Broadway, tourists, prostitutes and drug dealers. Sounds like a crowd you want to hang with, right? Maybe you do if you want to capture some of old New York. You know, the kind that has been disappearing little by little. Rent increase here and rent increase there and New York City is getting closer to becoming a shopping mall that you can find anywhere else in America. Maybe we can even brand it Duane Reade?

Can you tell we don’t like it? Can you tell we’re in an extra bad mood? The reason is because we found out that Smith’s Bar and Restaurant on 8th Avenue and 44th Street is next to close. There isn’t much left from the old days in Time Square but Smith’s seemed like it had what it took to survive to ‘evolution’. Not so much! Make way for an Olive Garden, Red Lobster or some other uninteresting boring business with no character or New York flair.

Smith’s was going strong for 60 years, welcoming all the misfits in the area and serving all the seediness that the old Times Square had to offer. Now, it’s gone.

There aren’t many left so when you find a place that reminds you of the New York with graffiti covered subway cars and half naked women wandering the streets, cherish it. Once upon a time, these watering holes were a dime a dozen; now, they’re little gems!

Bye bye old New York.

@newyorkeventsco