American cities, especially on the East Coast, have whole sections that go under the radar of guide books and to-do lists. There the parts I often find myself drifting into — the unglamorous working-class areas.   Thriving little communities for locals that went through a period of being ghosted by society before their resurgence as new waves of bargain hunters and pioneers moved in.  Their architecture is kind of ugly/beautiful and attracts people with a knack for polishing the right rough diamonds and letting the worst bits rust into oblivion. 

America, that gets so many things so wrong, still knows how to deliver a really good dive bar. Not too sour, not too sweet it hits just right, even if you're alone and a little down on humanity in general. It lets you keep a toe in the water of society without fully plunging in. Your visual field is crammed with signs and labels and bottles and kitsch and a good bartender who will know hot to provide a low hum of ambiance that you can ride like a wave when there's no one to talk to. This joint in Baltimore was once (and maybe still is) a hub for the kind of community where I bet a big chunk of the local population was either part of a trade union or on the dole or a bit of both. I feel comfortable in this kind of place and always have. They don't quite exist in the same way outside the US for some reason. I don't mean by this that poverty is picturesque (do I?) But I don't feel like I have to live up to a divey bar (or live down to it) like I might somewhere with pretensions of something grander. It's not a reinvention, exactly. More like a recreations. 

 The right establishment knows what it is and who and what it's catering to. An instinctive urge to seek shelter from the glare of the outside world. A break from responsibilities. An unspoken understanding from someone behind the bar (in this case a no-nonsense green-haired lesbian) that for a few hours your demands for this life are concrete and within close reach rather than distant and abstract. And that they can be met.