Bill"s Not So Gay Anymore

In the speakeasy-cum-saloon-cum-restaurant where a year or so before my company feted my magazine as the most successful of our publishing properties, I found myself sitting across a table from the president’s son. It was 4 pm. Our meeting had been postponed for most of the day. I knew what he was going to say. I’m not clairvoyant. Just a perceptive tea leaf reader.

By mid 2009, the world of publishing newspapers and magazines had been tossed topsy-turvy and every which way, as if a tornado had blown through the heartland. The Internet had intermediated news distribution and sucked out classified advertising. The economic crisis of 2008 cracked the display advertising foundation. Conference sponsorships dried up, while travel budgets of attendees shrunk to a trickle. No, it was not a good time to be a publisher.

Our company had laid off hundreds as we squirmed to pay off a loan for an ill-fated acquisition. Our publications struggled to keep red ink from overwhelming the ledger.

I knew what Randall wanted to tell me. I made it easy for him. I told him I was willing to accept a buyout.

A few weeks later, in late June 2009, the staff of Chain Store Age, along with a few of my company friends and Randall’s father, Roger, gathered with me for a final drink at that same, favored watering hole a block from our office, across Park Avenue.

Now comes word that Bill’s Gay Nineties will close March 24 after operating at 57 E. 54th Street since 1924, a year before Chain Store Age published its first issue (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/02/nyregion/bills-gay-nineties-is-set-to-close-at-its-longtime-location.html?_r=1&src=me&ref=nyregion).

Truth be told, I didn’t spend too much time in Bill’s. Most night’s I’d go straight home to Gilda (and the kids when they lived with us). I rarely ate lunch there. The food was okay, just okay, and not too inexpensive at that. Service was slow, but haimish (a Yiddish word meaning friendly or homey). Still, the loss of another link to my past is reason enough to be nostalgic. This weekend, the staff of Chain Store Age is in Orlando hosting and producing the 48th annual SPECS conference for store development and facilities executives. One more reason to think about the past.

I have no regrets about retiring when I did. I do miss the everyday excitement of Manhattan. I miss my friends at work, though many suffered a fate worse than mine when they were let go. I miss the thrill and anticipation of putting on a conference that attracts some 1,200 retailer and supplier participants. I miss creating a new magazine every month, new Web site coverage every day. Perhaps that’s one reason I blog so often.

I even miss Bill’s Gay Nineties.