The King Is Here

“The king is here,” Steve mutters under his breath.

Steve is the manager at The Skylight Diner, and The Skylight is almost always busy. That’s partly because of its location on 34th Street, a two-way thoroughfare that conveniently links the Copacabana nightclub to Penn Station with the Skylight in between. It also happens to be around the corner from the 35th Precinct of the New York Police Department (NYPD), attracting a steady stream of hungry nightshift police officers. But mostly it’s the blue and red neon sign framed in stainless steel that beckons patrons at all hours of the night: Open 24 Hrs.

At around 4 a.m. on warm June evening, a guy walks in wearing a red and gold crown – The King. His date wears a glimmering tiara. Most weekends in May and June, just about every 24-hour eatery in the area is full of high school students from Long Island and New Jersey partying after prom. It is not uncommon for groups of prom-goers to rent limousines for the night and come into the “city” for nightclubs like the Copacabana. After 3 a.m., the Skylight fills up with boisterous teenagers in wrinkled tuxedos and tight-fitting dresses.

Inevitably, limo drivers follow their charges into the diner and settle down at the counter to wait for the drive back to the suburbs. One such prom night, Louie sits at the counter. He’s a retired NYPD officer who owns a fleet of limousines on Long Island. But not for long. He is selling most of his fleet and leaving New York, moving to North Carolina next month. This is one of his last trips out on the nightshift. He explains how some of his Long Island neighbors discovered a planned community near Charlotte, North Carolina. He figures that he can make twice what he earns in New York and live at half the cost there. After forty years in New York, Louie is selling out: “Really,” he says, “I mean, yeah, it’s a beautiful city, it never sleeps, it’s wonderful. But between the crime, the taxes,” he trails off. “If you have any real estate in New York,” he says simply, “sell it.”

Louie ends his pitch as Steve walks over. “You don’t know me, right?” Steve asks Louie. “I could tell you a story right now, and you’re gonna call me a moron.” Steve tells Louie about his father’s cousin, who owns a diner in Maryland but wants to retire in Greece. “Listen,” Steve begins, impersonating his father’s Greek cousin, “I had a son your age, he died in a car accident a couple of years ago. I’ve got a daughter, she lives in Atlanta and she doesn’t want to bother with a diner. I’ll make a deal with you. I’m 72 years old. You come down here, you send me $3,000 a month and I go to Greece. And the place is yours.” Steve waits, leans over the counter for effect, and adds, “But I’m still here.”

Louie hesitates a moment, then obediently cries, “You’re a moron!”

Steve smiles and says, “What did I tell you?”

Food, Glorious Food

There’s something about the nightshift that leads, inevitably, to food. Talk of food. Pursuit of food. Weight gain from food. Perhaps it’s that Russell, Corey and I love good food. Possibly it’s because the NYPD, MTA, Port Authority, and taxi leasing companies turned down our requests for interviews but the Cheyenne Diner and other eateries kept their doors open to us. Or maybe it’s that working nights, as we’ve mentioned in other posts, makes you crave carbs instead of vegetables, which leads to what many refer to as the “overnight fifteen” extra pounds.

No, these all played a part but the real reason there’s lots of talk of food in the book is that everyone we interviewed talked about food. Since we often interviewed them on breaks or just after their shifts, they were also often eating while we talked. During our first conversation with Fatima at the Cheyenne, around 3 a.m., she drank a Diet Pepsi and ate a slice of cherry pie.

Steve, the night manager at the Skylight Diner, eats just once a day – in the morning after his shift. He might eat eggs. Or he might have a burger or pizza. “That’s why I’m big,” he said.

At midnight, at the start of his shift working at a Penn Station newsstand, Ahmed ate an apple. “I like to have something healthy to eat,” he said. Echoing this statement, Alam, who managed a Penn Station café, usually ate either a salad or a chicken sandwich at the start of his shift at midnight.

Rick, an exterminator, said that he too eats breakfast at the end of his shift, at 7 a.m. Then he goes to sleep until 3 p.m. “And then I’ll really be in the mood for Eggs Benedict,” he said.

Peter at JFK gained weight. “I gained 10, 12 pounds, maybe more. Now that I’m on a dayshift,” he said, meaning the 4 p.m.-midnight shift, “I’m 8 pounds lighter. I would eat before I came to work. Then I wouldn’t eat at all at work, then I’d eat right before I’d go to sleep. Go right to sleep, wake up maybe a half hour before I had to be at work and then rush to work.”

At his Brooklyn bodega, Sunny, the owner, grilled us amazing shrimp one Monday night around 4 a.m. Then at precisely 5 a.m., his night customers gone and his morning customers not yet awake, he made himself a turkey sandwich. For the first time all night, he sat down. And he ate.

PICU nurses Jessica and Tamar described their eating habits over a diner breakfast at the end of their twelve-hour shift. Since they don’t have much of an appetite before their shift, they admitted to grazing throughout the night. “On whatever’s available,” Tamar said. Jessica elaborated that she eats a number of small meals throughout the day, and has distinct names for each of them. “I have a pre-lunch lunch, lunch, and a post-lunch lunch, and then,” she added, pointing to her scrambled eggs, cinnamon toast, and orange juice, “breakfast.”

If all this leaves you craving carbs after midnight, try the four garlic rolls for $1 at John & Tony’s Pizzeria on First Ave in the East 50s. Not uptown? Try the samosas at taxi-driver hangout Lahore Deli on Crosby between Prince and Houston (and subscribe to this blog to know when we’re having our launch party at Housing Works Used Book Café next door, replete with Lahore samosas). Or, if you’re of healthier ilk, head to one of the two 24-hour New York Sports Clubs at 80th & Broadway or 23rd & Park Avenue.