You’ve seen The Accused, right? It’s not to say that the nice construction dudes from Ground Zero (seven years after the fact) remind me of the dudes who rape a randy Jodie Foster on a pinball machine, but there is certainly a whiff of sexual impropriety at this cavernous and asynchronous redneck bar. Like an obsessive compulsive’s idea of what a good old boy’s bar should be, Dakota lines the mile long bar with bizarre Spencer Gifts trinkets, all of which spin and ungulate with the precision of a Dali clock. It’s honestly very upsetting. You expect at any moment for your ankle to be shackled to the barstool and the lights to dim. While the magnetic monkeys flip, and the metallic DNA strands rotate amongst each other, one spies the late shift September 11th pit construction workers and their co-workers down a couple domestic brews before heading home or back to work in the pit of sorrow. Meanwhile us sad souls gather in twos to watch pathetic college basketball pre-season tourneys and eat from the decent grill–despite being warned against the intestinal nightmare that are the empanadas. One imagines that the soaring, bi-level space is a little more inviting during the day when Wall Street is in full stride, but at night, with the second floor mezzanine empty and sad, this joint projects nothing but trashy sketchiness. It’s not to say I didn’t find at least three decent songs to play on the jukebox, but I’m trying to figure out when this place gets busy and what the crowd is like. Maybe suits and hard hats can all come together under the Budweiser banner–maybe not. [MF]
43 Park Pl.
212/962-9800
