Elaine’s

Elaine Empties the Stanley Cup

Per Bjurman

Per Bjurman became Sweden’s leading music writer and was voted The Most Influential Critic by the leading national music industry publication three years in a row. In 2005, he was offered the position as US Correspondent for Aftonbladet, which he gladly accepted and moved to New York. The following years, he covered everything from elections—not least the historical US presidential election in 2008—to natural disasters, big trials, and space shuttle launches. He is still in New York, working for Aftonbladet, but now mostly covers hockey in the NHL, a league in which more than sixty Swedes play.

I CAME TO New York in January 2005 as the correspondent for the Swedish daily newspaper Aftonbladet and immediately decided Elaine’s was going to be my home away from home.

I had been there before, when I was just a guest in the city. I loved the atmosphere, the crowd, the exhilaration, and the feeling that anybody could walk through the door at any moment. For almost a year, I dined by myself at the two-person table under a wonderful photograph of JFK and LBJ at Griffith Stadium in Washington, taken by the photographer and Elaine’s regular, Neil Leifer.

Eventually, I asked Tony, the great Elaine’s waiter, if he would be willing to introduce me to Elaine. “Sure,” he said, and walked me over to the Michael Caine’s table where Elaine was parked for the moment. Before I even had the chance to tell her who I was, she just growled, “Yeah, yeah . . . you’re that Swedish journalist. Sit down.”

Per Bjurman and Elaine.

Photo provided by Per Bjurman.

Nobody came into Elaine’s joint that often without Elaine knowing exactly who the hell they were.

From then on, I was part of the family—I always had a seat in “The Line,” and, for the next five years, I enjoyed more unforgettable nights under the warm glow of her Art Deco light sconces than most Swedes experience in a lifetime. But it was more than just fun, excitement, and the thrill of having a perfect dry martini placed on the table before I sat down. Elaine became my surrogate mother in New York. She took me in, introduced me to people she knew I would love, and made sure that New York became my new home. It meant everything to me as a shy foreigner, far away from friends and family. There is no way I can repay that kind of life-changing favor, but I did my best in a weekly column I had, and still have, in Aftonbladet.

I wrote extensively about the nights on Eighty-eighth Street and Second Avenue. Not so much about the celebrities—though, now and again, I couldn’t resist bragging about sitting at tables next to Arnold Schwarzenegger, Robert Altman, Joan Rivers, Larry Hagman, and Richard Dreyfuss—but rather about Elaine herself, her magnificent staff, and the wonderful characters that really were her closest family and also became members of my own New York family: Ash Bennington, Pete Khoury, Helene Gresser, Father Pete, Jessica Burstein, Josh Gaspero, and the incomparable Joey, the unknown Lenny Bruce of the Bronx. After a while, Swedish tourists who read those columns started coming in—and paying for dinner. Elaine really liked that.

Throughout the years, I also brought in a lot of Swedish hockey players. I cover the NHL for my newspaper and have gotten to know my countrymen in the league. Henrik Lundqvist, the New York Rangers superstar goalie, came for dinner a couple of times. We, meaning me and the bartenders Craig and Duffy, both devoted Ranger’s fans themselves, made sure Lundqvist got to see the picture of Elaine drinking from the Stanley Cup. The photo was taken late at night when the 1994 championship team, lead by Mark Messier, came into Elaine’s to celebrate, and it hung behind the bar for twenty-five years. Lundqvist looked at the picture quietly for a long time. You’d be excused for thinking that was the moment Henrik Lundqvist decided that he some day was going to win that cup, and drink from it exactly as Elaine had.

Another night, the Detroit Red Wings were in town. A bunch of injured Swedish players, with friends and family, joined me at Ms. Kaufman’s saloon. It was one of those magical nights when everyone was hopping tables for hours, while the check somehow followed you around. The night ended at the bar across the street at 4:30 in the morning—with me dancing with one of the Red Wing stars’ crutches. That kind of thing could only happen during a night at Elaine’s.

When my mother visited me from Sweden, we of course went to Elaine’s. My mother doesn’t speak much English, but she and Elaine found a way to communicate anyway. At the end of the night, Elaine put one of her big hands on my mother’s wrist, smiled and said: “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of the kid for you.”

She sure did. I’m still around and I still love New York, not least thanks to the friends Elaine introduced me to. But it’s not the same anymore. Life itself is less exciting without my surrogate mother on the Upper East Side.

I miss her terribly.