“This is the bar that started it all for a lot of people in New York,” says co-owner David Rabin says. “It was their first experience with a grown-up, cool, sexy cocktail bar.” OK, mood. Read more about the bar's reincarnation here:
“Dead chameleon, aggressively creepy.” That was theheadline that inspired the pop artist Kiki Kogelnik to create the skeletal chameleon motif that adorns the facade of Temple Bar, on New York’s Lafayette Street. Unlike their source material — the paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould’s; that headline was for a review of the book — Kogelnik’s chameleons are gently mysterious. As the bar’s only signage, they function like the insignia of a secret society.
On a recent Friday, I visited the partners at the space, which, with its emerald drapes, compact armchairs, and mahogany tables, evokes a Deco-inflected smoking lounge, or the inner sanctum of a clubhouse. Goyal and Rabin stress that they’re thinking about it as “a rebirth, as opposed to a new opening.” The original chairs have been reupholstered, the carpeting and floor have both been replaced, and the original tables have been inlaid with fresh leather.
Both Goyal and Rabin have fond memories of the original bar. They remember it as a go-to date spot and a secret weapon for closing business deals. “I ran a marketing firm on the corner of Broadway and Houston,” Goyal explained. “I would bring these fun clients of mine to Temple Bar and immediately they would be like putty,” because showing out-of-towners the dimly-lit martini den was like “giving them a key to New York.”Photographed by Don Freeman. Courtesy of Temple Bar.
The centerpiece of Temple Bar is a ceramic panel of slab silhouettes titled “Friday Night,” also by Kogelnik, the artist behind the bar’s enigmatic logo. It was the first thing Rabin pictured when he learned the space was available. “To me in my head, I kept seeing the amber glow, and this,” he said, tracing one of the white shapes with his finger. “I thought, ‘Oh my god, it’s still there.
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