Saturday, January 6, 2018

10,378. RUDIMENTS, pt. 187

RUDIMENTS, pt. 187
Making Cars
At the corner of W12th Street 
and Washington St., there used 
to be a place called Hogs n' Heifers.
It had a long history, back through 
the 1930's and before. It was a 
wharfside trucking bar, a butchers'
bar, in the meatpacking district. 
In the 1930's and all, nearby
was the Washington Market, 
the Gaansevort Market, all these 
fresh-air places where meats 
and produce came in, were 
rendered, and were sold.
Freezer lockers, carcasses 
of meat, like in those movies 
where the boxer-guy goes in 
and starts practicing his punching
techniques on beef slabs. Free 
tenderizing. Each meat-packing 
guy or company had chain hoists 
out front, motorized when I saw 
them, and the chains had big 
hooks on them, and on each 
hook, or every other hook, or 
whatever, would be hanging a 
side of beef, half a carcass, ribs 
and the while thing, less head  
-  meat, fat, everything still in 
place except the internals. I 
guess it was delivered clean, 
and cold. Someone else I'd 
suppose, somewhere else, 
had done the slaughtering 
and draining and halving and 
cutting up. The motorized chains 
moved the carcasses around, each 
to a cutting station, indoors or 
outdoors (a lot of this work 
was done right there, on the 
sidewalk and street, where 
the chains hung out in the 
open-air). At each station, there'd
be a white, bloodied-apron'd 
butcher, wielding his saw, 
knife, or blade. Sometimes 
motorized as well  -  meat-cutting 
chain-saw type things. Back in 
1967 there were at least 35 of 
these places, all along the 
meatpacking and market area. 
As of today when I walk there, 
I can find two or three, at best, 
and they've been removed to more
'hidden' set-backs and locations,
and those are consolidations  -  
other remnants of what once 
was who've banded together. 
By the end of the 20th century, 
mostly, all that was left were 
old  signs and old metal racks 
and docks. The chains and pulleys 
were gone, many of the cobblestoned 
street areas had been paved over, 
and new construction and vast 
modernization was the order of 
the day. Now, it's unbelievable. 
There once were small bars at 
nearly every corner. What 
became Hogs 'n Heifers had 
been an old workingman's bar. 
In the same was as Puffy's on 
Hudson Street, time had passed 
it by  - dark, dingy, quiet, morose, 
and sullen. Old guys sitting around 
drinking. Somehow by, maybe 
1985,  it was purchased by this guy, 
Alan Dell (old money name in NYC, 
though NOT the computer company 
guy at all). Floyd Dell was a big 
literary name in the 19-teens and 
1920's. (See 'Hart Crane' era). Old 
photos of the era can be found 
showing both Puffy's and this 
Washington Street bar, by some 
other name I can't recall  -  as 
serious, working-men's bars. 
Alan bought it and somehow 
got it turned into the right kind 
of floozy biker bar. In those days
I frequented, with others, both 
of these places, but Hogs had taken
off  - gotten a reputation as a
Biker hell-hole, loud, loose-women,
heavy drinkers, and motorcycles
everywhere. Which was mostly all
true. Above the bar were collected
a few hundred women's bras, as the
babes there after a few drinks and
some music, usually managed to get
themselves convinced to dance on
the bar and leave their bra behind.
There was a pool table jammed into 
very small back area, and one single
restroom  -  more like a linen closet  -  
into which everyone piled as needed.
Piles of money were being made.
Alan was very cool about it all, but
drugs were taking their toll. He was
also very fond of deep-sea fishing off
Long Island, somewhere out there, and
that is where he died. About 1997 maybe.
Leaving the place to his joyous and
glamorous wife, Michelle. Michelle
was very cool, very with it. She ran
the place like a tight ship  - had the
right underlings and enforcers to
work the place. It hummed, and 
then, as well, became slowly famous
in he sense of low-life hipster fame;
movie and theater world people,
stars and models and all, began
frequenting  - to be seen doing so.
It began strangling on its own
fame, but lasted a long time. 
Michelle eventually moved off,
with lots of money to a second
location, almost a parody of this
one, in Las Vegas. By 1999
anyway, I mostly gotten away
from it all  -  could no longer 
abide the crowd or the noise. 
More and newer 'Bikers' came 
in. I can remember many a long 
day into night there, with a few 
delusionary pass-outs at the front 
steps; just asleep leaning on the 
building where I sat. Two Mob 
guys used to came at the close 
of each month, the last Sunday, 
to pick up their take. I even got 
to know and sit around with 
them. This is all funny, real 
stuff. Nothing with those guys 
just 'happened.' It was all 
procedure and protocol and 
you'd better damn-well have 
gotten it right. The two of 
them worked in tandem, 
one driving and doing 'look-out', 
and the other one  -  the more 
spry of the two  -  did the talking, 
the pickup, and the collecting 
and terms. Enjoyable bunch. 
Mobster pay-off time.
-
Back then that area down there
was all cobblestones, and sometimes
they'd actually be wet, and slippery,
with animal carcass slime and the
hosed-off run-off of whatever was 
left. Refrigerator trucks idled, small, 
boxy-trucks, and the large semis too,
if they could maneuver around.  There
was, really, no law down there  - you
could park, walk, or go wherever you
desired. We'd park motorcycles on 
the sidewalk, along wrong-way 
curb-streets, or just stay there, sit 
on them, and drink. The place was 
loud and raucous, real B-movie 
stuff, and fairly useless too  -  don't 
get me wrong. I'm not here to 
glorify a bad situation. I had my 
own little posse of ten or twelve, 
and we'd always ride in with, all
told, very few bad events taking 
place. It was mostly all good. 
By the late 90's though it was 
mostly all over  -  whatever locals 
there were there, and that was 
only a few, had complained 
enough of noise and late hours 
and booze, that restrictions 
were put in place. Weird things, 
like cabaret-license stuff  -  no 
more dancing on the bar, because 
'cabaret' meant dancing and 
without a license you  couldn't  
-  even though they still did. A 
guy was posted out front to check 
at the door and stop people from 
going out and drinking in the 
street. Another restrictive, killing 
rule. Overcrowding  -  the place 
looked like it could hold maybe 
30 people but got 200 squeezed in. 
That became a problem. Bad air, 
blue smoke, and the rest. I finally 
gave it up; no longer for me.
-
Just up the street was another place
much the same, but fancier and larger.
But different; meaner somehow. At
Hogs, if someone ripped your head
off, they'd pt it on the bar and everyone
would get drunk and sloppy over it.
At Red Rocks, by contrast (the other
place), they'd rip your head off, put
it on the bar, and then spent the
rest of the night screaming at the
head about why they'd had to do 
that and what you'd made them do.
Now, all that stuff's over. Hogs is
long gone, and Red Rocks is a
place now called 'Artichoke Pizza.'





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