Wednesday - September 2, 2020 - Black Fox Coffee Co. - Midtown East - 45 East 45th Street (Madison Avenue).
Within the Roosevelt Hotel, Midtown East, there exists a spot for espresso in the middle of a coffee desert. It’s a shop called The Black Fox and it’s open from Monday through Friday, from eight in the morning until four in the afternoon.
This morning I traversed east, through a cloudy and grey Manhattan. Crossing through the Diamond District, I found myself at Madison and East 47th, then noticed the Roosevelt Hotel two blocks south. These days rooms at the Roosevelt that once went for almost five hundred dollars a night can be booked for eighty-five.
Along Madison, men’s shops are abound: Men’s Warehouse; Charles Tyrwhitt; Sayki; My Suit; as well as the shoe’s store, Clark’s. They’re keeping their doors open, unabashedly afraid of being stood up by the thousands of men who once, not so long ago, walked up and down Madison Avenue each morning, afternoon, and night. The men who would pop in for a fitting, to buy a suit, to pick up a few ties over their lunch breaks, or who walked in, just to browse. The men who would get off the Metro North at Grand Central in the morning and walk over and into the giant office buildings that stand stories and stories high –––––– somewhere up there, there are views of The East River, Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx.
The retailers who are keeping their doors open, day after day, make their announcement: we’re trying, we believe in Midtown Manhattan, and are ready for the revival, even if no one knows how long it will take.
Outside of The Black Fox this morning, sat two sets of tables and chairs: wooden, quaint and inviting. As I walked in, two men and two women were having coffee and pastries together; their conversation, lively –––– a collective sign of life that was piercing through the veil of an abandoned and forgotten city.
Sunny days are better; there’s more life outside. But even through the grey and the light rain, there’s a feeling within this city: remnants of what was; preludes to all that will be; as well as a pulse, that no matter what, still beats.
