Since my college years, I have always enjoyed hanging out in cafeterias, coffee houses, and cafes. I liked the communal feel of places where—despite the Danish being stale, the coffee watery, and the chairs uncomfortable—one could sit for hours and talk animatedly with friends (mostly men, but there were a few women as well). Meanwhile, at nearby tables, other people engaged in the same activity. The talk ranged from politics to literature and film to philosophy. In my college years, much of the talk was sophomoric and half baked, but even though we had a few moments where we conveyed some true insight, what was most important to us was the passion of our beliefs and ideas. We liked the fact that we could fervently and competitively argue about Kafka, Camus and Nietzsche, deceiving ourselves that we were intellectually sophisticated. If there were just two of us there, we became engrossed in more intimate talk, about parents, women we dated, or our dreams for the future, but normally the personal was dwarfed by the talk of ideas and someone indulging in a narcissistic intellectual performance.
I would like to digress, for it is noteworthy to briefly explore the history of coffee shops. In the 16th century, coffeehouses began appearing in Persian cities. These establishments fast became more than just venues for coffee consumption; they transformed into vital centers for social interaction, political discussions, and artistic expression. By the 17th century, the first recorded European coffeehouse opened in Venice in 1645, quickly followed by establishments in England, France, and beyond. These cafés became centers for intellectual discourse and cultural exchange. Historians often associate English coffeehouses, during the 17th and 18th centuries, with the intellectual and cultural history of the Age of Enlightenment. They were an alternate sphere, supplementary to the university. Political groups frequently used coffeehouses as meeting places. And the author, critic, and essayist Samuel Johnson regularly frequented the Turk’s Head, where the other clientele included the actor managers like David Garrick and artists and writers such as Joshua Reynolds, Oliver Goldsmith, and Edmund Burke.
New York City contained bars and coffee shops of that sort during the years I left college; Figaro’s on Bleecker Street and The Lion’s Head on Christopher St. were two that I often went to with friends in the ’60s and ’70s, and the Cupping Room on Broome and West Broadway with my wife and friends later. All have closed, replaced, in the main, by more expensive places where customers can’t linger for hours over their computers, and tourists make up a good portion of the clientele.
My choice of café these days is Think on Mercer Street, where I sometimes meet one friend—a painter in his early 80s—but usually sit alone in the morning reading the Times. The clientele consists primarily of students, though other neighborhood people wander in as well. All of them are much younger than I am. And there is little sign of community or political or literary discussion taking place at the café. Most are solitary customers doing work on their computers, or friends talking to each other. Their talk I assume is either personal or a discussion of classes they share. It is not the kind of atmosphere that invites one to join in at a table. I feel if I ever tried to participate in the talk at a table, it would be seen as intrusive and even transgressive. But otherwise, the café is a sanctuary for me in the morning with caring servers who are extremely sensitive to my age and infirmity. It may not be the world of passionate discussion I fantasize, but I look forward each morning to going there for my latte and bagel and feeling at relative peace, despite my thoughts about mortality and a future of Trump trying to wreck our institutions.
