Soccer Blues

Over the last few months, New York has felt, at times, like one big public square where everyone’s reveling together. The Knicks’ dominant run to end the team’s 53-year drought without an NBA title bridged immediately into the World Cup. The New York Times wrote that for bartenders, this summer has “been like living in a never-ending festival season.” 90 percent of the 100 restaurants, bars, and nightlife spots surveyed by the New York Hospitality Alliance reported an increase in business during the Knicks’ Finals run. The World Cup winnings aren’t in yet, but management at Astoria's ever-popular Bohemian Hall & Beer Garden, Gothamist reports, says that business is up 200 percent over this same stretch last year. It’s been boom times for restaurants and bars showing the games, which is why so many operators, like Parcelle, Leon’s, and Le Dive, have been turning proper restaurants into sports bars or temporarily setting up TVs.

The other night, I watched a bit of Paraguay’s upset over Germany with a crowd huddled around a TV set up outside a Bangladeshi snack shop. Even Times Square has had its moments, like when Norwegian fans took over to perform the Viking Row. I was so envious of a friend who was on Steinway Street the night that Egypt advanced, for the first time, to the knockout stage. And everyone there the night Morocco bested the Netherlands. (Both nights, it erupted, like a hookah hit too hard. Let’s not talk about each country’s elimination...) The night Mexico played Ecuador, Roosevelt Avenue became a sea of yellow and green jerseys, exuberant fans leaning out of cars and waving flags. (In Corona, home to large Mexican and Ecuadorean communities, it was a moment of joy for a neighborhood that has been fearful because of ICE.) When I texted Josh Borock to ask how it’s been at Socceria, the cantina he opened with the Taqueria Ramírez two-some, he responded, “ecstatic fútbol rave.”