On the Square Today

Nathaniel Peters on the virtues of the speakeasy :

If you go down St. Mark’s Place, between First and Avenue A, you’ll find a hotdog place–Crif Dogs, to be exact. If you go into Crif, you’ll see a counter at the end serving hotdogs. Two old arcade machines sit on the right. On your left there’s a phone booth, unremarkable since payphones were last used when those arcade machines were brand new. But if you go inside the booth, you’ll notice that there isn’t a payphone, but a normal one with a note saying to dial 1. Dial 1, tell the man how many people you have, and the wall of the phone booth will open to your left. You walk into a low-ceilinged, small oak-panel and brick room. A few stray taxidermied animals hang on the walls, including a genuine jackalope (a jackrabbit with deer horns) and a bear wearing a bowler hat. Welcome to PDT.