Williams Grimes Gets Bookish

Gothamist's favorite unwitting chicken owner and the NY Times's former chief restaurant critic, William Grimes, has been book reviewer for the paper. Now, the triumvirate of reviewers will be Grimes, Janet Maslin (former chief film critic), and Chief Michiko Kakutani. We can just imagine the publishing houses combing through his old restaurant reviews and editors suggesting to writers they incorporate dining scenes, restaurants, and heady descriptions of preparing food.

Grimes goes into Nicolai Ouroussoff's and Ben Brantley's territories with a quasi review of the Dodger Stages, a new off-Broadway venue with three stages, on West 50th. You know the Dodger Stages, it's at Worldwide Plaza between 8th and 9th Avenues, where there was a $2 movie theater that showed fairly recent releases; they later charged $2.50, then $3, to stay in business (Gothamist knew the movie theater had problems when we saw a man masturbating to a Mel Gibson movie). Anyway, Grimes seems to have a pretty good time at the "theaterplex" and gives the Dodger Stages bathrooms the thumbs-up. And he revealed himself in January after he stepped down. Gothamist on Grimes's announcement he was leaving the restaurant beat and his interview with Newsweek.