Dangerous thinking

Bradley Beach, N.J.: To Voicer Gregory Topliff: So let me follow your theory about thoughts. NYPD Officer Gilberto Valle, the cannibal cop, thought about and discussed eating women, so he should have been allowed to continue patrolling the streets of New York? Thank goodness Marjorie Taylor Greene was removed from any position that concerns the education of our children. Patrick Freeman

Joe Allen, whose Times Square-adjacent bistro which bears his name has been a decadeslong draw for theater folk and where a post-show drink is part of the Broadway experience, has died. He was 87.

Allen died Sunday in Hampton, N.H., according to Jason Woodruff, a former staffer for the Allen family of restaurants who spoke to the family.

The Joe Allen restaurant had red brick walls, sturdy wood tables and chairs, a large bar and was adorned with posters from Broadway’s most notorious flops. Regulars included Stephen Sondheim, Chita Rivera, John Guare and Elaine Stritch. Visitors might also see Elisabeth Moss there, sipping a vodka ginger ale.

“Strong, steady, comforting and reliable,” said Rivera on Twitter. “He certainly will be missed but we will carry him with us forever.” Playwright Paul Rudnick noted that Allen “created a home for the theater community, where everyone hangs out, gossips and commiserates. He’ll be missed, but his legacy lives on, including the wall of posters from flop shows.”

Allen opened Joe Allen on 326 W. 46th St., in 1965, at a time when opening a restaurant west of Eighth Ave. in Manhattan was a risky proposition, long before it became know as Restaurant Row. Allen himself was not overly gregarious like many restauranteurs, but coolly efficient and warm to friends. Many of the servers at Joe Allen were actors earning paychecks when not onstage.