Cafe Edison, NYC
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- Posts: 694
- Joined: April 30th, 2008, 1:51 pm
- Location: New York City
Re: Cafe Edison, NYC
There's a petition going around to save the cafe:
Dear Friends,
We are honored to feature the Magic Table at the Café Edison as November's Place of the Month. Please consider joining over 7,000 others in signing the Save the Café Edison petition to retain the café, where the Magic Table has convened since 1986. http://chn.ge/1qmUsjH
For the past 72 years, the Magic Table has served as a gathering place for coin snatchers, shadowgraphers, levitation aficionados, and generations of shell-game wizards. Located in the Hotel Edison's Café Edison, "it's a depot, a stopping-off point for magicians from all over the world," said longtime host of the Magic Table, the late Mike Bornstein, who was known on the vaudeville circuit as Kolma the Magical Mandarin. "We don't really have to be anywhere, so we come, we sit down, break bread with fellow magicians, discuss magic, talk about where you've come from or where you're going, and maybe see a new trick or two."
On a good afternoon, fifteen or more magicians might show up, filling two or three long tables in the back of the coffee shop. Those who come are an eclectic bunch. On the day we visited, a retired federal judge pulled an oversized deck of cards out of an invisible change purse; a porter, on his half-hour lunch break, responded by making a salt shaker disappear. A few minutes later, Bob Friedman, a world-traveling lawyer who commuted two hours that morning from the suburbs, showed the group how to cheat at poker. Afterward, Jerry Oppenheimer, a former court reporter, turned an ordinary deck of cards into a bouquet of wildflowers. The Café Edison, the hotel's former ballroom, is a magnet for show folks, too. Neil Simon wrote the Broadway play, Only 45 Seconds from Broadway, about the place.
As of November 2014, local magicians and their supporters are conjuring all of their powers to ensure that Café Edison, and the beloved Magic Table, are allowed to remain in the Hotel Edison. In early 2014, the café's current manager, Conrad Strohl, received notice that the café would not be given a new lease for 2015. Strohl has searched for nearby locations, but has not been able to find anything affordable. The café is scheduled to close on December 31st unless a groundswell of opinion is able to pull a rabbit from a hat - which shouldn't be a problem for the magicians at the Café Edison and believers everywhere.
Place Matters, a project of City Lore and the Municipal Art Society, seeks to promote and protect places that connect New Yorkers to the past, host ongoing cultural and community traditions, and keep our city distinctive.
Wishing you a magical November!
Molly Garfinkel, molly@citylore.org
Dear Friends,
We are honored to feature the Magic Table at the Café Edison as November's Place of the Month. Please consider joining over 7,000 others in signing the Save the Café Edison petition to retain the café, where the Magic Table has convened since 1986. http://chn.ge/1qmUsjH
For the past 72 years, the Magic Table has served as a gathering place for coin snatchers, shadowgraphers, levitation aficionados, and generations of shell-game wizards. Located in the Hotel Edison's Café Edison, "it's a depot, a stopping-off point for magicians from all over the world," said longtime host of the Magic Table, the late Mike Bornstein, who was known on the vaudeville circuit as Kolma the Magical Mandarin. "We don't really have to be anywhere, so we come, we sit down, break bread with fellow magicians, discuss magic, talk about where you've come from or where you're going, and maybe see a new trick or two."
On a good afternoon, fifteen or more magicians might show up, filling two or three long tables in the back of the coffee shop. Those who come are an eclectic bunch. On the day we visited, a retired federal judge pulled an oversized deck of cards out of an invisible change purse; a porter, on his half-hour lunch break, responded by making a salt shaker disappear. A few minutes later, Bob Friedman, a world-traveling lawyer who commuted two hours that morning from the suburbs, showed the group how to cheat at poker. Afterward, Jerry Oppenheimer, a former court reporter, turned an ordinary deck of cards into a bouquet of wildflowers. The Café Edison, the hotel's former ballroom, is a magnet for show folks, too. Neil Simon wrote the Broadway play, Only 45 Seconds from Broadway, about the place.
As of November 2014, local magicians and their supporters are conjuring all of their powers to ensure that Café Edison, and the beloved Magic Table, are allowed to remain in the Hotel Edison. In early 2014, the café's current manager, Conrad Strohl, received notice that the café would not be given a new lease for 2015. Strohl has searched for nearby locations, but has not been able to find anything affordable. The café is scheduled to close on December 31st unless a groundswell of opinion is able to pull a rabbit from a hat - which shouldn't be a problem for the magicians at the Café Edison and believers everywhere.
Place Matters, a project of City Lore and the Municipal Art Society, seeks to promote and protect places that connect New Yorkers to the past, host ongoing cultural and community traditions, and keep our city distinctive.
Wishing you a magical November!
Molly Garfinkel, molly@citylore.org