypnotic after a while. The American flags at the top of the bridge were whipping fiercely in the wind, and I concentrated on them, and let them ferry me across. It’s the small things, the meaningful moments that add up in this life, I think, and give you the strength to pull off the major victories.

I was feeling rather euphoric by the time I got to the other side, and decided a drink was in order (naturally). Unfortunately, bars in Tribeca seem to be mostly divided into two camps – nose-in-the-air joints that blithely charge $16 for a martini, or real buckets of blood with crime scene tape on the front door. I had to hike to North Moore Street, only a couple of blocks from the Hudson, before I saw the comforting, old-school sign advertising the Tribeca Tavern. By then it was starting to rain in earnest, and I gratefully ducked inside.

The bar is much longer than it looks from the front – it actually stretches all the way to the other side of the street. In addition to the long wood-paneled bar, there’s a pool table and plenty of dining space, a jukebox and a comfy, intimate corner with benches and plush chairs. When I walked in that day, I was the sole customer: Sal, the manager, was calmly wiping glasses, with one eye on the Knicks game, and seemed delighted to have some company. He mixed a perfect martini for me, in the traditional longstemmed glass (they have since graduated to stemless ones, which bother me in some fundamental way I can’t really articulate), and played a couple of tunes on the jukebox that made me smile. Just then, an older gentleman, who I assumed was the owner, emerged from the kitchen with a piping hot vegetable pizza (a Tavern trademark) cut it expertly into wedges and despite my half-hearted protestations, dished one up for me. We sat munching and chatting as the rain poured outside – when I told them it was my birthday, I was handed a second slice of pizza. It turned out to be a pretty great day.

The place hasn’t changed much since then, although Sal, with whom I shared quite a few pizzas, sadly passed away a couple of years ago. I dropped by with my friend Charles this past September 11^th to do some drinking and reminiscing, and found the mood inside lively and light. Besides the top-flight pizzas, their bar food is tasty and rib-sticking, hugely portioned and reasonably priced. Charles went for the grilled chicken sandwich, which was dwarfed by a mountain of french fries, and I had a vegetable quesadilla without cheese, (as I’ve recently decided to go vegan for three months) which surprisingly turned out to be just as good as the adorable and attentive waiter said it would be, despite my initial skepticism. We laughed a lot, enjoyed the evening, lived our lives and refused to get too pensive – the Tavern put us at ease. In the ever-changing Tribeca landscape, it still stands its ground, a comforting oasis dispensing small and appreciated kindnesses, and occupying one very major place in my heart.

The Tribeca Tavern, 247 W Broadway (between Beach St & Moore St); 1 to Franklin Street, A, C, or E to Canal-Church Sts, or J, M, Z, N, Q, R, W, 6 to Canal Street; 212- 941-7671