'Bright Lights' Hits the Big 4-0

In Jay McInerney’s Bright Lights, Big City, the Odeon “makes you feel reasonable at any hour, often against bad odds.” The Tribeca restaurant—along with the World Trade Center—appears on the original cover of the novel, which turns 40 on August 12. The book captured the early-1980s downtown-Manhattan scene: models, drugs, dance clubs, and the desire to escape. It also earned the debut author a libertine reputation that would outlast the scene he chronicled.