A Moveable Cocktail Party: Metro-North Bar Car

As you know, for much of the 1990s I worked on Wall Street in lower Manhattan. My last position was in sales at a bank next to WTC. The building later suffered a partial collapse from events on September 11, 2001. I initially lived at family apartment in Zeckendorf Towers at Union Square, but later moved to more civilised surroundings in Greenwich, Connecticut.

Having grown up near the city and visited it from a young age, I found living in NYC utterly overrated. I concluded the "New York experience" is something pursued mostly by vulgar young people on the make or by outsiders like stuck-up farm bitches from Iowa who think they're too good for their hometown. People who still use their city experience as a bourgeois status marker are boring. New York City? Been there, done that, bitchez. Next.

We drank a lot, mostly off the job. At lunch we would usually head over to New York Dolls, a strip club with a superb lunch buffet. We studied the naked girls in front of us and made pertinent observations to one another. I focused on my favourite girl, a slim, dark Eurasian beauty, staring at her small perfectly-formed tits and neatly trimmed pussy and chewing on some spicy chicken wings. Sometimes after the market closed we would head out to Scores, Flashdancers, and a few other clubs, the names of which I have forgotten. After work we hit Pipeline or various Irish bars surrounding WTC.

Once I moved back to Connecticut I caught the Metro-North train home. Grand Central Terminal is easily one of my favourite places in New York. But the drinking did not stop there. At the head of each tunnel in the Connecticut-bound terminal was a small stand selling cocktails, beers, and snacks. It was an opportunity to stock up for the long 52-minute ride home. Eventually a few of my fellow riders and I decided to hold drinking contests, measuring how many cans of Foster's and Coors Light we could consume without falling over on the way back.

Our arena was the Metro-North bar car, a veritable bar on wheels, added to commuter trains at specially-designated times each evening. It was usually packed with bankers, traders, and attorneys, plus a few women. A rolling cocktail reception. Ragging and teasing abounded. A few old boys played cards. Suits by Brooks Brothers, Southwick, Armani, Hugo Boss, and Paul Stuart. Solid black wingtips, or black loafers by Gucci and Ferragamo. Hair by Subway Barbers in Greenwich. O, happy times.

Nothing good lasts forever. There are rumours the authorities may close down the Connecticut bar car business for good. Let us hope not and instead raise our glasses to the cocktail-swilling commuter class.