Today’s MUG entry reminded me that the Howard Johnson’s diner in Times Square (actually, Duffy Square if you want to be totally accurate, I believe) was closing. Or, rather, had already closed — last week in fact.
Mourning a Howard Johnson’s in the middle of tourist central might not seem like the most New York of things to do, and it’s not like I visited this HoJo’s very often, or ever really. However, this specific restaurant on that specific corner does, actually, hold a dear place in my heart.
My first trip to New York without parents (I’ll actually withhold saying “as an adult” — I was 18) was over New Year’s 1989/90. I came to NYC for 10 days and stayed with a friend of mine’s mother who lived in Flemington, NJ. My friend was a fellow theatre major at UCLA at the time, and yes, I know that Flemington is not a good place to stay when you’re wanting to spend every day in Manhattan. We had some interesting trips to and fro, but that’s another story.
Aside from doing the whole ball-dropping thing on New Year’s Eve and catching Born on the Fourth of July during my first visit to the Ziegfeld, my friend and I intended (and did) spend the entire trip going to theatre. Nine shows in eight days is I believe what we accomplished. We basically lived on the TKTS line, seeing mostly Broadway (I remember going to A Few Good Men, The Merchant of Venice, City of Angels and Sweeney Todd), but a couple of the more popular — at least for those of us who didn’t know better — Off-Broadway shows at the time (specifically The Fantasticks and Vampire Lesbians of Sodom).
The first day we came to town, we got in the crazy long winding TKTS line and after securing seats for, I don’t know … something — we went to eat at that very same Howard Johnson’s. It wasn’t exactly the best welcome to New York eating experience, but in retrospect, it does feel kind of appropriate for the trip that I had. I mean, the whole Times Square area at the time was so different 15 years ago than it is now — nowhere near as Las Vegas flashy as it is now, much more grimy, still decrepit buildings and theaters; and I wish I had a more vivid memory of what a still-seedy 42nd Street actually looked like. Unfortunately, all I remember is the blur of walking down Seventh Avenue to Penn Station late one night with my larger-than-me friend much more on edge for some reason than I.
Regardless, what really makes that Howard Johnson’s special to me isn’t the meal we had there or even that it was the first place that we ate in the City. No, in fact, the only reason I think I even remember that we went to that HoJo is because of what transpired the next day. (At least, I think it was the next day. It might have been two or three days later.) It burned down!
OK, overstatement, sure. There was no “down” in the burning. The structure never disappeared. But as my friend and I found ourselves once again standing in the TKTS line right across the street form the HoJo, there was smoke, and then there were fire engines, and then there was more smoke because one truck had smashed its ladder through the billboard above the entrance to the restaurant in order (I assume) to ventilate the inside. And just like that, the Times Square Howard Johnson was closed for some time, and we couldn’t have eaten there again had we wanted to.
I moved to New York over six years later, and the Howard Johnson’s had long been reopened. I think during my nearly nine years here, I’ve been there once — maybe twice. But every time I would walk up that stretch of Broadway or even go to the TKTS booth, I’d look across the street and flash back to that day in 1989 when I didn’t really know anything about New York and had yet to fall in love with this city that I now so easily and happily call home.
Out of Focus 