Back to the Future
Step outside the dark and cozy confines of the Ding Dong Lounge after you've had a few three-dollar happy hour pints, and you might be surprised you're in Morning-side Heights. And it's no longer 1981.
Blame the decorating scheme for making you think the lounge was a Bowery dive dated back before Manhattan became a theme park. The exposed brick walls of the well-worn establishment are hung with posters from punk shows you never saw and bands your older brother had to turn you on to: The Bad Brains, UK Subs, Black Flag and The Gun Club are all rep'ed on the walls, if not on the sound system. But still. Punk as fuck!
The rest of the interior matches the musical aesthetic, all conspicuously secondhand and comfortably broken-in. A flock of old cuckoo clocks adorns the area behind the bar, and guitar necks serve as beer taps. If you don't feel like joining the crowd around the bar, there's plenty of space on the long benches that line the walls-just watch out for the occasional roach skittering above your head. Or pull up a few of the creaky, mismatched chairs and sit around an old converted Ms. Pac-Man machine or a sturdy wood slab of a table that suggests drinking is serious work.
So much dive bar authenticity can be hazardous though. A few hours into my visit on a recent weekday evening, I witnessed one particularly studious drinker, who had been huddled over reading until that point, suddenly and spectacularly toppled over backwards when the leg of his chair cracked off. "This must be my initiation," he mumbled as he picked up his book. Sort of punk!
Earlier that afternoon, I had strolled north along Columbus Avenue to enjoy the sun and explore the neighborhood. Slowly sloping hills rolled by bodegas, check cashing counters and the massive Frederick Douglass housing projects. The bar was only a short walk north, with a sign out front that read, "You've been a lot less fun since you stopped drinking. You need to get off the wagon already."
Judging by the crowd I saw once I ducked into the cool subterranean darkness, most people probably came from the opposite direction, walking south down from Columbia. A few grimy regulars at the bar did their best to keep things from feeling too gentrified, but they couldn't counteract the preppiness of the well-heeled grad students sitting near the window. Backpacks, bike helmets and books were numerous, giving the place the feel of a college bar, but even with its grad student clientele, it doesn't seem like a Morningside Heights establishment. It's more like a hideout or shelter for strays who wandered up from the LES. Consider it Columbia's hipster oasis, a place where comp lit majors can read Debord under a Buzzcocks poster.
As I approached the bar for one last round, I overheard a young patron in a beaten denim jacket slurring to the bartender, "Hey, what train do I take to Williamsburg from here?"
So far, yet so close.
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