Kerry Smith, a former firefighter, opens the Right Bank Cafe on Kent Avenue. An early customer, the writer Ando Arike, describes it as a place for “the lost, the confused, the drunks, the drug-addled, the drinkers, the poets,” as well as “the old-timers, the Latinos, the Russians, the Poles, the Hasidic Jews, the bridge workers, the bikers,” and other types. Local bands play on its modest courtyard stage, shown above.
