My Favorite St. Paddy's Day ~ 1970

Buddy McMahon 1970

Just past noon, Buddy McMahon and I jumped into the St. Patrick Day parade at 61st Street joining our LaSalle Academy classmates and teachers marching up Fifth Avenue. This was non-regulation starting the parade late (we paid dearly the following day at school ~ brutal knucks to the head delivered with a smile by Brother Paul). At the Met Museum entrance we broke off and ran east to the river and spent the late afternoon enjoying a bucket of swill under the 81st Street staircase on the FDR Drive. Afterwards, five of us started a neighborhood walkabout. We ended up on the 300 block on 85th Street in front of a building where someone had thrown away a large couch, a straight up chair, and a refrigerator box.

Ekis turned the giant box into a desk, put it in front of the chair and Romano, Muller, Feldman, McMahon and I took turns hosting the Johnny Carson show, ~ Romano did a pretty good Ed McMahon. We invited people walking home from work and school to join us on the show; some did, most of the takers/guests were noticeably impaired walking back from the parade or a gin mill.






Muller was the best host. Romano served him clean “You are correct, sirs." Ekis tried to spin a plate on a stick but we told him it was the wrong show and threatened to send him over to a couple of drunks doing a Ed Sullivan Show on the other side of the street.

After we exhausted this routine and got sick of ducking crap people threw at us from their windows, we moved on. Between First and York Avenue, Muller found a standing lamp without a shade. It joined our group. Our first stop was Loftus Tavern on York Avenue.  Marching in, one of us dropped a quarter in the jukebox for two songs (a recent change from three for a quarter and one for a dime). The Beatles began, "this happened once before, when I came to your door, no reply." We sang along into our imaginary microphone on top of the standing lamp. Gathered closely around the pole in sweet harmony, we moved into the 45’s flip side, "I’m a Loser." Loose change rolled towards our feet from the bar. This was a good sign. If the coins were thrown at us, they didn’t like us, rolled meant we were entertainment (kind of). Someone fed the jukebox and we crooned Witchcraft and Night Day to our imaginary Bobby soxers before moving back into the Beatles catalogue. Done there, we pocketed our change and took our show over to Killarney Castle on Third Avenue where our reception was mixed but we blocked most of the coins coming at our heads with our arms thrown up. Erin Go Bragh!


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Loftus Tavern 1962

Loftus Tavern 1974

Street Corner Talking ~ New York Giants Step Up

Loftus Tavern 1962

50 years ago in 1962 the New York Giants played the Green Bay Packers at Yankee Stadium for the NFL Championship. Five gents from Loftus Tavern took a Checker cab up to 161^st Street & River Avenue in the Bronx.  It was 9 degrees with 35 mile an hour winds.  My Dad was in a Connecticut motel with four other Yorkville guys watching the game on a black and white TV outside the 75 mile local game blackout.  I was in my Irish grandparents 1616 York Avenue railroad apartment in the front room throwing around a pair of my grandfather’s socks like a football listening to the game on the radio and the steam pouring out of the radiator. Through the front window I could see Loftus Tavern on the south east corner of 85^th Street. I would have killed to be at that game, and I was crushed when the Giants lost 16-7. At 8 years old my life revolved around the Giants, Yankees, Rangers and Knicks. I moped for the rest of that winter. 

Bailey's Corner 2012

Yesterday, I returned to Bailey’s Corner formerly Loftus Tavern to watch the playoff game where the five sets of New York Giants season tickets were kept under the cash register. That cash register is still there. Ghosts flew around the bar cheering the Jints on.

The Giants play yesterday was noteworthy, they are on a roll and now face the best team in football based on record and quarterback performance. I can’t wait.  

After the game, I met two of the tavern’s regulars, Orson & Chris, outside the bar.  Each fellow had something to say about the game and the Giants.

Loftus Crew 1962

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Orson (aka) Frazzle

Orson: “The Giants defense has given up 30 points in the last 3 games.  That’s Dallas, Jets & Falcons. Their D is not the same D that gave up 38 points to the Packers six weeks ago.  Their running game is up a caliber, too. I like the Jints chances.”

Chris (aka) Ashley

Chris: “I agree with Orson, which is a rare thing. This Giant team has performed at a higher and more consistent level for three games that you have to think they can play with the Packers next week. I’ll be right back here at Bailey’s cheering them on.”

Our next City Stories: Stoops to Nuts storytelling show at Cornelia Street Café is tomorrow, January 10^th @ 6pm. 

Please come down, I promise a good time.

Our New Year artists are: Lisa Burns, Nicole Ferraro, Julia Joseph, Thomas Pryor, Francesca Rizzo & Adam Wade.


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Jack Loftus, Memorial, This Saturday, Noon @ St. Stephen's

When I was eight in 1962, I had the privilege of hanging out in a tavern alone, no parents, no adults, just me, the owner and a couple of Loftus Tavern regulars from the Yorkville neighborhood.

Jack Loftus would serve me my regular, a Coke with two maraschino cherries. I'd sit with him down the end of the bar and we'd split the newspapers. He'd slip me a dime for the jukebox. Jack loved Johnny Cash, I did too.

I'd do this on a Saturday or Sunday or a miserably hot summer afternoon when I had nothing to do. Jack never turned down a kid with a raffle ticket and never failed to buy a table for a neighborhood dance. Jack attended my baptism, communion and wedding. He was pals with my Italian grandmother. I was one of many local kids that counted Jack as an honorary uncle. Part of the Yorkville neighborhood dies forever with him.

Jack died at 90 years two weeks ago, Recently, I visited Jack in his apartment and we reminisced. He still loved the football Giants. Jack lived over his old establishment which is now called Bailey's Corner. The bar in Bailey's Corner is the same one my Dad danced on the night I was born 57 years ago.

This Saturday, April 30th @ Noon ~ I'm attending a memorial mass for Jack Loftus, at St. Stephen's of Hungary @ 408 East 82nd Street. After the mass we’ll walk three blocks along York Avenue back to Bailey’s Corner, Jack's old gin mill and toast him. If you knew Jack, and you’re local, I hope you make it there to say goodbye.

The only time I saw Jack outside his tavern, other than St. Stephen’s or Yankee Stadium was walking along the East River. Here’s the scene. Much as it was 60 years ago, except for this and that. Bye, Jack.

Polo Grounds Memory

"Hey Dad, who were you just talking to down at the end of the bar?"

"Oh, that's Al Dorow, the quarterback for the New York Titans."

It was fall 1961, Dad and I were in Loftus Tavern after throwing the ball around outside on York Avenue. My two teams, the New York Giants, football, and the Yankees, baseball, were playing well, the Yankees won the World Series in October and the Giants were on their way to the NFL championship game. The Titans, in their second year in the new American Football League, were barely catching my attention at 7 years old. But Al Dorow was a professional football player, and he did talk to my Dad, so that made him important in my life.

"Dad, will you take me to a Titan game?"

The next Saturday, Dad took me to the Polo Grounds where we saw the Titans beat the Oakland Raiders. That was my first time at the Polo Grounds, the Natural History Museum of ballparks compared to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Yankee Stadium. Even at 7, I recognized I was in a place like no other, and it was going to go away forever, you could see it, smell it, hear it, feel it. Being small, only emphasized how outsized the space was, first time I saw a picture of St. Peter's Basilica I thought of the Polo Grounds.

The next year, 1962, was the Mets first year. I punished my father for not taking me to New York Giants football games, so he made it up to me by taking me to many, many baseball games. When the Yankees were out of town it was only natural that he would take me up to the Polo Grounds for a Met game and he picked a beaut for our first outing.

Friday night, June 1, 1962, the New York Mets versus the San Francisco Giants. The first New York appearance by the Giants since they ran away from home with the Brooklyn Dodgers after the 1957 season. Even though there were nearly 45,000 people there, Dad found us two seats high up in the grandstands right behind home plate in Section 1. The crowd's energy felt like they just left Circus Maximus, saw too few Christians die and wanted blood, now!

Dad did a score card in pencil, and I remember getting excited about three names, Paul Pryor, the third base umpire had the same last name as mine; Augie Donatelli, the head umpire behind the plate had the greatest sounding umpire's name I ever heard; and Willie Mays, in my mind Mickey Mantle's arch rival, was starting in centerfield for the Giants.

By the time the game started, there were two ejections in the section next to us. By the third inning, Dad threatened the guy behind us, "If one more drop of beer touches my kid's head, you and I have a problem." The guy said nothing. I stayed dry. In the top of the fifth, Willie Mays hit a homer, the only homer I would ever see Willie hit live. The homer triggered fights on top of us, below us and to each of our sides. I spent the sixth inning under my father's seat watching the game from between his legs. Dad pressed me to leave and I agreed when the Giants went up 9-1 in the top of the 7th inning.

I held Dad's hand walking to the subway. I knew he liked that.

This story appeared first in Mr. Beller's Neighborhood