A place to chill …

… Gotham Restaurant Has Built a Library in the Bar - Eater NY.. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

I came upon the ultimate safe space at Gotham restaurant, which, shortly before reopening in November 2021, redesigned its front area into a book nook adjacent to the bar. The spacious alcove is lined with colorful leather couches and cylindrical coffee tables crying out for tomes and tipples to top them. Though creating the area meant losing a few tables for diners, Gotham owners Bret and Cassandra Csencsitz were inspired by the idea of a “little, welcoming place where people could feel comfortable, especially after they were stir-crazy at home during the pandemic.” Bret enlisted James Biber, the restaurant’s original architect when it was built 40 years ago, to design the area and fashion a showpiece on the east wall: an 8’ x 9’ bookcase which could hold hundreds of hardcovers and paperbacks.