RARA-AVIS: Bogie's

From: Moorich2@aol.com
Date: 05 Dec 2001


Bogie's was a restaurant near the corner of Twenty-sixth Street and Seventh Avenue in New York City owned by Bill and Karen Palmer. For several years it was THE watering hole for mystery writers. Most of the early Private Eye Writers of America luncheons were held there as was one of the earliest (if not the first) organizing meeting of Sisters In Crime. I attended several of the PWA gatherings there and they were great unorganized fun.

I wasn't there for the SiC meeting, something I regret missing. This was a meeting organized by very serious people who did not believe women writers were being treated fairly by publishers or reviewers. Unfortunately, Michael Avallone, creator of private eye Ed Noon, crashed the meeting, refused to leave when asked/ordered and heckled throughout. It got pretty ugly. Mike always felt that when the subject of publisher's screwing writers came up, he could claim the floor.

The Palmers were (and probably still are) great folks and I was very sorry to see Bogie's fold. They had to have been hurt running tabs for writers and editors. For a time they were editors of a paperback original line published by Paperjacks and bearing the Bogie's name. I think I killed the line as they were about to buy one of mine when Paperjacks folded.

They were very early into organizing mystery weekends and made more money doing that than they did at the restaurant. The last I heard from them was a few years ago when they were doing a weekend at the Greenbriar and invited me down to play a role and have a free stay. Alas, I couldn't do it.

There are a fair number of references to Bogie's in mystery novels published in the 80s. Everyone loved the Palmers even those who were not running a tab.

Richard Moore

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