I’m a little sad, but not altogether surprised to hear that alt.coffee is closing. The past year has been pretty brutal on places that cater to the margins of NYC and alt.coffee was about as marginal as you can get. The coffee wasn’t particularly great (strong though!), it was too crowded with Avenue A weirdos, and the wireless was impacted from all the bandwidth leeching, but there was a anarchic charm about the place that I liked. If you squinted your eyes a bit the place resembled something out of a late 80s cyberpunk novel, even if the reality was more like that Daria episode. Still alt.coffee was the only place I’ve encountered that had public access Linux boxes. No great surprise that it was my default NYC office for awhile.
Apparently alt.coffee will re-open as Hopscotch, “a café tailored to the needs of children and families.” I have nothing to say to that.
aw shit, i was just in there on my last trip back east! i’m sad that it’s closing, but i never did understand how they were able to pay the rent on that space from just selling coffee and the occasional biscotti. what i’ll miss most of all is the mountain of junked ’90s-era PC monitors in the bathroom.
to answer jody’s questions – no we couldnt pay the rent . we are sad to be closing but are excited to provide the neighborhood with a service and business that is really needed. and there actually was a Daria episode with a cyber cafe based on us years ago – something to be truely proud of.
we ALL miss the old days