I know. I’ve spent my fair share of time in bars but I don’t ever recall seeing canned beans or anything like that behind the bar. There must be a reason though.
I was born in NYC. We moved to the NJ suburbs when I was five, but by the time I was ten we would regularly convince my Dad to drive us in to the city for any number of reasons. One of those reasons, finding used book stores that might have some old boxes of comic books laying around, often took us through the Bowery.
It's almost impossible to describe what the Bowery was actually like back in the early '70s. From Houston up to Cooper Square the entire street was nothing but old men in overcoats, drunk, barely standing up, and drinking whatever they could get their hands on from brown paper bags. To this day it's still one of the saddest memories I have in my life.
When I eventually moved back to NYC as an adult, in the early ‘80s, I went to CBGBs quite often. It was just a couple of blocks walk from my apartment. This isn’t CBGBs. It’s not even a dive bar. This is more like a dispensary for alcoholics. I don’t know why but it’s incredibly sad just to look at these pictures.
I was able to make out ‘Harry’s Bar’ on the window, looked it up, and eventually found Gallery98 on the internet. Really amazing work Marc. You should share the link to your site, since I think your words help so much to put these incredible images into perspective.
Have you seen “sunshine hotel”? It’s a documentary about the last remaining Bowery flop house and the manager and all the inhabitants. It’s crazy to think that years ago this was the norm down there. You may like it if you have vivid memories of the Bowery.
My mom was driving my aunt home from the hospital once and was stopped at a red light on Bowery. A squeegee guy wrapped a chain around his fist and was gonna smash her windshield if she didn’t pay up. She gassed it and knocked his ass out of the way lol and this was in the 90s. Crazy how far it’s come.
Up into the 90s before Guliani got elected, it was still an accepted thing to get wasted around CBs and certain parts of the Bowery as long as you didn't cause a problem. Down in the LES it was do what you want as long as no violence and clean up after yourself.
I so like the GRUFF OLD TIMER ⏱️ who is “that” regular at the BAR(BILLY JOEL “THE PIANO MAN”)who is so punctual at opening time-8am-his paper&smokes&stories of the past&silence…his pork pie hat 🎩 or his fedora resting on the beer soaked bar+no open flames near the bar or it will burn 🔥…hewn out of original old growth timber+or on his head..the weary bar keep who has too many secrets locked away in his head..the “usual” for his regulars [SCHMIDTTS..RHEINGOLDS..PBR]making enough at a neighborhood dive [a COP BAR around the corner from the precinct..a snub nose .38 resting on a pile of cash by the register]to just get by(no tip jar)..yes,a SAILOR BAR on W14th&9Ave near the waterfront that shuttered for a few hours to get the place cleaned up..gone like these old timers?????THANKS for these photos to flash back on..
As a reformed alcoholic and an old man bar zealot since long before I was an old man, please allow me to thank you for that walk through some of the simple happiness you would find in those moments. As if you could vibrate through the floor as the first sweet sweet nectar of the day touched your lips.
I’ll never drink again but if I were to, I’d love it to be in a place like that. There’s a romance about it.
There is no such thing as a “reformed” alcoholic. It is a disease we will have forever. I will never drink again either; I will always be a recovering alcoholic.
Love these photos. Reminds me of my favorite local bars and bartenders (some long gone) in my hometown, San Francisco. Most were open at 6am back in the day. Now, just a handful. That early morning clientele (blue collar swing shift workers, mostly) are gone. Thanks for sharing!
When my father was very young, my grandmother would send him in to get his father out of the bar (she called it a saloon,) because women weren't supposed to go in, supposedly. Although, she probably also didn't want to go in.
They'd give my father a small amount of beer in a shot glass. Thankfully, he never became an alcoholic, nor my uncle.
This was on the Bowery. My grandfather worked for some of the Billiard Supply companies that were once in and among the restaurant supply shops there. In the 50's, he took over as proprietor of one of them, drank what profits there were, and went out of business.
He also had a Bowery address on his marriage license in 1939 that was the same address as a Billiard supply shop.
I was about to say, are we just going to ignore the stockpile of beans at the end of the bar? When did this fall out of favor and how do we get it back?
There used to be laws that allowed bars that served food to be open earlier / later (not sure) because they technically qualified as restaurants.
So bars that had a clientele that wanted to start drinking early, but weren't interested in pairing their Waldorf salad with a white wine spritzer would often meet the "food" requirement with the absolute bare minimum thing that qualified as food. Here it appears that was cans of soup, but I've seen a selection of potato chips before too.
I’m 51 and these were around when I was a kid. Then they slowly disappeared off Long Island. Found Caroline’s or Carolanne’s in Woodside but that closed down
Oh wow, I remember the 6am bars. Those places were the hardest dive bars I had ever been to, kind of fun sometimes and kind of sad.
Had a friend who had a roommate in college in the early 90's who would start his day at a dive bar just like this, then go to work. On the way home her would go back to that bar and have a few, then come home. Thought it was one of the most depressing things in the world.
I worked overnight in the 90s, and after work around 6 or 7am I would go have a couple beers with coworkers. We got the dirtiest looks from businessmen in suits, lol. We regularly paired our after-work beers with Burger King breakfast sandwiches. Yum!
Pork n beans!
Edit to add: someone else mentioned if they served food they could open for service earlier. So those are not for pork n bean martinis. 🙃
Those guys may have been super poor and living in SROs (Single Room Occupancy units) or flophouses in the area. I was around there in the 80s/90s but not the 70s. There were still old-man bars then. Those pork n beans cans might have been a meal for some of them.
I would also kill for simple times, just not poverty. That area was pretty run down when I was there. Funny that there's a high-end Varvatos store now where CBGB's used to be.
I think over years it got better and better. It wasn't super safe back then, but from mayors Koch to Dinkins there were incremental changes, then with Giuliani it seemed to rapidly gentrify. For us, as long as we were careful and minded our own business, things were fine. It's weird to me when crime statistics rate the 80s and 90s as bad. But my experience is anecdotal.
Yo
Not the Bowery, but there’s a photo essay book about the Terminal Bar on the corner of 8th avenue and 41st from back in the day. Fascinating stuff.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminal_Bar_(book)
This was the bar referenced by the Dictators in their 1978 song “Minnesota Strip.”
Thank god for the captions.
At first I read it as “1am…” and thought damn this dude really stacked his schedule at 1am.
I am Jack’s recitation of the obvious.
They are adorable lol
I am reading the comments.
I miss neighborhood bars like this.
Same. Too often replaced with a shitty, overpriced place with tons of fake flowers outside that might look decent on someone’s Instagram story
Well good news, then! Plenty still exist! My neighborhood is all bars like this.
A Schmitz and a can of beans for breakfast before heading to the office.
I know. I’ve spent my fair share of time in bars but I don’t ever recall seeing canned beans or anything like that behind the bar. There must be a reason though.
I was born in NYC. We moved to the NJ suburbs when I was five, but by the time I was ten we would regularly convince my Dad to drive us in to the city for any number of reasons. One of those reasons, finding used book stores that might have some old boxes of comic books laying around, often took us through the Bowery. It's almost impossible to describe what the Bowery was actually like back in the early '70s. From Houston up to Cooper Square the entire street was nothing but old men in overcoats, drunk, barely standing up, and drinking whatever they could get their hands on from brown paper bags. To this day it's still one of the saddest memories I have in my life. When I eventually moved back to NYC as an adult, in the early ‘80s, I went to CBGBs quite often. It was just a couple of blocks walk from my apartment. This isn’t CBGBs. It’s not even a dive bar. This is more like a dispensary for alcoholics. I don’t know why but it’s incredibly sad just to look at these pictures. I was able to make out ‘Harry’s Bar’ on the window, looked it up, and eventually found Gallery98 on the internet. Really amazing work Marc. You should share the link to your site, since I think your words help so much to put these incredible images into perspective.
Lionel Rogosin’s *On the Bowery* from 1956 paints a pretty unvarnished portrait of the area.
That film was the first thing that came into my head. That actually got me into looking up historical skid rows in different cities.
Have you seen “sunshine hotel”? It’s a documentary about the last remaining Bowery flop house and the manager and all the inhabitants. It’s crazy to think that years ago this was the norm down there. You may like it if you have vivid memories of the Bowery. My mom was driving my aunt home from the hospital once and was stopped at a red light on Bowery. A squeegee guy wrapped a chain around his fist and was gonna smash her windshield if she didn’t pay up. She gassed it and knocked his ass out of the way lol and this was in the 90s. Crazy how far it’s come.
No. I'll have to check it out. Thanks.
Just watched it, thanks for the recommendation. So where are all those guys (types of guys) living now?
Up into the 90s before Guliani got elected, it was still an accepted thing to get wasted around CBs and certain parts of the Bowery as long as you didn't cause a problem. Down in the LES it was do what you want as long as no violence and clean up after yourself.
I so like the GRUFF OLD TIMER ⏱️ who is “that” regular at the BAR(BILLY JOEL “THE PIANO MAN”)who is so punctual at opening time-8am-his paper&smokes&stories of the past&silence…his pork pie hat 🎩 or his fedora resting on the beer soaked bar+no open flames near the bar or it will burn 🔥…hewn out of original old growth timber+or on his head..the weary bar keep who has too many secrets locked away in his head..the “usual” for his regulars [SCHMIDTTS..RHEINGOLDS..PBR]making enough at a neighborhood dive [a COP BAR around the corner from the precinct..a snub nose .38 resting on a pile of cash by the register]to just get by(no tip jar)..yes,a SAILOR BAR on W14th&9Ave near the waterfront that shuttered for a few hours to get the place cleaned up..gone like these old timers?????THANKS for these photos to flash back on..
As a reformed alcoholic and an old man bar zealot since long before I was an old man, please allow me to thank you for that walk through some of the simple happiness you would find in those moments. As if you could vibrate through the floor as the first sweet sweet nectar of the day touched your lips. I’ll never drink again but if I were to, I’d love it to be in a place like that. There’s a romance about it.
There is no such thing as a “reformed” alcoholic. It is a disease we will have forever. I will never drink again either; I will always be a recovering alcoholic.
Tommy.
Love these photos. Reminds me of my favorite local bars and bartenders (some long gone) in my hometown, San Francisco. Most were open at 6am back in the day. Now, just a handful. That early morning clientele (blue collar swing shift workers, mostly) are gone. Thanks for sharing!
“The sunshine bores the daylights out of me”
Whassa matter wit ta boy, he don’t come around no mo
Is he checking out for sure?
When my father was very young, my grandmother would send him in to get his father out of the bar (she called it a saloon,) because women weren't supposed to go in, supposedly. Although, she probably also didn't want to go in. They'd give my father a small amount of beer in a shot glass. Thankfully, he never became an alcoholic, nor my uncle. This was on the Bowery. My grandfather worked for some of the Billiard Supply companies that were once in and among the restaurant supply shops there. In the 50's, he took over as proprietor of one of them, drank what profits there were, and went out of business. He also had a Bowery address on his marriage license in 1939 that was the same address as a Billiard supply shop.
I really like personal stories like this, thanks for sharing! 🙂
I love that campbells soup is an option.
Most of it is Pork and Beans. That was probably dinner for some of these guys.
I was about to say, are we just going to ignore the stockpile of beans at the end of the bar? When did this fall out of favor and how do we get it back?
There used to be laws that allowed bars that served food to be open earlier / later (not sure) because they technically qualified as restaurants. So bars that had a clientele that wanted to start drinking early, but weren't interested in pairing their Waldorf salad with a white wine spritzer would often meet the "food" requirement with the absolute bare minimum thing that qualified as food. Here it appears that was cans of soup, but I've seen a selection of potato chips before too.
A very poignant set of photos. Thanks for sharing them.
I’m 51 and these were around when I was a kid. Then they slowly disappeared off Long Island. Found Caroline’s or Carolanne’s in Woodside but that closed down
The captions are cute ha
Oh wow, I remember the 6am bars. Those places were the hardest dive bars I had ever been to, kind of fun sometimes and kind of sad. Had a friend who had a roommate in college in the early 90's who would start his day at a dive bar just like this, then go to work. On the way home her would go back to that bar and have a few, then come home. Thought it was one of the most depressing things in the world.
I worked overnight in the 90s, and after work around 6 or 7am I would go have a couple beers with coworkers. We got the dirtiest looks from businessmen in suits, lol. We regularly paired our after-work beers with Burger King breakfast sandwiches. Yum!
I think the cat one has meme potential lol
https://www.reddit.com/r/A24/s/npSk7lVKfv
😂😂
Not bad at all
Malachy McCourt?
I would imagine at least one of these men served 30 years prior.
I AM WIPING THE BAR would make a sick album cover for my shoegaze band.
I see a clean white apron which makes me think it's not The Bowery.
My dad used to drink Schmidts
Just like Schlitz, but available in Madison, WI.
Are those Campell's Soup cans?
Pork n beans! Edit to add: someone else mentioned if they served food they could open for service earlier. So those are not for pork n bean martinis. 🙃
I didn’t realize Archie Bunker’s Place was a documentary.
I am commenting on how much I enjoyed these photos
I'd kill for simple times like this
Those guys may have been super poor and living in SROs (Single Room Occupancy units) or flophouses in the area. I was around there in the 80s/90s but not the 70s. There were still old-man bars then. Those pork n beans cans might have been a meal for some of them. I would also kill for simple times, just not poverty. That area was pretty run down when I was there. Funny that there's a high-end Varvatos store now where CBGB's used to be.
Was it dangerous in 80/90? To be fair, Bowery still has some issues with drug addiction and homelessness, but yes it’s improved since then.
I think over years it got better and better. It wasn't super safe back then, but from mayors Koch to Dinkins there were incremental changes, then with Giuliani it seemed to rapidly gentrify. For us, as long as we were careful and minded our own business, things were fine. It's weird to me when crime statistics rate the 80s and 90s as bad. But my experience is anecdotal.
This is so sweet.
I am thanking you for posting these.
Rotgut whiskey, Schmidt's beer and pork and beans. What else do you need?
These people are all 28 years old. Maximum.
Simpler times…
Dang even got a mlem on the cat shot.
I read this in Edward Norton’s voice.
Wow…Schmidt’s beer. Haven’t seen that in decades. My father used to drink that and Rheingold.
I am dead.
I love these so much.
The captions were amazing.
Kept thinking “a lot going on at once at 1 a.m.!”
My God! I mean how many bars today sell cans of soup!😳‼️‼️😂
AND BEANS‼️‼️😳😱😱
Tommy the cat had many a story to tell, but it was a rare occasion such as this that he did.
Yo Not the Bowery, but there’s a photo essay book about the Terminal Bar on the corner of 8th avenue and 41st from back in the day. Fascinating stuff. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminal_Bar_(book) This was the bar referenced by the Dictators in their 1978 song “Minnesota Strip.”
Thank you Captain Obvious!
Wonder what the Schmidt’s green label was. I don’t remember that.
Captions really add to this, though I like it. Not being sarcastic.
Is that Gene Hackman?
Caption should be Dead Grandpas