Photo by Angel Franco/NY Times

NYTIMES.com- On many nights, a man who long ago lost the ability to speak sits at the bar. His name is Bernhardt Wichmann III, and he converses with other customers by scrawling his thoughts on scraps of paper. After a glass of wine, sometimes a salad or a bowl of chili, he retreats upstairs.

And when he does, he travels to a wholly different remnant of old New York. There, 29 rooms no bigger than the walk-in closets in the homes of some of the revelers below form one of the last single-room occupancy residences left in this prestigious ZIP code.

Mr. Wichmann, 76, pays $10 a day for the room he has lived in since 1991 — “the best deal in New York,” he writes.

A pretty cool story here, I must have to say.  A little something to think about during your next trip to this perennial powerhouse of burger classics.  Ben needs to wake up some of his neighbors and get them to sit down and join him downstairs for a burger..maybe a date?  30 Years living above Melon’s and you haven’t been??? That has to be a crime of some sort…misdemeanor?

I wish Ben all the best on his road to recovery