There are no leg irons sunk in the walls, but otherwise it is the sort of place the Count of Monte Cristo might have tunneled from. And the whole scruffy establishment is doomed: next summer it will be razed to make room for a new, antiseptic office building. The liabilities of the Downstairs Room, a dark, crowded cellar on Manhattan's Sixth Avenue, are impressive even at a time when small informal nightspots are cashing in (TIME. May 27). What brings full basements (legal limit: 80 customers) to the Downstairs these nights is a small,...
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