"I mean, this is all I want in life, you know?" Eric Wareheim tells me as he quaffs an ice cold martini next to a Citi Bike stand just off Canal Street. The comedian and professional gourmand is wistfully surveying the scene unfolding in front of him, which looks downright Bourdainian: dozens of mostly young people perched on colorful plastic stools in a parking lot, drinking and smoking like it isn't almost 9 p.m. on a Tuesday night in the summer of 2024 in NYC, where the heady days of pandemic-era street revelry have all but faded into memory.
But coming by here, you just see this energy, and you're just like, What is going on? The British painter and musician Issy Wood is smoking on the corner. A gaggle of Vogue-favorite models are ordering drinks at the bar. Inside, the writer Jon Ganz is celebrating his book landing on Obama's summer reading list.
On this corner of Canal and Eldridge, the Italian-style aperitivo bar is practically a portal to the summer of 2020, when the adjacent microneighborhood of Dimes Square was still a winking inside joke on the cusp of media fascination.
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