An Oral History of the CyberCaff

in fact whatever you'd like to share

There was a place waaaay out on 7th Ave in Brooklyn (ok, it was only like a 25-minute walk away) called the "Computer Cafe". The stretch it was situated on was past the groovy dog-walker stroller section and the little bakeries and bookshops and taquerias, and was farther on down, towards the highway and the cemetary. I remember cheerful multi-colored injection-molded chairs sitting outside for people who, I dunno, wanted to relax outside and breath in the exhaust-choked climes of lower 7th Ave. I think my roomie was pissing me off, or we both had to use the computer or something, it was a nice day anyway, so I hiked out there. I ended up talking with the woman who ran the place, about her DSL problems, this and that—and who walks in but the CREEPY director of technology for my old hi-profile New York internet firm! I think I visibly shuddered. He had a little wireless doohickey that he could telnet with and he was showing it off to us. Finally he left, I took out my computer, and I got to work. "Hey... uh.... Tracer??" I looked over and she was holding the phone against her shoulder. "Do you know about Macs?" "Yeah!" "Want to make some money? This guy says something's wrong with his Mac, wants to bring it in." So not 5 minutes later this guy comes in with his OLD powerbook, I don't even know the model; it had a trackball. His problem was that selecting suff didn't work, the finder was acting weird. I remarked that it was as if his shift key was always down. He was at his wit's end; his whole business was on a Filemaker database on THAT machine. We restarted, zapped PRAM, turned off Extensions, everything. Nothing worked. We both realized at the same time that his shift key really was stuck. I dug out my keys and jimmied it up. He gave me $20 and I walked home.

My all time favorite has to be the Arc Cafe in Dunedin. Rah! :-) The coffee was good, the beer was good, the bands playing there were great, friends were always in there and there was net access. Hurrah! It might not have been specifically dedicated as a cybercafe per se but as far as I'm concerned it counts.

Mainly I've seen them in chinatowns full of young kids playing first-person shooters. The new cybercaff seems to be Starbucks etc. with either plug-yr-own-in ethernet connections or even wireless networks for those so endowed.

There was a really good elegiac article about The Cybercaff in the IoS Talk of the Town mag the other week (the IoS website is so rub. they don't have any of these articles online) prompted by the news that easyeverything is discontinuing its all-nite service.

Also killed by wide availability of DSL?

There was a cybercafe on St. Mark's that my friends and I would go to before any of us had internet access at home. Can't remember the name; it closed years ago. Anyone know?

Was it the one that looked like a bar inside?

Yeah.

I went in there in like 1997 to review somebody's "Shockwave" piece, it was like the only place in town where the machine wouldn't crash just trying to download and display the thing. It also had one of the most boring names ever. I think it literally was called "The Cyber Cafe".

Wait, wasn't the one on Lafayette (around Great Jones) called Cyber Cafe too?

The St. Mark's one was open as late as '97? I remember going there around '94/'95.

easy everything closes allnight? jesus god, i don't know what i'll do when i've to wait an hour for a nightbus now. probably act absuively towards young women or something. see what happens?