June 30, 2006
Drink Up: Sweet Paradise
This one's gonna be short and sweet: here's a new, low-key bar offering cheap drinks and we like it. From the owners of Welcome To The Johnson's comes another bar below the Lower East Side, to BelDel, if we're still saying that. We like the comfortable seating, extended happy hour (4pm-9pm Weds-Sun, $2 beers, $2 well drinks) and their choice of a house beer, choosing, like Abilene, the very inexpensive PBR alternative Genessee Cream Ale ($2 all the time). We also like their nod to the bar's previous life as a candy store -- glass shelves and rows behind the bar showcase more choices than a concession stand -- Runts, candy laces, etc. A word to the wise, don't try to buy one of the golfball sized gobstopper by the register, they're only for show. There's no gimmick here, though, only simple decor, tried and true music (Bowie, Bloc Party), and no plans to add Nerds to drinks anytime soon.
Sweet Paradise
14 Orchard Street, between Canal and Hester Streets
(212) 228-3612
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I dig the moniker BelDel very much!
BelDel (under that "name" or any other) is still the Lower East Side. So is the "East Village", for that matter. But that has its own identity now, so I guess it is what it is. But "BelDel" doesn't exist, except if one wants to be cute. It's the LES.
These new bars are creeping more East every year.
Soon they'll be by the East River, though this bar is pretty close to Chinatown proper.
When my old man first came to this country, he told us he slept in Sarah Roosevelt park in the summer and nothing would happen.
Back then it was not called the LES, it was a derogatory term. (1920's)
BelDel - ha ha! That's so Cali that it makes me a little dizzy...
When my old man first came to this country, he told us he slept in Sarah Roosevelt park in the summer and nothing would happen.
Back then it was not called the LES, it was a derogatory term. (1920's)
[3] Posted by: sarah roosevelt sleeper | June 30, 2006 02:17 PM
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It may have been derogatory (although I don't see how "lower east side" is any more innately derogatory that "upper east side"), but the Sarah Roosevelt Park area was very much called the Lower East Side during the twenties, as well as both earlier and later.
People might have had other names for it (or parts of it) to avoid stigma, as your dad indicated. I'm wondering if he ever told you what he/they preferred to call it.
Genny Cream Ale? Is this some sort of inside joke on the LES? Do hipsters actually order Genny Screamers by choice?
The land for the Sara D. Roosevelt park wasn't acquired by the city until 1929 and the park wasn't opened to the public until 1934. While the term LES may have been derogatory in the 1920s, the changes to the neighborhood over the past decade show much ten or fifteen years can change a neighborhood's image and characteristics.
Yes Dave, we know how much the LES has changed over the last 20 years. For example, noone can afford to live there anymore. But what are you actually saying?
was there last night. enjoyed the music and the good lookin' ladies who were dancin'.
bartender was cool.
thatisall.