{"id":379,"date":"2001-02-09T10:49:00","date_gmt":"2001-02-09T10:49:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/2001\/02\/09\/fancy_restauran\/"},"modified":"2024-11-28T09:38:18","modified_gmt":"2024-11-28T14:38:18","slug":"fancy_restauran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/2001\/02\/09\/fancy_restauran\/","title":{"rendered":"Fancy Restaurants and Dank Basements"},"content":{"rendered":"

I also meant to mention<\/strong> a few things spotted during the trip to San Francisco that were actually about New York.<\/p>\n

First, I was thumbing through the in-flight rag<\/a> on the American<\/a> plane, and came across a gushing profile of Williamsburg<\/a>, of all places. It\u2019s not bad enough that Bedford Ave. is already clogged with hipsters, or that The Real World<\/a><\/i> may be coming here next year, but now hordes of tourists are being encouraged to cross the river and go slumming. Mark my words, it won\u2019t be long before they open a Marriott<\/a> there. Sheesh! I\u2019m glad I live off in the boonies, where it\u2019s still more ghetto.<\/p>\n

Second, I was looking at this beautiful coffee-table book<\/a> about the photography of James Bidgood<\/a>, and I was startled to learn that Bidgood met Bobby Kendall<\/a>, and quite a few of his other models, at a place called Club 82. Apparently, this was quite the swinging joint in its day, with cabaret shows and go-go boys and all manner of decadence. I even discovered that Blondie played there back in the early \u201980s. As fellow connoisseurs of contemporary homo East Village sleaze know, this place is still kicking and is still good for a thrill or two, but it\u2019s a far cry now from its more flamboyant past. I love discovering ghosts like this in places that I know around the city. Reading books like Low Life<\/a><\/i> (by fellow Regis<\/a> alum Luc sante<\/a>) and Gay New York<\/a><\/i> clued me in to all sorts of colorful tidbits about parts of the city that have fascinating, racy histories that would really put the wind up your skirts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I also meant to mention a few things spotted during the trip to San Francisco that were actually about New York. First, I was thumbing through the in-flight rag on the American plane, and came across a gushing profile of Williamsburg, of all places. It\u2019s not bad enough that Bedford Ave. is already clogged with … Continue reading “Fancy Restaurants and Dank Basements”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-379","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ultracultural","category-ultragay"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=379"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":71769,"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379\/revisions\/71769"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}