It's the obit of NYC media. I closed Gough's many, many nights. From eleven until..? at night there'd be great raging political (and sports) debates between reporters, editors, press guys, drivers, and basically whoever walked in off the street. And every once in awhile there'd be a fist fight with drunken middle-aged, out of shape guys rolling around on the filthy floor trying to beat the hell out of each other.
Same was true for Costello's.
This isn't ancient history, either. I remember this stuff in the mid and late 1980s.
Then everything turned nice and everyone was too polite to debate or disagree.
The pendulum is beginning to swing back in the direction of men being men again. The backlash has begun against this wishy-washy feminized society.