No name beckons – just a yellow nicotine glow in the evening drear of SoHo and a small decal on the Grand Street door of Lucky Strike, open every day from noon till 4 a.m. It’s noisy, smoky, young – striplings with lots of hair, myopia behind dark-rimmed specs, thrift-shop duds, definitely not the glitterati of 150 Wooster. Anyone over 30 looks old. The scattered antiques past 40 seem very old, wizened in the scruffy saloon haze.

        There’s a body crush at the bar. Wiggling through is like a quick Swedish massage. Safe sex. Nobody, I mean nobody, gets a reservation here. And it can be a long stall in the upfront huddle. Being jostled by traffic in the narrow alley between bar and dining room. I feel like a rest-room attendant, pressed against the bathroom door warning supplicants, “It’s occupied just now,” dodging waiters, checking the peephole into the tiny hectic kitchen. I want to snitch a heel of bread or grab a knife and kill somebody who gets seated before we do. Everyone waits, but Lorne Michaels and Paul Simon never wait as long as you do. They’re at the big round table to the left of Billy Gilroy, partner and night traffic cop.

        It’s 10:25 at Lucky Strike. Is the name a hypnotic? Most everyone is smoking. They haven’t been alive long enough to feel mortal. Bag-lady rags and washerwoman topknots go cozily with the calculated seediness – walls that look yellowed by a century of exhalation, pressed tin, the menu lettered in gold on a moldering mirror, tabletops of patched-together wine-crate ends. Never mind the Kodachrome. Black and white just about does it. Blame is on the Gap. Suddenly gawjous nymphets spend five minutes snarling their hair before supper and are cool enough to be seen in a wrinkled white T-shirt. “It’s good to look like you just fell off a moving truck,” a habitué assures me.

        There may be some titled whippersnappers in the house tonight, even a scattering of trend-stalkers and –setters, but mostly it’s just folks, suits with gym bags up from Wall Street, vacating as we arrive. Leotards and studded leather moving in. Marlboro women chugging beer out of the bottle. Chatter so fierce the music is barely audible, but it’s there, the theme from A Man and a Woman.

        The young servers sometimes seem sweetly lobotomized. Tonight’s is fleet and efficient, bringing ice water in a sticky wine bottle, water glasses for our $20 Bordeaux, crisp thins of fennel tossed with Parmesan shards, a murky sludge of bean soup, and small cracker-crust pizzettes – food not to focus on. No one is here for great food. But it’s good grub and it’s affordable.

        Is that Mario Van Peebles? It is. And Kid Creole (of Creole and the Coconuts – for goodness’ sake, don’t admit you recognized A Man and a Woman and have never heard of the Coconuts… just grin). “Can’t I marry you?” asks a man at the next table, his chair locked into the corner by mine.

        “Excuse me?”

        “Well, we couldn’t be any closer if we were married.”

        Suddenly, a small hush, or do I imagine it? A gasp; heads discreetly swivel. Willem Dafoe and John Lurie slip into a tiny two-top. Lurie cases the crowd. Dafoe flirts with a nearby Asian beauty. They put away a fennel salad and penne in spicy tomato sauce. We analyze their faces, their charisma quotient, their reduction styles – snakes that we are, come out of the ground to sit on rocks and be warmed by he presence of celebrities.

        At 11:25, the crowd is getting younger, not wildly attractive, not dressed to kill, just dressed not to get arrested. There’s a small cluster of schmoozers milling outside, sucking beer from the bottle. A waiter struggles to close the doors. Dafoe leans against the wall, sipping the last of his beer. By their shoes you shall know them: women in sneakers and high-tops, canvas Mary Janes, Mammy Yokum clodhoppers, tapering architectural heels from Maud Frizon. Some messages seem clearer than others. Their wheels tell tales, too: a shaded stretch with its opaque windows, a middle-market motorcycle, a Jeep, a Range Rover, a Fiero, a van, and a vintage Pontiac.

        Keith McNally stops by. He’s the small, intense man I didn’t recognize at the celebrity round table (with his wife, Lynn Wagenknecht, the creative force behind Café Luxembourg and Nell’s. there are five partners here, freeing him to make a movie). “Eli [Zabar] was here earlier,” he reports. “He’s taught me about baking. I wanted to do our own bread. It’s not as crusty or as brown as it should be. The ovens aren’t hot enough.”

        At 12:05, the lights dim. The D.J. starts spinning. A waiter passes out votive candles. Lucky Strike becomes a staging area for club forays. At 12:48, the feeding crowd is arriving for supper after work at Montrachet, I Tre Merli, Café Un Deux Trois, Le Zinc, Provence. A friendly young woman collapses into a chair at the next table. She’s come directly from her shift at the Plaza and passes out goodnight chocolates, notepads, and a small sample of Chanel body lotion. I have both in my purse, but the chocolate is long gone.

59 Grand Street between West Broadway and Wooster. 212 941 0772

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