posted by Savanah on Jan 15
Many years ago, I spent a few weeks in the city of New York working on a play, a show on 42nd Street. This was in the very steamy month of August, part of a festival of small, off-off-off Broadway theatre titled Ninety Plays in Ninety Days. This was the first time I had ever been to the city, and was amazed at just about everything, from the way the 5 star New York hotels, and businesses seem to operate twenty-four hours a day, to the incredible slices of pizza to be found for just a dollar on nearly every street corner. Another amazing aspect, was that you can find anything in that city, and I mean anything, no matter how specific or specialized your tastes and your interests seem to be. I found a sock store, sandwiched in between and electronics shop and a small market. The socks store was very tiny, just two narrow rows of nothing but socks.
My friend came to join me during the second week, and her mission was to find the chess club in the East Village. That’s all we had to go on, as her boyfriend back in Phoenix could not remember the name of the chess shop, but knew that it was famous, and he wanted a tee-shirt. We set out, thinking that this was going to be a hard place to find, but as soon as we got to the East Village, we stopped into the White Horse Tavern for a quick pint and asked the bartender. “Of course,” he replied…”that would be the Marshall Chess Club!” It was just down the street, so we finished up and headed out. We walked into the cigar filled room, and it was like walking back in time just a bit.
There were men of 80 years old sitting at tables with teenagers, playing chess and passing the afternoon. This is not only one of the oldest clubs in the city, but in the United States as well. The Manhattan Chess Club was its only rival, but they closed up in 2002, leaving the 95 year old club the most famous spot in the city for a game of chess and some great conversation. Neither my friend nor I were familiar with the game, be we stayed and watched for a bit before buying the tee-shirt and heading on to meet the rest of our group. This is a great place to stop on a tour of the city, one in which to experience a bit of the history of Manhattan, as well as a place to just simply hear some great New York stories from the people who live them.
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