The Night the Neon Went Dark
An elegy for March 13, 2020, the final Friday before New York City bars turned off the lights.
Around this time four years ago Matteo Meletti called me from his home in Ascoli Piceno. Italy had just imposed a national lockdown due to the COVID-19 on March 9, 2020, and like a hurricane building up momentum it would soon be crashing upon our shores with deadly force. He solemnly advised me on things to consider and medicine and items to make sure I had on hand before a similar lockdown was enacted in the United States. That came on Sunday, March 15.
After eight years living on Union and Hicks in Carroll Gardens (that’s what my lease said though it was technically the Columbia Street Waterfront District), my building was sold and after the new owners “encouraging” me to leave to gut/renovate/jack up the rent, despite my two-year lease, I had to vacate by February 28, 2020. It took me more than a month to work out all the details, but I thankfully found a new place and moved into an apartment (fun fact: once occupied by Frank McCourt) directly over the Montero Bar and Grill in Brooklyn Heights, a beloved dive bar once frequented by the longshoremen who worked just down the block at the Brooklyn waterfront but was now more famous for their raucous weekend karaoke.
I moved in March 1 and two weeks later the world changed. Unlike so many people I followed on Instagram who had the privilege or opportunity to decamp to Hudson Valley or ride things out from the comfort of their parents’ posh homes. I envied those with cars and the promise of temporary escape but I rode things out here in Brooklyn during that dark spring when everything turned gray.
PUNCH had asked me to submit a story related to what was going on and a month later they published “The Night the Neon Went Dark,” my elegy for March 13, that final Friday before New York City bars turned off the lights. It remains a favorite among my output and resonated with a lot of readers longing for the return of their favorite bar for any sense of normalcy, and community. It even made the cut in PUNCH’s “A Subjective List of Our Best Stories From the Past 10 Years”
“From my home 2,500 miles away, this elegy from Brad Thomas Parsons made me feel—viscerally, heart-achingly—how the neighborhood bars of the City That Never Sleeps were holding their breath, closing up and hoping for the best as the COVID-19 pandemic crept into New York.”
—Catherine Sweet, PUNCH copyeditor
That first COVID summer I took long walks, sat on my favorite bench at the Brooklyn Promenade to watch the tug boats, supported my favorite bars buying merch and grab-and-go cocktails, and started watching General Hospital again for the first time since I was a young boy during the Luke and Laura storyline of the early 1980s. I kept busy, or as busy as I could, freelancing, hosting virtual talks and tastings on amaro and bitters, popping in to stir up a drink on Instagram Lives, and accepting invitations from brands to speak to their team for an educational seminar or host a virtual event. I couldn’t have survived that year without Louis to keep my spirits up, and now that he’s gone I still don’t know how I manage to carry on.
I even had an unexpected summer romance that began with someone popping into my DMs and, in time breaking my heart. It turned out to be more of a brief fling, at least in her eyes. Despite my vulnerable nature I tried to be chill and not consider our first outing a “date” (even though we hit it off over a three-hour alfresco, Negroni Sbagliato-fueled conversation in the back patio of Popina) but the second time we met up again over post-dinner, late-night beers at Henry Public she said, “This feels like a date. This is a date, right?” I asked her if she wanted it to be a date and she smiled and took my hand and said, “Yes.” Since then I’ve run into her a few times—incidentally at my favorite bars—and we both act like neither of us exist, two ghosts haunting the same space.
HAIM’s “Summer Girl” single came out on the last day of July and I played it (and still do) more than I probably should. It has that “Walk on the Wild Side”-inspired baritone sax hook and the Du-du-du-du, du-du-du-du-du’s will always remind me of the summer of 2020 (the video, directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, is great, too). And the bridge just wrecks me.
Peer around the corner at you
From over my shoulder I need you
I need you to understand
These are the earthquake drills that we ran
Under the freeway overpasses
The tears behind your dark sunglasses
The fears inside your heart as deep as gashes
I’m sitting at the same desk where I wrote that story for PUNCH four years ago and looking out the same window where the vintage Montero sign hangs outside, creaking like a rocking ship as it sways in the wind, and across Atlantic Avenue the specter of the refrigerated tractor trailer that served as a makeshift morgue still lingers.
There’s not much I’d care to relive again from that crucible-like summer, but I remain proud of this story, and, in case you’ve never read it, share it here with you.
“The Night the Neon Went Dark”
Published on PUNCH on April 10, 2020.
