Counter Intelligence: Industriel's aggravating fusion

Industriel, it should be mentioned, is a restaurant that can leave a certain kind of person sputtering with rage. It is decorated in a kind of Depression chic, for one thing. Walls are paneled with old wooden soda crates. Banquettes are upholstered in a gold vinyl you may have never seen outside cocktail lounges attached to ancient Midwestern bowling alleys. And the not-unplentiful homeless people on the street outside are confronted with the enormous blowups of Dorothea Lange's photographs of starving Depression-era migrant workers that flank the doors.

By Jonathan Gold

September 1, 2012