Adam’s Apple Owner Passes, Tavern on the Green Fights to Survive

It's not unusual for a 90-year-old man to be found dead. It's just that the man found this past Thursday, bound and bludgeoned to death, had survived so much. Felix Brinkmann survived Auschwitz and two other concentration camps and had talked his way out of death a number of times. Mr. Brinkmann was one of the owners of the classic club Adam's Apple -- part of a strip of 1st Avenue hotspots including Dangerfield's and Magique. I was dating a beautiful girl named Barbara back in those days. We would drive my '62 Impala to Manhattan and hit the hotspots on first by the 59th Street Bridge. It was the summer of Son of Sam, and a New York Mets World Series run and my first New York nightlife experience.

Without the beautiful Barbara I wouldn’t have had a chance to see this world. She was a great girl whose own history as the daughter of concentration camp survivors gave her a serious nature far beyond her years. I would see the playboys and athletes hit on her all night, but she stayed true to me even though I seemed always outclassed. Adam’s Apple served us an adventure of food and disco music ... it was polyester suits and “what’s your sign” conversation. It was “the hustle” on two dance floors hung impossibly from the ceiling. The old guys always gave you a show, and it was absorbed by me at a time when I was planning on being a Wall Street suit and living forever with my beautiful friend. Little did I know while trying to keep up with my vibrant date I was getting an education that would define my future.

After Adam’s Apple, we’d stroll up 1st Avenue to owner Warner LeRoy’s Maxwell’s Plum, the best place in town. The best place in any town. A ceiling as complex and beautiful as that Os Gemeos mural on Houston Street, as imaginative as Dali on a happy day, it was a watering hole for the beautiful people. A great bar in the center of things and the hottest singles joint around. Jets quarterback Joe Namath would be chatting up starlets and models just inches away from Warren Beatty or Barbara Streisand. Cary Grant and Bill Blass and uptown class mixed with the mods. It was the epicenter of a new sexual revolution. It was playboys and girls right out of Vogue magazine. It was also a four-star restaurant. Warner LeRoy quickly became one of my idols. His flair his, showmanship, and commitment to quality guaranteed smashing success. I watched him work a room, always moving in a suit that you couldn’t miss, glad-handing and smiling at everyone. When he looked in my eyes and asked me “if I was having a good time” one evening, I felt for the first time that thrill of being noticed that later became my addiction. He opened Maxwell’s in 1966, and it lasted until 1988. In a New York Times article written about its closing, he “likened its demise to that of an affair that had gone on too long, in the end losing its spontaneity and adventure.” He added, “You can’t keep something going forever.” Adam’s Apple made it to 1991. These old guys really knew how to build them.

LeRoy’s words may ring true, as his daughter Jennifer Oz LeRoy is fighting against an all-star cast of restaurateurs and operators to retain control of her beloved Tavern on the Green. The “Oz” in her name is a tribute to her grandfather, the Academy Award-honored Mervyn LeRoy. He produced The Wizard of Oz and Little Caesar and so many others. He discovered Clark Gable and Lana Turner. Jenny’s roots are in showbiz and restaurants; she has the flair and tenacity in her genes. At 22, at the sudden death of her legendary dad, she was flung into control of Tavern, as well as Warner LeRoy’s other institution, the Russian Tea Room. The LeRoy mark on this town is a tough tattoo that won’t come off easily. Any day now a decision will be made on Tavern’s future. Come New Year’s Eve, either she will retain control or a Trump or a Danny Meyer or a Cipriani will bag it.

Felix Brinkmann’s untimely demise at the hands of a couple who will soon be grabbed and garbage-bagged speaks of a spirit that the good nightlife people always have. Although they chase the money it isn’t as important as the juice—the rush they get from shaking a hand and making someone feel wanted. I will always be a saloon-keeper no matter what path is destined for me. When I sit on a beach in some Caribbean paradise, I watch how the bartender slings it, how the decor could be popped up, how the cash ring could be improved. I got it bad, but there’s no rehab for my monkey, and anyway you have to want to be helped.

At the end, Felix was still working—managing a mixed-use building. He put in seven days a week not because he had to but because he had so much love of people and the action that just fading away wasn’t an option. I know Jenny LeRoy, and she’s not going to fade away either; she will fight for her legacy, and if she loses the place, she still owns her name and the Tavern trademark. And she has those genes ... she will land on her feet and blow us away. Whenever I see her, I remember her dad looking into my eyes, validating me—I’ve told her that. I can’t imagine this town without a LeRoy-run Tavern. It would be like that time when the Japanese were buying Rockefeller Center, or the Dodgers and Giants moved to LA. It wouldn’t feel right. Tavern on the Green is a landmark not because it sits on valuable real estate; it is a landmark because of the spark Warner LeRoy gave it. It is a gift to us from one of the two greatest nightclub/restaurant people this town has ever known. It must remain in the hands of a person motivated by love for his dream—it must remain with Jenny LeRoy. Her spirit and commitment cannot be trumped.