You’re reading the third edition of What’s Good?, a weekly recap of things I’ve written, read, watched, listened to, whatever. This week I talk about bars, ferries, and reveal our Herb of the Week!
I laughed when I first saw the sign on McFadden’s last week: “Urgent Care, Coming Soon.” It had been closed since COVID, and in the two years since I’ve watched the painted leprechaun on the window fade. It marked the passage of a weird that I unfortunately associate with St. Patrick’s Day.
After tweeting the photo the response was more than I expected. But I shouldn’t have been surprised. People really loved that bar – for Bills games or just to get so drunk you get kicked off the entire island. It was a nice distraction in another week of horrible news.
There were plenty of bars I loved before I turned 21: the Irish Circle, Tap and Grill, the Raintower, the Roxbury Barn, Gantry’s Pub, B&T’s, Traditions, McFadden’s. All gone as I remember them, even if some have different names.
Since the pandemic, at least 25 Irish bars had closed in the city, the New York Post reported. in March. Sean Murphy of MurphGuide told the paper it could be more.
“After a while, it got too depressing, so I stopped keeping track,” he said.
Bars and restaurants are gathering places for our diverse and changing neighborhoods. That’s obvious. And people feel a deep connection to these places for a lot of reasons. The oldest bar in New York City, Neir’s Tavern, had a whole city and a mayor behind it when it almost closed in early 2020.
In 2018, Coogan’s in Washington Heights announced it would close because the landlord (a hospital) decided to hike its rent by thousands of dollars.
The outpouring of support — including from Lin-Manuel Miranda — helped save it. An agreement was reached with the landlord, and Coogan’s stayed open. It felt like a happy ending.
But then COVID came, and it became too much to keep going.
“No scale exists that can weigh the loss of a business against the loss of a single life, much less tens of thousands,” Jim Dwyer wrote in April 2020.
“That does not mean we cannot hear in Coogan’s passing one loud tick of a clock, the approach of changed ways of life.” (Dwyer was gone by the end of the year, of lung cancer.)
The bar is gone, but it remains in some way. The city renamed the corner of West 169th and Broadway “Coogan’s Way” this week to honor the bar and restaurant. It seemed like a bittersweet celebration for a special place.
But it isn’t all bad news for bars. Last week Connolly’s in Rockaway Beach officially re-opened under new management, saved by some local kids who don’t plan on changing anything anytime soon (except maybe the bathrooms.)
“For the longest time, everybody on the coconut telegraph, the Rockaway rumor mill, is saying, ‘Oh, I heard Connolly’s got sold and it’s going to turn into condos,” one of the new owners, Mike Reinhardt, told GrubStreet. “ I heard someone from Brooklyn bought it.’”
We can all agree we’re happy nobody from Brooklyn bought Connolly’s. So make sure to stop in this weekend and the rest of the summer and grab a drink or three.
“Some things need to be preserved, and that’s how we feel about Connolly’s,” Reinhardt said. “That’s how the community felt about Connolly’s.”
If you ever see me there, keep in mind I actually don’t like the frozens — they give me a headache! So buy me a beer.
READ
Despite being scheduled to set sail sometime in 2022, the Coney Island stop on the NYC Ferry won’t be happening anytime soon.
I reported this week for THE CITY about the shifting sands at Coney Island Creek — and environmental violations because of some illegal dredging — that are making things difficult for the contractors. And the EDC is also going to really evaluate whether they could put a dock on the ocean-side of Coney, at Steeplechase Pier, which some residents have asked for. It would involve building a jetty of sorts to protect from wave action, which sounds complicated and expensive when things with the ferry are already very expensive.
Other interesting stories from this week:
A staff shortage at HPD is stalling the creation of more affordable apartments (NYPOST)
Be safe at the beaches this summer. (THE CITY)
LISTEN
“The AR15 rifle used to kill 19 children and 2 teachers in Uvalde was similar to the one used in Buffalo, in Parkland, in Las Vegas, in Newtown. The AR15 is also the bestselling rifle in the US.” Listen to this great episode of The Journal.
“Bill de Blasio Knows He Isn’t Loved,” the headline of Ginia Bellafante’s column this weekend in the Times reads.
The former mayor paints his decision to run for congress like it was written in the stars. His life after Gracie Mansion included “renovating a townhouse, writing, delivering commentary on Morning Joe.’ He thought about teaching. But none of this called to him for the long term,” Bellafante writes. (It’s worth noting that none of those endeavors seems to pay a whole lot.) But then after a lunch with a friend he saw the new maps had come out and he knew he wanted to run. “Little deliberation was necessary.” Don’t forget he also deliberated not so long ago a run for governor, before reality got in his way.
De Blasio still owes the city and lawyers a lot of money, and is living at the Brooklyn Marriott — a stay that could cost thousands and thousands of dollars but it’s still unclear how he’s paying for it. It hasn’t stopped him from begging his email list for money for his run, which feels a lot like when he ran for president.
Because of all that, our second HERB OF THE WEEK (the first was me for starting a newsletter) is:
Taken at Somos 2021
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Thanks for reading!