From the late winter of 2001 to just before Christmas of 2005 I tended bar at the historic Cedar Tavern, between Union Square and Washington Square Parks in Manhattan. During that time two inquiries were burned into my mind as being asked most frequently, besides the often asked over the phone, "What time does the kitchen close?"
One of the two that I had an almost pre-programmed answer to was, "Is this the bar that Pollock drank at?"
To which I would reply, "The bar the Ab-Ex guys used to meet at was Cedar's old location, down the street between 8th and 9th. The owners moved the bar here when they bought the building, which used to house an antique shop, in 1963. Some of the old crowd did follow, but to my knowledge the place became somewhat of a writer's bar for a while."
"So Pollock DID drink here."
"Yes" I would say, being well aware that the man was surely dead in 1963.
This usually lead to the other question, "What's the deal with the BAR?", referring to the wooden structure that supported the bottles and glasses and the brass machine made by the fine people at the National Cash Register Co. in 1908. It was a huge mahogany bar, spanning almost thirty feet of wall and nearly as tall as the tin ceiling, fit with beveled glass cabinets, sitting atop metal lined lockers that had long since found new uses as storage for liquor, mixers, coasters and odd collections of books and various strange items left behind by the crowd. The bar had stained glass and mirrors surrounded by decorative carvings of flora and man beasts, sometimes called Bacchus or Green-men, that I think were more Pan-like satyrs or imps. I would tell the inquisitor that the furniture dates back to the 1860s.
"What you see here is about two thirds the size of the original bar, said to have been made by a German wood carver. It was moved here from its original home, downtown at the Susquehanna Hotel which was the terminus of the Susquehanna Railroad and part of what was torn down in the early Sixties to accommodate the building of the World Trade Center."
I learned the bulk of this lesson from Bernie, the manager I was trained by and worked most closely with in my early days, the daytime shift at Cedar. Not claiming to be a NYC historian I also absorbed information heard in conversation with people at the bar. For instance that when all of this modern building was being done in the early 1960s, old buildings and their contents were considered outdated, so at that time bars like this were available and not in high demand. I often used bits of other people's speeches to add to the story or edited details to streamline it, keeping the audience in mind. Building it's legend was part of being a Cedar Soldier in those days.
The owners of the place were brothers, Mike and Joe. Both were big, serious men who could deliver varying degrees of welcome and moments of intimidation. Their similarities were usually overshadowed by their perceived Apollonian-Dionysian relationship: Mike was the mechanically inclined man of order and Joe the gregarious "cruise-ship director" (thank you Harold). Joe had a way of asking questions so that it was almost impossible to say no. Example: "You were going to clean that mirror today, right?"
One day Joe told me that he had always wanted an eagle on his wall, opposite the bar. He wanted it revolutionary war era style, about six feet wide, with olive branch and arrows. In 2002, wounds were still fresh in New York. A few times I had overheard Joe while leaning into the ear of a regular customer and the Marine in him would come out and say, " ...I'd like to go over there and just slit a terrorist's throat!", complete with headlock and knife motioning gesture. So when describing what he wanted, Joe would say just like the Presidential seal, the eagle should present the olive branch, "but we're REALLY about the arrows" with his trademark moustached grin and a chuckle. He knew I was going to art school, so he told me to ask around and see if I could find someone to carve his eagle.
Joe and Mike worked separately on a two-week-on/two-week-off schedule, so every two weeks there was a slight shift of priorities for side projects at the tavern. This tendency often impeded the progress of such projects. After a good while passed, Joe asked me if I had found anyone to carve his eagle. I told him that I had asked around but had not found anyone for the job. Next came the familiarly phrased statement in the form of a question, "Well you're a sculptor, right? Why don't YOU carve me an eagle?"
At the time I was a fledgling sculpture student with no experience at carving. I hadn't even attempted anything of this scale. The idea of something I made complementing that old mahogany bar, hanging where people from all over came in search of the aura of the ghosts of bygone artists, seemed irresistible to me.
So, between my ego and Joe's convincing way of saying,"You can do that, right?", I could find no other answer besides,"Yeah, sure."
(to be continued)
