News Business Reporter {{description}} Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items. My husband nudged me in my sleep Monday morning, holding his phone up to my face. "The Old Pink is on fire," he said in a gasp, streaming a video on social media.
Drowsing, I lay my head on his arm and felt tears on my cheeks. Fire pours from the roof of the old Pink on Allen Street as firefighters spray water from several directions early Monday morning, June 17, 2024. Thousands of people woke up Monday to the gut punch of the Pink in flames.
By the end of the day, the legendary Allentown bar was reduced to rubble. All day long, social media was filled with tributes to the place. Person after person, no matter their age or social strata, had fond memories of the Old Pink and a hole in their hearts watching it burn away.
There were those from its inner sanctum – people like David Gutierrez and Eric Van Rysdam who, from the DJ booth, were stewards of the Pink's very soul. But then there were tributes from those I never would have expected – a preppy elementary school teacher, a Christian senior citizen, newly minted legal drinkers. For so many – even those whose remembrances reduced it to its sticky floors, steak sandwiches and funky bathrooms – the Pink meant something.
As the day went on, post after post after post showed the Pink being hosed down, then dismantled, then mourned via candlelight vigil. Like seemingly everyone in Western New Yor.
