“You pushed aside the blackout curtain and elbowed your way through a jam-packed bar crowd, scarely able to breathe or see for smoke. Here, in the complete privacy of the din and the crowd, you and your pickup yelled preliminary sex advances at each other. You could flirt, but you couldn’t fight; there wasn’t even room to smack someone’s face. For that, you had to step outside. Oh the bloody battles and the sidewalk vomiting. The punches flying wide, the heads crashing backwards against the fenders of parked cars. Huge diesel-dykes slugging it out, far grimmer than the men…hitch-hiking servicemen delayed at this corner for hours, nights, days; proceeding at last on their journey with black eyes, crab-lice, clap, and only the dimmest memory of their hostess or host.”
While The Friendship was never this crazy when I visited it during my years in L.A. I can’t deny that I saw some sidewalk vomiting or heard some preliminary sex advances!
In any case, I have had my share of after-beach beers at The Friendship and am sad to see it go. Its name is apt. A place for good friends and strangers — and as for the strangers, well, the more they drank, the friendlier they became.
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End of an Era in Times Square [tr]
