Edition: U.S. / Global

West 57th: A T-Shirt For Every Theme

Published: November 24, 1995

No one ever said West 57th Street had charisma. On the long list of fabled Manhattan thoroughfares, it sits well toward the bottom, far below Broadway and Fifth Avenue, nowhere near Park and several slots below even the Bowery. West 57th Street is broad and it is straight. That's about all there is to say about it.

But something strange has happened to the stretch of 57th Street that runs from Fifth Avenue to Eighth Avenue. In the last several years, the grand boulevard has sprouted a succession of restaurant and retail fun houses that have transformed it into an entertainment center that acts as a powerful magnet, especially for visitors staying in the hotels that line Central Park South.

The fun fest begins with the Warner Brothers Studio store on the northeast corner of Fifth Avenue and 57th Street, proceeds to the new Motown Cafe, the Hard Rock Cafe, the Brooklyn Diner and Planet Hollywood, and spills over into sideshows like the Harley-Davidson Cafe and the Jekyll and Hyde Club, just off 57th Street.

The new-style establishments offer a chance to binge on great American logos and corporate symbols. Others promise a weird and wonderful fantasy setting. Just about every last one of them will sell you a T-shirt.


At the Warner Brothers store, make that many T-shirts. Also coffee mugs, key chains, works of sculpture, baseball caps, boxer shorts, Pez dispensers and, for that special someone, a Tasmanian Devil coffee canister.

The phrase "temple of commerce" is not used much anymore, but it applies precisely to the Warner's store. A highlight of the facade is a series of classical friezes representing the great entertainment genres. The Western is represented by Bugs Bunny and Yosemite Sam in a tense face-off with loaded six-shooters. Elmer Fudd in a Valkyrie's horned helmet represents the Musical. The great Pepe Le Pew personifies Romance.

Inside, customers can worship Warner's on four floors stuffed with merchandise at prices ranging from $1.50 for a Loony Tunes Pez dispenser to $5,000 for a D.C. Comics superhero rendered in acrylic on canvas. (D.C. Comics was bought by W.B. some years ago. If this seems too un-Warner's, you can pay $3,000 and more for an original animation cel signed by one of the studio's legendary animators, like Fritz Frehling.)

The decor encourages reverence. On one wall, a large mural of Edward Hopper's "Nighthawks" has been infiltrated by Warner's characters. Pepe Le Pew, wearing a fedora, nurses a cup of coffee as Bugs Bunny works the counter. Monitors show scenes from Warner Brothers musicals and cartoons. The Loony Tunes theme is broadcast regularly.

On the second floor, the customers can test their Warner Brothers expertise at an interactive video terminal. Eyed suspiciously by two preteen girls, I stepped up to the machine and concentrated as a short cartoon clip rolled. It was top-notch: the scene in which Sylvester dupes his own son, little Sylvester Jr., into chasing a giant mouse. Suddenly, the brain teaser flashed on the screen: "What kind of animal is Sylvester Jr.?" My confidence level surged. On receiving my correct answer -- yes, he's a cat -- the machine flashed its congratulations: "You are a cartoon buff!" I looked around to make sure my two eyewitnesses saw this, but they had grown bored and left.

The Warner's experience is complicated and totally post-modern. To the casual observer, it might look as if customers enter the store to rekindle some sort of relationship with beloved figures like Bugs and Daffy and the Road Runner. But Warner's has something more refined up its sleeve. It has conflated love for the characters with love for the company and its logo.

In a final twist, it has marketed the experience of the store itself as the point of the whole thing. People go to the store so they can say they've been to the store. Or rather, they emerge from the store bearing a sweatshirt that says it for them.

This phenomenon cries out for a team of poststructuralists to explain it. The problem with poststructuralists is that, like policemen, they are all over the place when you don't need them, and nowhere to be found when you do.

Brooklyn Diner U.S.A.

A similar air of unreality hovers over the Brooklyn Diner U.S.A., a definitely diner-shaped entity that has seemingly been lowered onto 57th Street like a giant stage prop. It is not in Brooklyn, needless to say. Nor is the diner, as a cultural form, normally associated with that borough. The Brooklyn Diner is not really a diner, either. It's more like an allusion to one.

There is a blue-plate special every day, but don't look for meatloaf and mashed potatoes. The Brooklyn Diner offers an inventive, "East meets West meets nouvelle American" synthesis. Who knows, maybe the owners even referred to "synergies" when strategizing the food.

The lunch menu includes straight-ahead entrees like a "15-bite Brooklyn hot dog," chicken soup and side orders of coleslaw and onion rings, but the tuna-salad sandwich, made with fat-free mayonnaise, comes on pita bread and the Reuben is served between potato pancakes. There is a wine list.

I ordered a tasty Chinese roast pork sandwich on a garlic bun with duck sauce and sesame noodles. It came on a colorful Chinese oval plate with chopsticks and a fortune cookie, a very cute touch.

The service is snappy and friendly, the atmosphere pleasant, the prices modest.

The Brooklyn Diner T-shirt is $14.95.

Motown Cafe