[June 2013]
The Paris Review has an essay by Joe Kloc on the late, great Blarney Cove on East 14th Street…
Tommy, another regular, recounted an oft-told Blarney Cove legend. One evening, he said, a regular was sitting alone at the end of the bar, minding his business, enjoying his $1.50 mugs of beer with all the usual contentment of an old drinker on a young night. Suddenly, but without fuss, the man set down his mug, shut his eyes, slumped forward, and died right there in his chair. “They put him in the freezer,” Tommy said. And the next day his body was gone.
Read the whole piece here.
Previously on EV Grieve:
Here is the future of East 14th Street and Avenue A: 7 stories of residential and retail
City OKs permits to demolish the empty storefronts along this section of East 14th Street
The Blarney Cove closes for good after tomorrow night
The Blarney Cove sign is down! The Blarney Cove sign is down!
There was no more lonesome jukebox in the five boroughs than that of the Blarney Cove. Over the years, I watched all sorts of people haunt the bar’s four square feet of danceable floor—a grizzly man in a cowboy hat, a college girl with big hoop earrings—each gyrating in solitary defiance of the sleepy night.
ReplyDeleteSouls and characters. Such contrast to today's WOOOO bars.
I'm still sad about this. :(
ReplyDeleteNicely done.
ReplyDelete"...nobody in a lifeboat is happy to be lost at sea."
Can't believe the author failed to mention that they would actually scratch an X over the portrait each of the "The Mid-Day Gentlemen’s Club" when they passed.
ReplyDelete