Just as the deli (and Mark D’Orsay frenchie haircuts!) on Park Ave. South appears to be closing, a venerable PAS boite has shuttered as well, in favor of the new Park Avenue Tavern. Bogart’s, located on the corner of 39th, is no longer. I used to walk by Bogart’s all the time, en route to Grand Central, and always saw the same thing: hundreds of sweaty guys eyeing up a lone table of scared women. The place reeked of the recently divorced and thin American lager. I wondered, with all the nabes of Manhattan, who the heck would choose Park Ave. South to have a drink.
The Times had a look at the brand-new Park Avenue Tavern the other day. The proprietors are a bunch of Irish guys from Rockaway who admit the gilded streets of Park Avenue are a bit foreign to them.
I live in the area and Bogart’s had no business after 7-8 pm. I couldn’t figure out how it stayed in business until I saw their late(ish) Friday and Saturday night B&T or hip hop clubby nights. Most nights the cops shut it down. A few too many and they must have lost their license.
Will be interesting to see if this new place can drag in a crowd. They’ve done nothing to announce themselves to the neighborhood.