Adventures of the Lost Expedition, Part II: Crossing the desolate Theater District

NIGHTLIFE

May 28, 1982

Adventures of the Lost Expedition, Part II:

Crossing the desolate Theater District.

CAPTAIN’S LOG, BAR DATE II: The sun was bright, the spring air was crisp and the Lost Expedition, encouraged by their April sortie through happy hour country in the heart of downtown Buffalo, were in high spirits as they resumed drinking their way up Main Street to the Genesee County line. This time their staging point was the Forvm Romano in Main Place Mall, an oasis that had been shuttered by 7 p.m. on occasion of their first visit.

            Even so, the Forvm Romano is a procrastinator among mall tenants when it comes to closing. Everything else in the building was locked tight by 5:30 this particular Friday, including the basement garage.

            Primarily a luncheon place with dark décor dominated by large Latinate medallions, the Forvm celebrates its primary happy hours Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays, when all cocktails are $1 from 5 to 7 p.m. Friday is just another day – no hors d’oeuvres, no drink specials – so the expeditioners gathered around 95-cent drafts of Labatts, Schlitz and Michelob Light, served by an amiable barmaid named Liz.

            Equally amiable among the businesslike crowd of about a dozen was Brenda J. Jones, who was soothing the ravages of a week in the consumer credit department on the 15^th floor of the Marine Midland Center. Invited to join the expedition, she demurred and caught a bus home instead.

            Perhaps that was because the next stop was several blocks north at Main and Chippewa, the threshold of the Theater District. Ms. Jones had warned that this section was deader than ever, but even her admonitions could not have prepared us for the lonely and desolate landscape that greeted our safari as we emerged from Theater Place.

            It could have been Beirut. The streets and sidewalks were broken and strewn with the rubble of subway construction. With no show at the Studio Arena, Center Theater or Shea’s Buffalo, pedestrian traffic consisted of a bag lady muttering to herself as she hobbled past the boarded-up storefronts.

            Among these were such incidental Theater District watering spots such as Salters’ 621 Club and the Flair lounge at 692 Main, where young boxers catcalled from the open windows of Singer’s Gym on the third floor. The Theater Lounge at 611 Main had the air of sudden evacuation. Empty beer bottles sat on the bar amid a clutter of bills and papers. A video game glowed in the dim interior. A sign proclaimed a Thursday drink-and-drown from 4 to 9 p.m. But it wasn’t Thursday. Even at this early hour, the door was locked.

            Dispirited by the bleakness of the scene and weak from lack of hors d’oeuvres, the party put in at one of the few licensed premises that offered a hint of what the Theater District used to be – the venerable Swiss Chalet at 643 Main, little changed since the heyday of Saturday matinees at Shea’s. Indeed, since the bankruptcy of Cambria’s Old Spain across the street, it is the only major restaurant here.

            It was clean, brightly lit with glitzy ‘60s fixtures and populated with uniformed waitresses and about two dozen diners. Along with several varieties of beer, the place-mat menu offered salads, sandwiches and the Chalet’s famous chicken. Better yet, however, were the ribs at $6.25, which came with a bowl of tangy barbecue sauce. Only disappointment was the restroom, where the sticky occasion called for paper towels, not electric hand dryers.

            Renewed and refreshed, the expeditioners proceeded on foot to the northernmost station on their itinerary – Ray Flynn’s Golden Dollar at 815 Main north of Goodell – with a short time-out to accept a guard’s invitation to have a better look at the glorious art deco lobby of the Courier-Express next door. Flynn’s, meanwhile, is as much an adjunct of the Courier as its advertising department. It dates back to 1933. During Prohibition, there was a speakeasy on the second floor.

            Ray Flynn, now in his 80s, has retired to a Niagara Falls nursing home. Standing behind the antique Honduras mahogany bar is his son Tom, greeting the incoming Courier regulars by name. An old-fashioned beer-drinkers’ paradise, Flynn’s carries two long-lost Buffalo brews – Iroquois and Simon Pure, preserved and bottled by Koch’s in Dunkirk. Iroquois goes for 80 cents a bottle, while an Old Vienna draft is but 60 cents.

            On the shelf behind the bar are all those traditional tavern amenities that somehow never get included in those spiffy new brass and wood-paneled drinkeries – peanuts and assorted other snacks, a rack of Bic lighters, even a carton of Winstons for those who don’t find them in the cigarette machine. This is a place where one could leave change for a $20 on the bar without fear.

            It was with great reluctance that the expedition took leave of the warm wood paneling and good company of Ray Flynn’s Golden Dollar to stride southward again through the gathering chill to look in on the early crowd at a gay disco, City Lights at 729 Main. Perhaps two dozen men lined the bar, chatting casually and occasionally embracing as the sound system served such soft early-evening fare as George Benson’s “Turn Your Love Around.”

            Since it was only a bit past 9 p.m., the dance floor – one of the best wooden floors in town – was quiet and unlit. A woman challenged the men at the pool table in one corner. One expeditioner ventured into the men’s room, where an old guy reading a racing form patted him on the derriere and asked him to join him at the bar. Behind the bar, a well-muscled blond bartender in a satin jacket with cut-off sleeves provided Molson’s Golden for $1.40 a bottle. It was too early for specialties touted by signs at the rear of the room: “Char-broiled hot dogs. 85 cents. Available here.” “10 cent wings. Order here.” “Poppers on sale here. $7.”

            As darkness fell, it grew apparent that there was life behind the silver-covered windows of what used to be the Little Club at 750 Main. Rechristened Diane Duff’s Little Club, it’s run by the same folks who cook up some of the best chicken wings in the area out at Sheridan Drive and Millersport Highway in Amherst.

            A pool table has been installed in front of the old dining room, while in the rear a new dance floor is under construction. But in the barroom half, little has changed in the Little Club, aside from an etched mirror proclaiming the new ownership, which began in February. Molson’s Golden is $1.35. A single order of wings, which are first-rate, goes for $3.35.

            It was with mixed feelings that the expeditioners retreated to what, for all of them, was a familiar venue, the new Tralfamadore Café in Theater Place at 622 Main. Nowhere else had there been such formality or, for that matter, an admission charge. The limited snack menu had been outclassed by the wings at Diane Duff’s Little Club. And what one expeditioner called “little bitty beers” at $1.25 were no match for the low-priced taps at Ray Flynn’s.

            As a result, the travelers decided to cap their adventures not with beer, but with imported champagne at a most reasonable $7.95 a bottle. Further reward came from the stage. The Tralf can be counted on for the most sublime live musical experiences in town and this night was no exception. It was Gallery, which mated the sensual vibraphone and marimbas of David Samuels with the cool asceticism of Oregon reedman Paul McCandless. This was not mere consolation amid the desolation of the Theater District, nor an early installment on the future. It was here and now. And it was magic.