Sophie goes to a Piano bar in NYC

Last year, I took Sophie to New York for New Year's Eve. Just the 2 of us. I am a strong believer in one on one time with your kids. Especially if they are super fun and great and always teach you new things, as mine do.
We only had a few days to pack in the quintessential New York girl trip, then have New Year's Eve with Uncle B, Laura and their whole wonderful family in from Paris before we had to pop back to LA LA land for school. I had found what I hoped would be a pretty cool hotel right at Columbus Circle, but when Sophie looked up at the entrance, she had to express her SERIOUS doubts.
"We're staying HERE?" she said, glumly.
"Well, this is the address.." I replied. I could see why she was skeptical. The only thing to see from the street was a VERY plain cement wall with a small door in it and the address barely visible above. I mentally crossed my fingers that it would be as cool as it had looked on the old 'interweb' when we got inside. Once inside the door, there was a narrow hallway, just big enough to hold a narrow escalator that went up and disappeared into a hole in the ceiling. There was also a man dressed all in black who glared at us and looked like a waiter in a trendy restaurant. With the grey walls and the weird lighting, it was actually a little sci-fi scary.
"Come on!" I said, cheerily, lugging our bags onto the escalator. Sophie just shot me a look.
But THEN - what happened as we rose up through the escalator into the next level - was WONDERFUL! We were brought up to a huge open space - immediately greeted by the sight of a huge glassed in garden behind the registration desks, and skylights above, beautiful topiary everywhere in this dark, cool looking space. It looked like Victorian English conservatory meets uber-glam, ultra modern NYC.
I wanted to see the look on Sophie's face as we passed from the bland and scary entrance into one of the coolest hotel lobbies I'd ever seen. I was well rewarded. She looked a bit in awe, then soon as she could, she was tugging on my sleeve (do children ever outgrow doing this?) whispering, "This is SO COOL, Mom. How can we afford this place?"
I just laughed. I have very good hotel karma. Very good parking karma. Terrible line karma (as in I ALWAYS choose the wrong one - no matter where, no matter what!) and the magical power of being invisible to bartenders.

Once in our room (she liked that, too! pretty groovy!) Sophie and I proceeded to dance around the room singing 'New York' to the radio at the top of our lungs, jumping on the bed, and throwing our clothes out of our bags as our manner of unpacking. In the next few days, we saw some Broadway shows, went to museums, did some shopping, ate great pizza - ate at Sardi's (in honor of my trips there with my grandmother)and basically had a great time.

At 16, Sophie felt like most girls do at that age. Half way in between a grownup and a child. She wanted to do that NYC nightlife thing - at least a LITTLE. When I went to NYC with my grandmother at 16, I could go to a bar or a nightclub with her (think the Algonquin)and nobody thought twice about it. As long as you were with your Mom or grandmother, it just wasn't a big deal. She even ordered me Brandy Alexanders sometimes.
But now it's different. So strict! I couldn't take Sophie anywhere like that.

But then, the night we were walking back down Broadway from 'Hair', this super charming, bouncy fellow accosted us.
"You want to go to a Piano bar? It's right around the corner? No cover! It's really fun! You'll love it! I promise!" he rattled off to us as he thrust fliers into both our hands.
"Oh, she's only 16..." I told him.
"That's ok! It's all ages! Brand new place - come on! Give it a try - I'll walk you there!"
The guy reminded me of 'Tigger' from the old Disney Winnie the Pooh cartoons. I expected him to start bouncing 6 feet in the air at any moment.
Sophie shrugged, 'Why not?', so we followed the exuberant young man around the corner, down the block and down some stairs into one of the strangest spaces I have ever seen in Manhattan.

The entrance to the piano bar was a long narrow hallway. Extremely nondescript. The hallway opened up into a rather large, empty space with a makeshift bar by the other end of the hallway. In one corner was a small stage with a piano on it, and a man playing piano. The room was painted light grey, was devoid of ANY artwork of any kind - in fact all of the walls were completely empty except for a dry-erase board near the piano player. The chairs and cafe tables seemed to be second hand - but the MOST NONDESCRIPT black tables and chairs imaginable.It looked like an office space had been cleared out yesterday, and someone moved a piano in.(Viola!! Piano Bar!) There were 3 other people in the joint. A surly looking old man sitting by himself, and a middle aged couple (bridge and tunnelers by the look of it) making out and getting plastered over in far corner. The piano player was playing and singing raucously - as if the whole place were filled with merry tourists throwing tips at him.

Sophie and I looked at each other in dismay. I was sure this was NOTHING like she had imagined New York City nightlife to be like. "You want to go?" I leaned over and whispered to her.
But before she could answer, a strange young man came out from behind the strange makeshift looking bar and introduced himself.
"Welcome, welcome, ladies!" he said happily, pumping both of our hands as if we were long lost family."I'm John, where would you like to sit? The first drink's on me!"

We opted to sit right by the bar - as close to that get-away hallway as possible. "How about my special drink for the LADIEEEESSS?" John suggested. Sophie and I looked at each other, trying not to laugh. All of a sudden it felt like we were slipping into some bizarre Will Ferrell movie.
The night became more and more surreal as we stayed. The bartender (who seemed about 20) fell head over heels in love with Sophie, and kept bringing us strange pink,bubbly drinks all night. A comedy show next door emptied out, and all of a sudden the piano player had people to sing to. At one point, I came back from the restroom to find Sophie behind the bar concocting some crazy drink for me with smitten John. We sang Billy Joel at the top of our lungs along with everyone else in there, and walked back to the hotel singing and laughing in the cold. Just as we were getting to our corner, Sophie turned to me and said "You know what we need right now?"
"A warm hotel room?" I asked
"No! Ice cream!" she beamed, triumphantly. "And maybe chocolate cake!"

As we munched on chocolate cake and ice cream back in our warm hotel room, Sophie and I could not stop laughing about that crazy, weird place - and night.
"Thanks for bringing me here, Mom." Sophie said."I'll never forget it."
"Thanks for coming. " I replied.

I'll never forget it either, Soph.