There goes the neighborhood.
I read with grave concern an article in the New York Times concerning the recent influx of Gen Z-ers at Bemelmans Bar at The Carlyle Hotel, among other classic New York establishments. The question at hand was why the young people had decided to make the long trip out of their hip neighborhoods to the Upper East Side.
The journey is one with which I am quite familiar, having moved eagerly to the neighborhood. Most often recommended by the phrase, “I think my great aunt used to live there,” and called by Broad City a “horrible, vapid wasteland,” I have found it to be a splendid home. Chief among its merits is the notable absence of Generation Z which has, until now, spent most of its time waiting in line for expensive cocktails and unpronounceable vegan food at the hip bars and restaurants of the city’s Gentrification Frontier.
The Upper East Side, then, has been free to enjoy Bemelmans in a decorous atmosphere devoid of young people wearing synthetic fibers and shirts without collars (or, in the case of my mother and I returning from an orchestra performance, to walk wistfully by the front entrance and keep moving out of sheer intimidation).
There is some dispute over where children of the mid-nineties fall in the millennial/Gen Z dichotomy, but the consensus among demographers is that I am a late millennial and ought not to count myself among the Gen Z-ers. (This is confirmed by the fact that I have not downloaded TikTok.) Thus, for the remaining months before I am priced out of the neighborhood, it is my right to complain and my solemn duty to address the problem of the Zoomer invasion.
If we are to properly attend to the matter, we must first understand the Zoomers’ reason for leaving their own neighborhoods and coming to the Upper East Side in the first place. My experience suggests that this is simple: they want to eat and drink at establishments that are not loud or gimmicky, which are an increasingly endangered sort.
Let us consider two hallmark institutions of the East Seventies which have become overrun with the latest generation: Bemelmans and J. G. Melon. Bemelmans, of course, has had to hire bouncers to keep people with torn blue jeans at bay. J. G. Melon — whose menu of burgers fits on 1/3 of a sheet of green paper and where the bill is payable only in cash — has enough draw to keep customers waiting in the cold on Third Avenue for several hours to be seated. So far as I can tell, the only way to dine there without a feat of human suffering is to visit as a party of one in the middle of the day and sit at the bar.
Bemelmans has not had a significant change in the character of its design since Ludwig Bemelmans provided illustrations in exchange for 18 months’ accommodation at the hotel in 1947. J. G. Melon has a similarly classic interior and meals are served by waitstaff in neckties. The food and drinks have a reputation for consistent quality and the menu is not overambitious.
I do not mean to suggest that either establishment’s volume of business should justify expansion into a vast sub-basement or the opening of locations at Times Square and all of the airports. This would strip them of their character and ruin their appeal. Instead, other restaurants — preferably those in Zoomers’ neighborhoods — might stand to learn about what is a pleasurable human dining experience rather than “A Very New York Thing To Do” and devote more of their focus to the former.
I once visited a bar that required me to walk through an alleyway and have a man scowl at my midwestern driver license in order to buy a $32 cocktail that came in a mug. This, it was explained to me, was the shtick. The drinks came in mugs. I drink tea out of a mug every morning and it does not cost $32. It was A Very New York Thing To Do, but I have not since returned.
For the limited subset of Generation Z that has moved to the Upper East Side, there is now a restaurant with a slick menu in sans-serif type. It is widely lauded. Visiting last week I discovered that what the restaurant lacks in coat hooks and people over the age of thirty-five, it makes up for in volume of music. The dinner conversation was limited by the din and primarily concerned what the Occupational Safety and Health Administration might have to say about the waitstaff’s exposure to hazardous noise levels in the workplace.
When it comes to music in restaurants, I generally share the opinion of Fran Lebowitz, who writes that “When I am in [a restaurant], I am not there to hear music. I am there to eat. If God had meant for everything to happen at once, he would not have invented desk calendars.” This is particularly true of the music that is common in newer bars and restaurants. If people want to listen to the latest electronic tripe from California, they will be pleased to learn that there are now dozens of daily flights from JFK to Los Angeles. Those who have recently discovered Bemelman’s have surely learned that, if they must shout over something, it is far more pleasurable to do so with Gershwin or Ellington.
I offer, then, a recommendation to the restauranteurs of Bushwick: Your patrons want to eat in peace! They want normal cheeseburgers! They want drinks served in the appropriate glassware! They do not want to shout over the music! The people of the Upper East Side know this because the customers that should rightfully be yours flee here and make us wait in long lines at the few remaining places where we can pronounce the menu items and speak without raising our voices. Take them back!
On Saturday evening, after a performance of Porgy and Bess at Lincoln Center, I became the first man in recorded history to arrive at The Carlyle by way of a crosstown bus, where I had decided (well before the article in the Times, for the record) that Bemelmans would be a suitable finale to the evening. There was, as the paper warned, a line to get in.
There were several operagoers still clutching their playbills in line, but we never stood a chance. A party of six Gen Z-ers was in line ahead of us (they had decidedly not come from the opera, though sitting in silence for a prolonged period might have done them some good), and the bar’s closing time of 1 a.m. was ill-suited to those arriving after a performance of nearly four hours. When offered a table in the anteroom just outside of the bar, the parties in front of us declined and left, seemingly insulted by the maître d’s suggestion that they should settle for anything less than whatever mysteries awaited inside.
We, however, accepted the table. Our aristocracy was fleeting and we did not know what we were missing beyond the entryway. We were glad to sit where we did. The bar itself seemed rather noisy.
Distractions
Things I have been reading, watching, and listening to this week.
Porgy and Bess at the Metropolitan Opera.
When I was in high school, there was an optional activity a few times each year when they would cram a bunch of us on a school bus and take us to Grand Rapids to see dress rehearsals of the opera. I remember eating a slice of catered pizza as somebody explained that, in New York, the translated opera titles are available in multiple languages at each seat instead of being projected on a screen over the stage. I always wondered how such a thing could work.
In early 2020 (with no idea what was coming), I went with my grandparents to see the Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess — my absolute favorite — which was sent by satellite feed from the Metropolitan Opera to a movie theater outside of Ann Arbor. It was one of the last times that any of us would be in a public setting like that for months. The opera titles were at the bottom of the screen and popcorn was permitted.
On Saturday, I saw the same performance at the Met — live and in person! There was no popcorn, but there was real champagne, and I finally got a look at the little Met Titles display at each seat with live translations in English, German, and Spanish.
The Met Opera feels like a temple. Every surface is covered in red velvet. The ushers at the door wear capes (capes!). The opera starts bang on time as the beautiful chandeliers ascend to the ceiling on cables. Partial view seats, it turns out, do not seem to dampen the Gerswins’ magnum opus. It is like nothing I have ever seen or heard.
“Spotify Wrapped, Unwrapped” by Kelly Pau in Vox.
Yes, the dystopian hell of influencerdom and big data extends to your listening habits as much as anything else. And, if you’re a Spotify user, this week’s fun little graphics are just scratching the surface.