Florent closes
May 21, 2008 by Andrew
The news that restaurant Florent is closing on June 29 doesn’t come as a complete surprise; the Meatpacking District has been utterly transformed over the past ten years by the influx of high-end boutiques, restaurants, and fashion stores. But at the same time a part of me feels aghast at the disappearance of this little landmark. I’ve not been to the place more than a dozen times in the many years I’ve been here, and I certainly wasn’t part of the late-night glitterati that once habituated the place, but going to Florent was never anything less than great fun, and often an occasion. It gave not just the city a certain style that’s long gone, I suppose.
Photo from Florent’s web site
Funny–I’ve been trying to elicit some sympathetic reactions from folks today in the wake of hearing this news…and no one seems to care. It causes me to wonder what distinguishes the places we mourn from the places we accept losing, as part of the ebb and flow of life in the city.
I also have only been there a dozen times or so since 1996, but will make a point to go back once more.
It causes me to wonder what distinguishes the places we mourn from the places we accept losing, as part of the ebb and flow of life in the city.
That’s a good question. The ‘old’ Times Square of boarded-up theaters, porn shops, and the like is squarely within my memory as well but I can’t really say I miss that whole scene (not that I’m crazy about the new-now-oldish Times Square, either). I’ll miss Florent because it was from the beginning - by virtue of its location and the people it catered to - already a ‘memory’ maker / marker in a sort of Suttlesian although countercultural way, and to have it lost to the texturally thin ‘high culture’ (all those swanky places on 14th Street now!) is distressing.
pretender says : I absolutely agree with this !