Parkside Lounge

Parkside Lounge is a long-running dive bar and live music venue at 317 East Houston Street, at the corner of Attorney Street on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. The building dates from 1908 and has been associated with bars and social clubs for much of its history. A liquor licence discovered in the basement identifies a former incarnation as the 7-4 Social Club in 1940, while the Parkside name appears to have arrived during the 1950s after an earlier bar of that name elsewhere on East Houston Street was destroyed by fire. Today the venue still retains the feel of an old neighbourhood bar, with its neon exterior signs, pool table and jukebox in the narrow front room. Behind the main bar is a separate performance space with a stage and dance floor, used for live music, comedy, cabaret, readings, screenings and other events. The combination of an old-fashioned Manhattan dive bar and a functioning performance room has also made Parkside Lounge a natural filming location for productions looking for a place that already feels convincingly lived-in rather than built for the screen.

Parkside Lounge has appeared in Flight of the Conchords (2007–2009) and Bored to Death (2009–2011). Flight of the Conchords (2007–2009) uses the back performance room for one of Bret and Jemaine’s most painfully unsuccessful concerts, while Bored to Death (2009–2011) keeps the real name of the bar and sends Jonathan Ames there during his very first attempt at working as a private detective. In both cases the location is allowed to play itself rather than being disguised as a fictional New York bar.

In Flight of the Conchords (2007–2009), Parkside Lounge appears at the beginning of the season-two episode “NewZealandTown” (2009). Bret and Jemaine are preparing to perform when Murray arrives with the disappointing news that only one person has turned up. He tries to make the situation sound better by pointing out that the man is large and has several shopping bags occupying neighbouring seats, but Bret and Jemaine are understandably less impressed. They nevertheless take the stage and begin performing for their solitary audience member, only to discover afterwards that he slipped out during the song. Even Murray admits that he left before they finished, meaning the pair have essentially performed their entire set to an empty room. The humiliating concert at Parkside Lounge establishes the career low that drives the rest of the episode, with Murray deciding that the musicians need a new image if they are ever going to attract a proper audience. The real stage and back room of Parkside Lounge are clearly visible throughout the sequence.

In Bored to Death (2009–2011), Parkside Lounge appears in the very first episode, “Stockholm Syndrome” (2009), as part of Jonathan Ames’s first case as an unlicensed private detective. After placing an advertisement offering his investigative services, Jonathan is contacted by Rachel Klein, who is worried about her missing sister Lisa. Rachel tells him that Lisa met her boyfriend Vincent Ellis at Parkside Lounge, where Vincent works, sending Jonathan to the bar in search of information. The series explicitly identifies the location as “Parkside Lounge, Manhattan” before Jonathan enters and awkwardly orders a whisky while trying to look the part of a detective. He asks whether Vincent is working that night and learns from the bartender that Vincent has called in. After some further questioning, the bartender finally tells him that Vincent is at the Velma Hotel. The information gives Jonathan the lead he needs to find Lisa and turns a visit to the real Parkside Lounge into one of the first actual pieces of detective work in the entire series.

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