№ 0009·SUPERSTAR 002·West Village·AUG 21 2026·1:40 AM
DESMOND
Bartender, 31 years
Desmond has worked the same bar on Bedford Street since 1995. He has outlasted four owners, two names, one fire, and, he says, "every single person who told me this neighborhood was over." He is sixty-one. He does not use a phone at work. He remembers what you drink.
- Q
- Who comes in here?
- A
Everyone comes in here. That's not a brag, it's a complaint. It used to be a certain kind of person. Now it's every kind of person, and every kind of person wants a different thing, and I'm one guy.
- Q
- What did it used to be?
- A
Painters. Actual painters, with the paint on them. Then musicians. Then people who dressed like musicians. Then people who dated the people who dressed like musicians. Now it's people who read about all of that. They're nice. They tip better than the painters.
- Q
- What's the best night you've had here?
- A
February, some year in the nineties. Snow. Nobody could get home, so nobody left. Twelve people, one bottle of something terrible. Somebody sang. You want the truth, that's the whole reason I stayed. Every night since I've been waiting for it to snow like that.
- Q
- Do you ever get lonely?
- A
I'm behind a bar. Loneliness is a luxury item. Ask me when I retire.
- Q
- When's that?
- A
When I'm dead or when the rent is. Whichever.
Audio · 4:12 · not yet uploaded
Desmond on the snowstorm, recorded at the bar (placeholder — audio file not yet added)
[ placeholder — drop the file at public/audio/0009-desmond.mp3 ]
We asked him to write down his regulars. He wrote twenty-two names in ninety seconds and then said, "There's more, but they're dead."
“Everybody here is going to be somebody. Some of them are going to be somebody I have to cut off.”