I walk through this little alley nearly every day, on my way from my apartment to the various shops - coffee, bookstore, groceries, magazines - on 41st Ave. This little bundle of crumpled napkin is sitting on the windowsill of a restaurant, "The Avenue Grill", that's been there for decades. When I first went to it, it was a wonderfully cheesy little diner - formica, aluminum, booths with jukebox selection boxes, and, last but not least, really good bad food. It was a great place to go. Then (you guessed it) it got "gentrified". Booths gone. Jukebox? Oh, really gone. Crappy food? Um, well...O.K., the food's a bit better, but it's the same "bit-better-food" that you can get in any faux French restaurant. At the same inflated price, of course.

At least they kept the swell neon sign.