Cafe’s I have known: Cafe Doma

Image via: East Village Eats

I have been told it closed a few years ago.  Or moved.  But without the slacker vibe.  When I heard, I was aware of feeling sadness, but more so, my surprise that the news did not hit me in the gut with a palatable sense of loss.  I haven’t lived in the city since 2007, almost six years at this point.  Is there no emotional difference between places that are dead to me, and places that are just dead?

Doma was a coffee shop’s coffee shop.  The kind that warrants a full page spread in the coffee shop scrapbook I am building in my mind, “Cafe’s I Have Known”.  Walking down 17th Avenue South, after cutting west on 14th via foot or L train, I would often always miss it the first time.  My memory for landmarks and such is not so good.  In reality it was never on 17th Ave S, but rather tucked away just off of the Ave at the corner of Perry and Waverly.  Sort of hidden away just out of eyesite - like Mr. Tumnus’ house just past the lamppost, but tucked away in the forest and snow.  Inevitably I’d walk past the right turn for Waverly, realize I’d gone too far, turn around and stumble upon it.  Eventually I learned to watch out for the dive pizza-by-the-slice shop right before Waverly, the one with the “Two Guys, a Girl, and a Pizza Place” poster in the window, featuring a young Ryan Reynolds.  

Doma’s dominant feature was the large bank of windows along the two front walls, meeting at a right angle pointed to the street like an oncoming vessel.  Just inside the windows were the backs of contemplative patrons, seated in the long window seat benches.  The benches were marvelous.  I loved sitting there, with the full length windows to my back and side, typing away on some business school essay, pricing model, or operations forecast.  From there I could observe the cafe around me, and envy the west village inteligencia on display - reading Stein, grading MLA papers, or flipping through the Sunday Times.

Often there was a crowd of strangers thrown together around the giant communal table in the middle.  A turn of the century wooden monstrosity, likely saved from some west village estate sale.  It fit though.  Fit the worn, wooden floor boards, the recessed bookshelves in the corner, the faded white walls and the clink clink of cups, saucers and plates stacked in the used dishes bin.

There was no better place to be on a leisurely Sunday afternoon.  I could work, or not, at my hearts content and imagine a different life, one where I too read Chaucer as a profession.