New York - February 23, 2001

The Park Is Open for Play

Park Bar Opens

We’ve been waiting for this one.

“Page Six” mentions. Magazine parties. A white-hot new bar-cum-restaurant. But it’s not open yet. And the owners are being terribly secretive about when exactly it will be.

The cat is out of the bag. Eric Goode’s The Park is open.

The spot, formerly a mechanic’s garage, now has yuca trees (which reportedly aren’t surviving too well in the climate) and works a variety of themes. There’s a smidgen of that shopping-mall-meets-industrial-hangar feel, part Trader Vic’s throwback, part fifties glam. And there are three rooms in which to play. We like the den area with the fireplace and copies of National Geographic everywhere. (What’s that about?)

Need something more primal? Get out your claws and brave the doorman guarding the upstairs room, where Monica, Milla, and Minnie are sequestered behind closed doors—the “Double V.I.P. Room,” they call it.

We’re not sure what that means, but maybe it’s the hot-spot equivalent of “triple mint?”

The Park, 118 Tenth Avenue, between 17th and 18th Streets (212-352-3313).