Union Course

Still terrible at posting stuff here, I’m finishing a painting of the Dublin House, making sketches for new ones to start, so where is any of that?  Lazy.  Here’s a rough idea for a new painting.  It’s acrylic, which I’m liking for quickly trying things out.  The speed and lack of preciousness helps to generate some fresh ideas that hopefully last through the transfer to the slower medium of oils.  That’s the plan.  The subject is the interior of the Union Course Tavern in Woodhaven, Queens, which makes a claim to being THE oldest bar in the five boroughs.  Sorry, McSorley’s, but 1853 is the claim and it’s a hard one to beat.  Union Course refers to the racetrack of that name which made Woodhaven a destination for sporting types beginning in the 1820s.  Back in the mid-Nineteenth Century the tavern was called the Blue Pump Room.  The sign behind the bar used to hang outside when it belonged to the Neir family.  The glory days are just about over, and there is none of the hype that draws the fratboys to McSorley’s, but this is the honest neighborhood shot and a beer joint you used to find on every block and now — good luck, buddy.  So, by all means, go there.  If the door is locked don’t be afraid to knock.

Physical Evidence That I May In Fact Exist

Six of the Greatest Hits (including all of the above) are on display at 18 Erie Street, aka World of Style Vintage / Balance Salon, in lovely Jersey City. Real near the Grove Street PATH. They will be up through the first week in March, and I will be there to sign autographs and kiss babies on Friday, March 6th, for a combo JC Friday and show closing event. More detail can be found here. See you on the 6th?

Aristocrat

You know you are in a quality joint when you see that Aristocrat Gin bottle proudly displayed.  If you recognize the Zemkoff Vodka and Aristocrat brands you maybe a regular of Julius at 159 West 10th Street in the West Village, and if you are, I salute you.  This is one of the few truly unchanging bars in the city.  If you’ve never been you are headed for regrets-ville.  It is the realest of deals, completely untouched by the Squares in a neighborhood irretrievably ruined by the worst elements of the Sex-In-The-City-fication horrors.  As Jeremiah points out in his informative article linked above, one reason Julius has survived when so many other neighborhood taverns have mutated into sets for Friends must be that it is a gay bar dating from an era when that meant something.  One gets the impression the crowd there doesn’t suffer fools and/or straight people gladly.  I’ve never felt anything but welcome, though I could be accused of being both foolish and girl-crazy; at least I’m no Square.  Naturally, it’s a question of deportment, and I have the added bonus of the vivacious Baroness V.O. whom I rely on to charm us out of any tight scrapes.  The other reason for Julius’ unchanging nature is the hideous yellow stucco facade.  This kind of ugly lets you know there is nothing trendy going on here.  Inside it’s a museum of forgotten barroom culture easily equal to Chumley’s, Minetta, Old Town – name your classic joint.

This is a sketch in acrylic and gouache that might turn into a real painting.  I haven’t done much with acrylic in a while.  Ever use a palette knife on paper?  Effective, and also just plain fun.  Started thinking about what a white elephant these huge cash registers are becoming lately.  They are all going to end up like those old hand pump beer engines posted below – unused massive hunks of machinery as decoration.  This one isn’t pretty by any standard, but if they ever decide to replace it with the crappy new computer cashbox you see everywhere, you know they aren’t going to remove this one.  Too damn heavy! Of course, the old cash register is a good indicator of the kind of old dump I love. As bon vivant Paul Lukas says, if you see a computer display behind the bar you are in the wrong place.

Fedora Refined

Updating the post below regarding Fedora.  Here’s the finished painting.  This photo is a little saturated, and the inky blacks have lost some of the subtlety of the actual picture, but you will get some idea that the colors have been refined.  When the three brightest areas in the top half of the picture – the white wall above the payphone on left, washed-out area center left around Oscar statuette, and ceiling at right – started getting more assertive I felt like I was finally getting there.  The space feels right now.  But I think I need to do another one of the bar here at Fedora.  Something about the low-ceiling vibe needs another go to get it right.

Fun With Hand Pumps

I stopped in for an ale at McSorley’s the day after the election, a gloomy afternoon which saw the Old Ale House peopled with a few contented regulars and a handful of touristas.  Delicious.  I made a sketch of the disused hand pumps behind the bar.  These were used to raise ale from casks in the cellar up to the bar.  the technical term is “beer engine” and they date from the nineteenth century.  You can still find examples of these engines in the more ancient saloons, but no one has used this technology since the fifties when carbon dioxide pressure became the standard delivery system, so they are now merely decorative built-in reminders of the past.  Here are some fun facts to ponder, while grooving on all that gorgeous brass and mahogany, the next time you are lucky enough to find a set of vintage pumps:

The beer engine was invented in 1797 by prolific inventor Joseph Bramah.  Another of Mr. Bramah’s greatest hits was an improved water closet, so apparently he was thinking holistically about the entire life cycle of a pint of beer.  A great man, let’s all remember to lift a mug to his name at happy hour tonight.

The One

You knew this one was coming.  The gold standard against which all ancient saloons must be judged, I give you McSorley’s Old Ale House, 15 East 7th Street in the East Village.  No other beer joint will ever attain the universal reverence it enjoys, but the truly remarkable thing is how thoroughly deserving of its acclaim is this creaky senior citizen.  I won’t bore anybody with my feeble attempts to rhapsodize on territory forever owned by a master — I’m not that stupid.  I will say there is something soul-satisfying to be confronted with perfection once in a while.  A visit tends to fortify my urge to keep on living, to carry on in a Philistine world that will never give a plate of cheddar, onions and saltines its proper respect.   It is always worth it, providing you can find a time when the joint is not overrun with fratboy types.  That is the price of fame, I suppose, but it can be tiresome, especially when you are there to groove on the dusty, dozy, coal-fired quiet fabled in song and story.  Here’s a tip I’ll share with you few cognoscenti who find this page, but don’t spread it around: Super Bowl Sunday.  This painting came from photos the Baroness and I took last February on the day of the big game.  We were looking for a place without a television, the idea being no tube, no sports fans, therefore sweet, peaceful, easy livin’.  Our little gambit worked despite the fact that there actually is a TV in McSorley’s, but it’s stuck in the backroom and it’s kind of crummy and old, and those factors seemed to keep the creeps away.  We got seats next to the pot-bellied stove, and you know you can’t beat that!

Fedora

This is another painting in progress. The bar at Fedora, one of the oldest restaurants in the West Village, at 239 West 4th Street. Go soon, go often: it won’t last forever. You won’t want to eat, but that won’t strain the low-key but sincere hospitality. After many trips here over many years there seems to be a bit of a revival – meaning the under 60 set has discovered Fedora. I don’t really understand this phenomenon, except in freak show terms, and that is so unfair to a place whose novelty is plainly its authenticity. But there is little chance this sleepy throwback will ever become truly fabulous, so I won’t complain if they get some business outside of their neighborhood regulars. Speaking of fabulous, the Baroness and I were wandering around the insufferable Meat Packing District yesterday on the way to a mid-afternoon snack at El Faro. I know that hood went completely nuts years ago, but sheesh! what a horror. We never get over there, and never in daylight, so the shock was severe. All the more reason to cherish a living specimen of New York City restaurant life from fifty years ago, like Fedora or El Faro.

This painting isn’t done, but it’s getting there. I guess I’m looking for the special kind of undersea gloom I always feel at Fedora. Unfortunately, I think a real part of the ambiance here is an ever so slight dampness that may date from 1952, and that can be tricky trying to convey that atmosphere in oil paint. No one said it was going to be easy…

Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité

You knew Marie’s Crisis, 59 Grove Street, is a West Village institution; a groovy, ancient piano bar which rivals the venerable Julius’s for gay bar with the richest history.  But did you know the name comes from Thomas Paine’s pamphlet “The Crisis”, an expansion of themes he first addressed in “Common Sense”?  Paine died on this site in 1809.  The extant structure dates from about 1850, and there is a bronze plaque from 1923 commemorating Paine’s death.  This is a painting of the spartan array of bottles on the back bar and part of the remarkable mirrors.  Not sure this is completely done yet, but here it is anyway.

First And Last Chance

Breaking with precedent already with this, but here is a painting of the mirror over the bar in Heinold’s First And Last Chance Saloon, 48 Webster Street in Jack London Square, Oakland, California. Built of lumber salvaged from a retired whaling ship in 1880, converted to a saloon in 1883, with an interior nearly unchanged in the last ninety years, the Last Chance certainly belongs here, even if it lives on the other coast. We’re headed out to San Francisco in about a month, so it seemed appropriate to post this one. This place has everything you want in a saloon; it’s dark, and it’s quiet, perfect for getting some serious drinking done, and it’s got history in giant double handfuls. Read the story here. Naturally, there will be tourists (and when I’m there I’m one of them) but there are regulars too; some who travel many miles to be there, true fans of this unique joint.

Epilogue: We happened to be in the East Bay last month on the weekend of their 125 anniversary.  We got to within a half a block and the crowds of Spuds McKenzie frat-tards drove us away.  So next time.

Speaking of great Irish bars

Yesterday the Baroness and I had a late lunch at Donovan’s in Woodside.  That’s 57-24 Roosevelt Avenue, corner of 57th Street, convenient to the 61st Street 7 train station.  Hands down the best looking Irish bar in a neighborhood clogged with them, and the scene is always a very charming family crowd – Mums and Dads, youngsters and oldsters, mixing happily in the grand old Brit/Irish public house tradition.  Donovan’s justifies their claim to the best saloon hamburger for miles around, but the fried fish is great too, and the bangers and mash satisfies.  We make it here fairly frequently, living as we do in the area.  To say it never disappoints is like saying mother’s pot roast is not bad.  It’s always the same; familiar, homey, welcoming and filling.  Not surprisingly they pull the most perfect pint of Guinness on this side of the Atlantic.  Here is a painting of
the stained glass bay window on the 57th Street side of the bar.  Steam trays at the ready – that’s right campers, free snacks during happy hour on the weekend, just like the olden days.