Where the Coliseum lives
On East 58th Street, in the shadow of the gargantuan Time Warner towers, stands a restaurant that's been around since well before the center's gourmet food court was drawing expense-account types.
Indeed, this restaurant is a reminder of the New York Coliseum, the convention complex that stood across the street from 1954 to 2000, when it was finally cleared away for what would initially be called the AOL Time Warner Center. We all know how that merger went.
The Coliseum Bar and Restaurant proudly states on its facade that it was founded in 1978, and no doubt served many a car- and trade-show attendee over the years. Now, it's thriving in a part of town that has gone luxe overnight, precisely because of Time Warner. Gone, of course, is the Coliseum itself, and even Coliseum Books, which briefly resurfaced on 42nd Street before vanishing for good.
But the Coliseum restaurant remains, a name that is probably lost on many of the people who habituate the Time Warner Center, its restaurants and the gilded shops in its mall.
-- Rolando Pujol
