Back in 1988, when I was 17, my friends and I managed to obtain authentic-looking fake N.J. drivers licenses. This enabled us, over the four years before we reached legal drinking age, to hang out and drink at bars from the Polish dives of Elizabeth's Bayway section to Irish pubs of midtown Manhattan.



But the place we spent the most time was also the only one where we never, ever dared to flash those fake ID's: Maxwell's in Hoboken.

We went to Maxwell's to see the bands: Naked Raygun, Dinosaur Jr., The Feelies, The Lyres and scores more.

In true Maxwell's fashion, it was never clear if the shows there were restricted to 21 and over, or all ages admitted. There was no sign at the door, no mention in the listings in the Village Voice. We didn't ask.

But those fake ID's stayed in our pockets. And we never, ever dared approach the bar.

See, there was simply no way we would risk being blacklisted from the place just for a bottle of Rolling Rock. And we didn't want the owners themselves to get in trouble for serving us.

The place was special. Even as dumb kids, we were smart enough to know how lucky we were to be there.

You see, back over the Pulaski Skyway, in the suburbs of Union County and our high school hallways, nobody listened to this stuff. I knew a half dozen kids who did, and everyone else called it "weird".

The author in 1988. A photo definitely NOT taken at Maxwell's.

Seems silly now. But this stuff matters when you're that age, when your pop culture choices of dress and music are the only ways you can find to project your still-forming identity to the world.

Those ripples in your shallow teen identity can deepen, too. Really, it was that music I heard close up at Maxwells that inspired me to pick up a pen and start writing myself.

Sure, we went to hear music in New York, too. But the tickets were always three times more expensive than at Maxwell's. The halls were bigger. The bands never seemed as comfortable. Maxwell's was a refuge.

There was only one night we needed any shenanigans to get in.

A summer night in 1989, my buddy Cheese and I headed to Hoboken for a surprise show by the Replacements - our idols - only to find it sold out.

In the trunk of my Oldsmobile Cutlass I happened to have a dummy - part of a senior class prank played out weeks before and, for some unknown reason, a trumpet.

Cheese and I carried the dummy (who held the trumpet) through the packed restaurant to the door of Maxwell's back room, where the bands play. "He's the Replacements' trumpet player," we told the doorman.

"No dice." he said. "Get outta here."

On our way out, we bumped into Slim Dunlap, the towering guitarist for the Replacements. We introduced our dummy to Slim, who without missing a beat, smiled, then walked over to the doorman and put our two names - and the dummy's - on the guest list.

Maxwell's closes tonight, forever. I am trying to convince myself not to give a crap. It's the right approach. It's just a building, after all, and my stupid nostalgia.

What's important is the idea of Maxwell's - a place in New Jersey, for Jersey kids with ten bucks to burn and schoolmates who think they're weirdos, to find a haven. It's not easy to create such a place - not then, and especially not now, with licensing and zoning laws and real estate values gone insane.

Let's just hope one pops up somewhere. Not for me. I can't stay awake past 10 p.m. any more. But for the kid out there with the fake ID in his pocket and a dummy in the trunk of his car. That kid needs a Maxwell's.

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