Morning Coffee: Hungarian Pastry Shop
Trying to explain why the Hungarian Pastry Shop is invariably staffed by Ethiopians, or why it sells more Austrian than Hungarian delicacies, is as much an exercise in futility as attempting to dissuade the socialists who scribble incessantly on the cafe’s bathroom wall their clarion calls to revolution. To be sure, were a socialist revolution to break out anywhere in Morningside Heights, uptown Manhattan at its most, perhaps, uptight, it would probably be here and not in the myriad Starbucks lining nearby Broadway. Still, frequenting the Hungarian can be an exercise in observing how gentrification can affect a neighborhood as much internally as imposes pressures from the outside.
As the number of laptop cords and Wall Street Journals proliferating in the cafe’s eternally dark nether-reaches increases, references to Liebkneckt and Luxemburg on its legendary bathroom wall decrease proportionally. Recently, some patrons began to observe that new coats of paint were being more and more frequently applied to the bathroom wall, and the Hungarian’s offering of thematic merchandise certainly belies its reputation as a place where the beret-clad iconoclast can rail uninterrupted on the wicked machinations of consumerism and the capitalist culture industry.
Corporate coffeeshops in Morningside Heights are, nonetheless, aplenty. The Hungarian remains the neighborhood’s closest approximation of a Central European salon, and MBA-bearing or not, its patrons are certainly a more cosmopolitan lot than those bearing mocha frappucinos a block away. Debates in German and French animate its dark and intimate interior; interactions, not always of the friendly kind, ruthlessly enforced by the cafe’s cramped interior and long communal tables. It is, perhaps, this forced socialisation that truly gives the Hungarian that je ne sais quoi leg-up on its competitors, whether or not they can boast free wi-fi, better lighting, a less disregarding staff, or, one should mention, hardly spectacular joe.
Tags: Cafés, Manhattan, Morning Coffee, New York
Christopher Szabla says:
I see google has a sense of irony
October 8th, 2006 at 4:48 pm
Christopher DeWolf says:
Nice entry. And yes, I do like to think that Google has a sense of irony. The irony is compounded when you click on the “Starbucks Coffee Bean” link and find a page with several dozen links to coffee roasted by companies other than Starbucks.
October 9th, 2006 at 1:25 pm
The Boss says:
Interesting. Looks like the place is really good. I have not been there though. been only to Hungary only twice as well. may be next time I’m there I’ll check it out. Thanks for the information.
March 2nd, 2009 at 2:17 am