ABSTRACT
My wife, Bell, and I got to know Marvin and Monica Hughes many years ago when our children went to the same school. We all lived on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, where we commiserated from time to time about the cost of housing. The Hugheses had a nice cooperative apartment, which they were able to sell in the mind-boggling real estate boom beginning at the end of the seventies, to move to Riverdale in the Bronx. They kept one foot in Manhattan by realizing their long-standing dream of opening a cafe. Coming from a European musical family, Monica subscribed to a cafe tradition including good food, coffee and the arts; Marvin dreamed of a jazz club. They contrived to combine the two.
