Pushkin gradually became committed to social reform and emerged as a spokesman for literary radicals; in the early 1820s he clashed with the government, which sent him into exile in southern Russia.

Hidden on a tiny pedestrian alley, cavelike Specs' draws barflies in the afternoon and hipsters, literary radicals and other colorful local characters in the evening.

Sponsored by a committee of prominent literary radicals - Malcolm Cowley, Whittaker Chambers and Waldo Frank, among others - the trip was led by Louise Patterson, a fiercely intelligent woman at the center of New York's African-American intellectual scene during the final days of the Harlem Renaissance.

Literary conservatives could look to his technical mastery, while literary radicals were inspired by his innovations.

Pushkin gradually became committed to social reform and emerged as a spokesman for literary radicals.

But Hitchcock was no literary radical.