farewell tour......O'Haras

O'Hara's : 120 cedar street

Mike O'Hara himself will greet you at the back bar when you make your grand entrance from Cedar street…..just a pebble kick from the backdoor of firehouse 10 10 on Liberty Street. ….a stones throw from the old blue fountain that sat in front of the Deutsche Bank building less we forget, and of course with that comes the entrance to the World Trade Center plaza and the South tower. A long narrow bar borders the south wall if you come in from the Washington Street entrance, but why would ya?
All the action occurs at the three sided rectangular bar in the aft of the establishment. Cold beer always, Mets baseball when applicable, decent food, reasonable prices. …I enjoyed this bar in the pre 9/11 days….occasionally making the trek from my Waterhouse desk. My visits picked up when I took up residence in Tower 1 while manning a desk for Instinet. And after a hiatus from lower Manhattan , I became an O'Hara's frequent flier when I joined Fidelity at 1 World Financial at 200 Liberty Street.

Turns out the owner and I have some mutual acquaintances , shocker , and I have done my best to reintroduce some old friends to this delightful watering hole….today being no exception, as we cheer on the Metropolitans as they take on the Phillies. The building took quite a hit in 2001 , and Mike has a photo album of shots to prove it, if you find yourself in their and like to view photos , ask him to let you see it, he will gladly oblige. ( there is huge photo of the bar and building covered in wreckage from the WTC taken just days after the attack.) I take pride in going to this bar, to me it is a symbol or a badge of courage for all the survivors…….you see O'Hara's too rose from the ashes of that day to live again.

God Bless ya Mike, keep serving them cold.

As a side note , our good friend Richie Betts , having just evacuated from the Deutsche Bank building, stopped into O'Hara's for a drink to calm his nerves, thankfully he and the other patrons and workers survived when the 102 story building around the corner collapsed.