To Foley's
I have to go to Foley's tomorrow evening to meet a friend whom I almost ran over yesterday with my new(-found) bicycle.
Foley's, famous as "the bar that banned Danny Boy" (as in, the dreary Irish-y tune), is to my mind more famous for its architectural relics.
Relics? Located on West 33rd Street, Foley's has been a bar since way back. On the north side of the street is the Empire State Building, and the original Waldorff-Astoria Hotel, no less, was demolished to make way for the building of it. So, bits of the original Waldorff-Astoria were saved and carted across the street and incorporated into Foley's Bar, where you can still see them.
What sort of bits? Well, Tiffany glass, and most of the urinals in the men's room, for example. I must say that I have always been charmed by this (true) story: I imagine wrecking crews swinging at the old hotel, and perhaps late at night then-owner of what is now Foley's did a sort of deal with a drunk foreman in lieu of beer money...
"Yes, well, any of them marble pissoirs from across the street? If you can snag me somethin' I'll take your name of my list, you know, wipe clean your slate."
And so, enormous marble urinals, with stanchions jutting out at the level of an average man's shoulders, traveled from the oblivion of the falling hotel to the safety of the bar across the street. (Who hasn't found safe haven in a bar?) These stanchions act as sort of supports which, if one were falling-down-drunk, would more or less keep a man upright as he pee'd.
From Foley's web site:
"Legend has it that the owner of George’s Fish House [as it was then named]... brought the fixtures across the street from the Waldorff in 1929. The establishment continued as George’s Fish House from the 1930s through the end of World War II."
Then when I showed up in New York City, it was called P. G. King's. The current owner, ( a baseball fanatic who renamed the bar Foley's after 'legendary' 'sportswriter' Red Foley*), is from Belfast or maybe Cavan? (The two are so easily confused!)
*As I recall hearing, Red Foley was something of an old bore, whom various sub-editors nicknamed "Dead Foley." He died in 2008.
Foley's, famous as "the bar that banned Danny Boy" (as in, the dreary Irish-y tune), is to my mind more famous for its architectural relics.
Relics? Located on West 33rd Street, Foley's has been a bar since way back. On the north side of the street is the Empire State Building, and the original Waldorff-Astoria Hotel, no less, was demolished to make way for the building of it. So, bits of the original Waldorff-Astoria were saved and carted across the street and incorporated into Foley's Bar, where you can still see them.
What sort of bits? Well, Tiffany glass, and most of the urinals in the men's room, for example. I must say that I have always been charmed by this (true) story: I imagine wrecking crews swinging at the old hotel, and perhaps late at night then-owner of what is now Foley's did a sort of deal with a drunk foreman in lieu of beer money...
"Yes, well, any of them marble pissoirs from across the street? If you can snag me somethin' I'll take your name of my list, you know, wipe clean your slate."
And so, enormous marble urinals, with stanchions jutting out at the level of an average man's shoulders, traveled from the oblivion of the falling hotel to the safety of the bar across the street. (Who hasn't found safe haven in a bar?) These stanchions act as sort of supports which, if one were falling-down-drunk, would more or less keep a man upright as he pee'd.
From Foley's web site:
"Legend has it that the owner of George’s Fish House [as it was then named]... brought the fixtures across the street from the Waldorff in 1929. The establishment continued as George’s Fish House from the 1930s through the end of World War II."
Then when I showed up in New York City, it was called P. G. King's. The current owner, ( a baseball fanatic who renamed the bar Foley's after 'legendary' 'sportswriter' Red Foley*), is from Belfast or maybe Cavan? (The two are so easily confused!)
*As I recall hearing, Red Foley was something of an old bore, whom various sub-editors nicknamed "Dead Foley." He died in 2008.
posted by Stephen at April 07, 2009
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