Cherry popping

One question has finally been definitively answered: Who do you have to blow to get overkill coverage in this town? In the same week when no less an authority than the National Register of Historic Places was warning that the Lower East Side is in danger of extinction by developers, did the world really need a longer-than-“War and Peace” elegy to a relic in a neighborhood that was already lost? And it’s not as if the joint actually left a food legacy — I kinda doubt brunchers a century from now will be ordering Eggs Florent. Compare and contrast the silly loquaciousness with the snide stories in the same birdcage liner on any number of landmarks surrendered to rising rents, greed and the reality that this city is snakelike in its ability to shed a layer and come back meaner. Can you say Gage & Tollner, La Cote Basque etc? But into every dark tragedy a little sunlight must shine: At least readers were spared a restaurant review. Then again, that makes me wonder if the bean counters realize this little reality: Take it away one week and fewer people are likely to drop a dollar next week.