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JOURNAL
THE END OF AN ERA
However, in the case of the recent closing of Rose’s Turn/55 Grove Street in Greenwich Village, New York City, the expression becomes true and meaningful again, as happens only when a true institution passes.
Rose’s Turn--and before that The Duplex, and before that Upstairs Downstairs--was the city’s longest running piano bar, in operation since, well sometime between 1945 and 1952, nobody quite knows for sure. During the pre-Beatles era, youngsters like Barbra Streisand, Woody Allen, Joan Rivers, Richard Pryor, Stiller and Meara, and so many more--their photos still lined the wall in the showroom upstairs until closing--cut their teeth there. In later years, people like Nathan Lane, Liza Minnelli, Olivia Newton-John and Tom Brokaw would stop in to visit or see a show. Rivers and Stiller & Meara still popped in unexpectedly to see shows as well.
While the celebrity factor cemented the landmark status of 55 Grove Street, it was the everyday struggling artists and the fans who appreciated them that gave the place its unforgettable flavor.
The staff was legendary in its audacity. As reported in a New York Times article about its demise, about ten years ago a drunk stumbled in and started peeing on the floor. In midstream, so to speak, singer Kristine Zbornik stopped her song and launched into “Cry Me a River.”
How could anyone who was there ever forget the antics of Elaine Brier singing “All Together Now,” complete with dozens of illustrated storyboards? Even better, when she and beloved, late pianist Peter Gloo began a duet of “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers” which turned into the raunchiest lyrics imaginable, each accusing the other “lover” of what he or she doesn’t do.
How could anyone who was there ever forget Mark-Alan’s rapier-like wit and dead-on impersonations, including Julie Andrews singing the greatest hits of Aerosmith or Billie Holliday wrapping the microphone cord around her arm so she could shoot up?
How could anyone forget Leslie Anderson singing a big band number and then during the instrumental break pulling out her own trumpet and playing along with the pianist? Or Randy Lester, when she changed the gender of Michael Jackson’s tearful ballad and--years before Lorena Bobbitt--sang “He’s Out of My Life” while holding a rubber penis? Or Lisa Hall decrying her dating life and belting out “Is There a Straight Man in the House”? Or Chuck Hancock popping in from Arthur’s Tavern next door with his saxophone, to improvise some riffs with the singers at Rose’s?
Where else would you find someone like Terri White, a veteran of some nine Broadway shows, bringing down the house every weekend with her rousing rendition of “Mustang Sally”?
Where else would you find a pair of bartenders putting down the bottles long enough to do a completely choreographed tambourine accompaniment to a singer’s uptempo number?
As for the piano players--Bill Graves with his drum machine, the late D. Jay Bradley, phenomenal Bobby Peaco, pop wizard Michael Isaacs, Michael McAssey, Joe Regan, singer/songwriter Clare Cooper, dynamic Dan Daly and so many others--they were the best in the business and also knew how to entertain a room.
And then there were the customers. The country music world has the Judds, but Rose’s Turn had the Duds, Marie and Sharleen, mother/daughter drinking team. Marie, 86, and Shar, none-of-your-damn-business, had been coming to Rose’s Turn almost every weekend for 26 years, by bus from Dumont, NJ, and were still going strong when the bar closed.
Mary and Greg had been coming in from Pennsylvania nearly every weekend and when they got married a few years ago, they invited staff to the wedding and had the reception at--you guessed it--Rose’s Turn.
Matt, a veteran of Warhol-esque films of the ‘60s, who lived on nearby Christopher Street for decades, came in promptly at 4 pm opening every day for his “wake up” coffee and to share the neighborhood dirt with the happy hour bartender.
There are far too many more to mention here, but suffice it to say that when word of its closing spread in its final week, several fans from around the world flew in, expensively and last-minute, to take part in the closing weekend party.
As shockwaves reverberated around the Village music community, there was no shortage of blame being handed out. Maybe the owners could have been more forthcoming about their plans, allowing time for someone truly interested in preserving its heritage to step forward and rescue it. Maybe the owners could have sold the building with the provision that the lower level remain a piano bar. Maybe the owners could have put more money into fixing its crumbling facade and infrastructure. Maybe the staff needed to be rotated and more young people brought in. Maybe the staff was giving away too many drinks. Maybe the beleaguered booking manager should have booked more shows upstairs in the last couple of years.
More than likely, it was a combination of all those factors, in addition to a declining interest in live piano music and a greed for more valuable Manhattan property to continue the Vegasizing of New York, that did it in.
In any case, it is gone, the third and most crushing loss of piano bars this year alone. The tourists used to come in and say “We don’t have anything like this in our city” and soon enough, we New Yorkers will be saying the same thing. Those of us who were a part of it, as I was for the last seventeen years, twelve of them as an employee, will have to be content with memories of a world that, before long, no future generation will ever understand.
For now, the good memories remain in the heart and mind, as unforgettable as a good old song.
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KevScoHall@Verizon.net