Tavern in the Red

I just read in Yahoo News that the famous New York restaurant, Tavern on the Green is going out of business. I have never been there, and I never even knew that I wanted to go there until I read about it going out of business. Isn't that silly?

I had heard of Tavern on the Green before, but who hasn't? I never knew anything about it and never gave any thought to it before though. Now I have seen pictures of its dining rooms and gardens and they are utterly beautiful; decorated in the kind of lavishness that you just don't see anymore, Tiffany stained glass, Baccarat and Waterford chandeliers- one of the chandeliers said to have been owned by an Indian maharajah. Doesn't that just get your imagination stirring?

The place was originally a "sheepfold." It housed sheep that grazed across the street in Central Park's sheep meadow. Since I have never been to Central Park either, I didn't know that part of it had once been a sheep meadow. A parks commissioner by the name of Robert Moses had the idea of turning it into a restaurant. If you think about it for a moment, it almost sounds preposterous to turn a place where livestock is housed into a restaurant, but it takes people of special vision to create something truly unique, and Tavern on the Green certainly was unique.

The building has had its ups and downs over the decades, and changed hands a number of times. Warner LeRoy, a son of one of the producers of "The Wizard of Oz," took over the restaurant's lease in 1974 and scoured the world looking for whimsial things to add to the Tavern's ambiance. "With LeRoy's addition of the glass enclosed Crystal and Terrace Rooms, his lavish use of brass, stained glass, etched mirrors, original paintings, antique prints and, above all, chandeliers, Tavern was reincarnated. It became a glittering palace, Central Park's most spectacular structure.... Celebrities flocked to the restaurant to see and be seen....[It became] "the" place for New York's most prestigious events - charity and political functions, Broadway openings and international film premieres.
(http://www.tavernonthegreen.com/history.asp?headinfo=abouttavern&subhead=history)

I would love to just spend some time in the place, soaking up some of its history. I feel a strange sense of loss. Another piece of the past, a past I never even knew, is being shut down, stripped of anything valuable and sold at auction. It's just plain sad. How many more American icons will this recession pull down with it? The irony is that the restaurant opened and thrived during the Great Depression.

I don't know exactly what went wrong or how the Tavern got to be more than 8 million dollars in debt. I am sure that someone else will come along and reopen the restaurant, but the building's character will have been gutted, it's spectacle and charm parceled up and sold to the highest bidders, another piece New York City will become just a memory to a bygone era.

As for me, I am going to look at some more pictures of the place and mourn for it a little while longer. Then I am going to start looking forward to going back to college. I have all my paperwork filled out and submitted. Now I just have to see if I can get some financial aid to get my books. Classes start on January 4th.