But I digress.
Today, I found out my favorite diner in New York City, the Edison Cafe, is closing its doors, likely within a month's time. Naturally, the first thing I did was call my mother in a panic. To most people, this reaction would probably seem weird (and maybe it is) but my mother understood it. The Edison's a titan in the theatre district, an institution that's welcomed many of the theatre greats through its doors over the past twenty years. Don't believe me? Neil Simon literally wrote a play about it and Neil--he knows his stuff.
There's a part of me that's hugely sad to see such an important part of New York theatre history shut its doors; plus, I find something utterly charming and romantic about the rush and clanging noises of a great diner. More than that though, I'm sad to see this place go for personal reasons. As an adult, and as a New Yorker, I've spent a lot of time trying to find places that really felt like mine. Maybe it's watching too many episodes of Friends or Cheers (I know, again with the TV!) but I feel like I've been constantly on the lookout for places that made me feel comfortable, welcomE, or like they just fit. The Edison was one of those places.
For plenty of people, this probably wouldn't make sense. Walking into the Edison, it doesn't seem like much of anything special. The theatre posters are hung a little crookedly, the signs are handwritten, the paint's yellowing a bit. However, based on the uproar that erupted once the closing was announced, it's clear I'm not alone in feeling connected to the place. For me, the Edison was far more than a hole in the wall with great matzo ball soup or a killer blintz; it's been a marker in so many of my important memories here. It's one of the first places I came when I first visited NYC at age 19, it plays a prominent role in what's easily one of the happiest memories of my life and the moment I decided I needed to move here after college. Every year when my mom is here, without fail, we make it an event to go here (and we always order the same thing; cheeseburger deluxe with a Diet Coke, no pickle). We've sat at those tables, year after year, as life has zoomed by. Our conversations have changed--from next semester's classes to 401Ks, from heartbreak to the pangs of a new love, from figuring out where the closest IKEA was to what couch was the best investment. I've grown up inside these walls and while my life has changed so much in the seven years since I first came here, this place has stayed the same. There's been something really comforting about knowing that in a life that felt like it was moving and changing so quickly and a city that wouldn't stop doing that either, there was this one place that felt suspended in time, stable, safe.
I'll be sad to see the Edison go. The girl in the left booth will have to find a new place to haunt. Maybe its closing is a sign of the times. Maybe it's another reminder that I have to stop making a home for myself in places, and instead need to make a home within myself, so that sense of safety and stability with go with me wherever I go, because things are going to keep changing.
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