O Mah Gawd!

The Big Cup is closing!!

That was my first reaction- sheer shock. Today, reading an article in the NY Times, I found myself sad and watery-eyed. The Big Cup was here when I arrived in NYC, and it was a great place to meet up with friends for coffee before a fun night on the town, or a great place to just hang out, eat pastries and drink your coffee in a fun and electric atmosphere. I am so going to miss this place.

Here is the article from the Times.

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For Jeffrey Adamski, Big Cup, a boisterous Chelsea coffeehouse with a Day-Glo interior, was comfortable for reasons beyond its big couches and stay-all-day atmosphere.

"I was a Jewish kid from Long Island going to temple, and I could come in here and be as flighty as I wanted to be," said Mr. Adamski, 31, who stopped by on a recent afternoon. "It was liberating."

Mr. Adamski was among the patrons who learned this week that the coffeehouse, which employees nicknamed Gay Grand Central, a place where many men found a welcome introduction to gay life, was closing, the victim of rising rents. Modeled after the coffee shops of the West Coast, the shop, on Eighth Avenue just south of 22nd Street, offered a casual place for gay men to socialize. Women and straight men were welcome too, but as a review once put it, "They just seem sort of irrelevant." Employees seemed to be half barista, half party host.

On weeknights, music and crowds would fill the airy room and spill onto the sidewalk. Teenagers too young for the bars could find kindred spirits, and Big Cup gained a reputation as a place to cruise gay men. After it was featured in guidebooks, tourists and new arrivals to the city went there in search of Chelsea's lively gay scene.

This week, the chalkboard sign out front that usually advertises cappuccinos and iced mochas had a different announcement. "Attention," it read, "Big Cup is closing." Sunday will be the last day of business.

The news came as a surprise to many. As is so often the case in Manhattan, the culprit is the hot real estate market. "The rent is over three times what it once was," said Scott Siler, an owner of the business since it opened in 1994. "You can only charge so much for a cup of coffee."

He added that with the recent addition of condos, and mainstream chains like Starbucks, the neighborhood is becoming less of a gay enclave and more family-oriented. Mr. Siler, who also ran the nightspot called Hell, in the meatpacking district, for nine years and recently opened a bar called Secret on West 29th Street, said closing was the right thing to do from a business perspective, "but I'm disappointed for the neighborhood."

"I know people will miss it," he said.

This week, the normally spirited atmosphere was replaced with a kind of eulogistic pensiveness. A downcast Tracy Chapman song wafted over the speakers. The employees, informed of the closing earlier this week, seemed to be still in shock.

Joe Hutchinson, 20, a regular customer, said the coffeehouse encouraged a democratic and relaxed atmosphere often absent from gay bars and clubs.

"I always viewed it as a stress-free environment," he said. "The bar scene is like a meat rack. Of course, it's Chelsea, so you're going to have some of that anyway, but everyone was welcome at the Big Cup." Mr. Hutchinson said he could think of no other spot to take its place.

All this week, regulars have been making pleas, written hastily on scraps of paper bags, to save the coffeehouse. Max Park, a manager, said several employees had banded together to try to reopen under new ownership.

Mr. Siler said he was open to new owners' carrying on the Big Cup name, but doubted whether a business of the same size and style could exist in today's frenzied market.

Whatever the outcome, the written memorials of the customers testify to the legacy of the coffeehouse. One note read: "Every community needs its focus place - this has been that for Chelsea." Another read: "This was one of the first places I discovered upon coming out and it was this place that helped that process."