Old Town Bar Hates the New Yankee Stadium
Thursday, April 9th, 2009The Old Town Bar has been a New York City fixture for more than 100 years. It has served everyone from corrupt Tammany Hall officials to famous authors and actors to hangers-on from Andy Warhol’s Factory to truckers and construction workers (Read some of the rich history here.)
Still, it remains unpretentious, and one of the main reasons for that was owner Larry Meagher. Sadly, he passed away in 2007. One of the things he used to do was hang signs in the window, railing against some injustice. In a piece in The New York Observer written after his death, one of those signs is mentioned:
In the window of the Old Town last week, the bar picked a fight with Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter, whose Waverly Inn is arguably an ersatz and swanky version of the Old Town. Mr. Carter’s establishment, the sign screamed, is “restricted to an elite who get the ‘hush hush’ secret reservation number.’” The sign quaintly suggested that Mr. Carter return to his native Canada and take the “poseurs, rear-end kissers, shit-healers and half-assed celebrities” who form his clientele with him.
Happily, for regulars, and folks like me who live in the neighborhood, someone at the Old Town has kept up the tradition. The latest, just last night, was a masterpiece indeed. I’ll let the pictures do the talking.
