Decidedly mixed emotions around here about the New York Times tell-all story on the new speakeasies. While one is happy for a new place like Rye in Williamsburg to get the business this kind of coverage will doubtless generate, if the entire point of these places is their carefully cultivated obscurity and in-the-know appeal, that's certainly all over with now. It's a manufactured sort of mystique and not one that derives from an actual need for discretion, as it was in the age of Prohibition, but it's a fun conceit which the Times has neatly shattered. But leaving aside the elitist thrill of how cool you can look to your friends for knowing something so hush-hush, these places are all quite small--getting a seat at the bar or a table at PDT is already a challenge, and now it will be near impossible. Some friends are in from out of town and I'd planned to take them to Rye the day the story appeared-which killed that idea. If a trend in bars can jump the shark, the speakeasy may have just done it. The Times includes an ace slideshow of images from the ersatz golden age that was prohibition. For an excellent history of that era and the political shenanigans that led to a constitutional amendment restricting rights check out David A. Lerner's Dry Manhattan. J.R.
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