F: Is for food and more

Bringing out a newspaper is harder than one realizes. It is time consuming beyond belief. Just when you think you have a minute to yourself some new crisis roars like a lion onto your path and that minute now has you down an hour and a week has turned into two. My dearest readers, many of you have written me and asked where this column has gone. The F.A.C.T. is I have just been so busy that time has escaped my control. I state to you, I here by take and back and I appreciate your loyalty. Though it is next two impossible right this second to make up two weeks, I will make up one and promise to stay as loyal to you as you are to me. With no future adieu....

Things are rarely what they seem.

At 21 West 9th Street, an apartment building just off Washington Square is ready to thrill and awe. Hotel Griffou, is a world of wonders filled with hidden chambers, parlor rooms, a menu that is reminiscent of a 1950's dinner party
actually has in parentheses that the recipe comes from 1892 and celebrities galore who have already flocked to this den of provocative history. Brought to you by the veterans of such well known establishments such as Waverly, Balthazar and Freeman's vets it is decorated like a version of the board game Clue. Six connected rooms, each with its own personality seek to lure you to its depths. Will it be the Library—complete with musty portraits, old books, hunter green everywhere and candlelit wooden tables—or the Dungeon, a dimly lit cave of a room with medieval murals, a 14-seat table and a aura of S&M.Maybe it is air you require if so the salon offers a terrace and skylight.

Prices have been reported at $17 for the Griffou Burger to $42 for Stuffed Lobster Tails with brown butter, cocktails are $14, and that duck confit poutine a mere $12.

As for the history: Mark Twain and Oscar Wilde dined there, a 60-year-old married banker killed his 28-year-old lover and then himself in one of the hotel’s rooms.
Celebrities like Chloë Sevigny, Rachel Roy, Harvey Weinstein, John Leguizamo and Ross Bleckner find solace. It is rumored that Edna St. Vincent Millay, lived on the same block, and was a regular at the old Griffou.

In NY places abound and with them our history still lives and that is a F.A.C.T.