The first step to claiming your neighborhood is to pick
"your diner". Mine?
Waverly Restaurant at the corner of 6th Avenue and Waverly Place.
Where else do you have the choice between eggs, french toast, meatloaf or a prime rib? Waverly Restaurant serves patrons with the charming qualities of most New York diners: framed photographs of unkown actors from the 1980's, delicious comfort food, rushed service, cash only payments, cramped seating and shot glass size servings of orange juice. But what makes Waverly Restaurant my choice? On top of serving the best breakfast, please note the geniusness that is the seasonal window decorations. That's right, stenciled silver bells made with fake snow from a can. You know there is a box in the basement of Waverly Restaurant labeled "Christmas decorations". Keep an eye throughout the year with paper cut outs of leprechauns, Thanksgiving turkeys and Easter bunnies. Inside, there are also great paintings and pictures of 6th avenue through the years.Waverly Restaurant stands in a prime location - tourists get off at the West 4th subway stop to fill up before exploring the village, neighbors stumble in Saturday morning for grease, and any hour of the night or day you can satisfy your craving for pancakes...or a pastrami sandwich.
My personal suggestions: southwest scramble with hashbrowns, silver dollar pancakes with fresh strawberries and the classic grilled cheese sandwich.
Joe's Jr. challenged Waverly Diner, but sorry fans of Joe's, it's survival of the fittest and Joe's Jr. a few blocks up on 6th Avenue is no longer standing. (not to mention, they didn't serve strawberries on their pancakes, strike one)
I proudly stand, place my hand on my heart, and pledge my allegiance, to my diner, Waverly Restaurant.
I want to go to there!
ReplyDeleteAnd I want to be the first to make a comment on your blog.
Calvin Klein asked me if we served pancakes and I retorted, "If you want pancakes, you have to go to Waverly Restaurant! Best silver dollar pancakes around." A bit shocked that I would send him to a diner, he looked up at me with a quizzical look and then laughed aloud.
ReplyDeleteKeep your blogs coming! I love what you have written. A comment. I've about decided that a part of good writing is the communication of "presence". Think about walking by or stopping to look at a deli or a church building and stand nearby, maybe even across the street; notice how your presence changes your perception of the place and, perhaps your perception of how other individuals shape the space unlike other passers-by. Or the effects of a dove alighting on the sidewalk - it "walks" and "hops" and even "flies a yard or so" and how people within the space react to this change. Presence need make no sound, but it sometimes does. Think about presence, even your wonderments and possible anxieties attendant to the spaces into which you enter. Then, write. Length doesn't matter. Words do. I suspect that you will begin to know your world more intimately. And to enable others to drop the scales from their eyes and heart and mind such that they may come to realize that presences can offer, but never give, a freshened sense of the possibility of transcendence. Write, write, write. GDD
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