Neon Nights
Neil’s Coffee Shop on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.
Update: Neil’s Coffee Shop has closed. The restaurant was evicted months after their owner died at age 84.
A few weeks ago, I ventured to my former neighborhood, Manhattan’s Upper East Side. Often dubbed as “un-hip,” the well-heeled nabe is largely known as a haven for billionaires, millionaires, celebrities, the geriatric crowd, and a sprinkling of young professionals. That description fits, but the neighborhood is also amenity-filled, with an array of restaurants and bars, high-end retail, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Guggenheim, Central Park, East River Greenway, Carl Schurz Park, Cooper Hewitt Museum, and the Neue Galerie New York at one’s fingertips. The area also has relatively affordable rents (in the old tenement buildings east of Lexington Avenue) compared to the rest of Manhattan below 96th Street.
Ruby Red Lights on Lexington Avenue
During my time there, I spent a few late nights strolling various avenues, usually down to Midtown or up to Harlem. On those walks, I often marveled at the area's impressive architecture. Though not quite as ornate and arresting as the Upper West Side, the Upper East Side’s architecture is no slouch, offering a mix of Art Deco buildings, brownstones, and contemporary high-rises that were home to the Jefferson’s, the Sheffield’s, and Carrie Bradshaw in the world’s imagination. It’s also where Blue Ivy Carter entered the world.
A highlight of those extended walks was seeing dozens of storefronts adorned with neon signs. Those whimsical embellishments, featuring unique fonts, slogans, and graphic art, hearken back to a bygone era. Most of all, they add a pop of color to the neighborhood’s stately buildings.
Neil’s Coffee Shop, an unassuming, half-century old diner outfitted with formica booths and a lunch counter, has one of my favorite signs on the UES. Neil’s neon sign is an entire mood, bathing East 70th Street and Lexington Avenue in atmospheric ruby red at night.
While snapping these photos, I noticed a subtle shift in parts of the neighborhood. The 2017 opening of the Second Avenue Subway has made the UES more desirable for a larger number of young professionals, spurring trendier local chains to follow. As a result, longtime haunts are vying for attention against upstarts like Blank Street Coffee — a hip, rapidly expanding chain with outposts in trendier parts of NYC.
Though not as Instagrammable (among those who favor white, minimalist spaces with brown woods, and subway tiles), restaurants like Neil’s Coffee Shop are sorely needed. These character-filled, time-tested spaces look like places human beings actually stop in to engage with the world.
Update: The NY Times has reported that Blank Street Coffee is a venture-capital backed coffee chain that has now opened dozens of shops and kiosks around NYC and several locations in London.
