Cold wind rippin

 down the alley at dawn

And the morning paper flies
Dead man lying by the side of the road
With the daylight in his eyes  (N. Young)

some of this may be news to some.......others know it all too well. The great bar rooms of the financial district are dead and buried....some died after 9/11 , others were killed in a long slow death by the China Flu shutdowns. Wall street used to buzz night and day with brokers and back offices side by side...and on pretty much every corner was a watering hole with a Mahogany alter....a place to do business or celebrate a job well done. A place to meet old friends and make new ones...some of those bars traced their origins to the great Depression and ultimately the end of prohibition. I used to love getting to these bara early in the day...and i would sit amongst the history and soak it in....i would let my mind wander and think about what tales and events these 4 walls witnessed......who was here when Pearl Harbour was attacked....and how many of them lived to raise a glass when we returned the favor on Hiroshima? Who came in off the street for a pint and a glimpse of the TV when they heard Kennedy was shot , and who spent an endless afternoon watching the Mets win the pennant over the astros in 86? Each bar had it's one place in my heart, united usually by the common thread of an old school irishman behind the bar.

I remember Monday august 23rd 1999......my first day at Instinet in the WTC.....i decided to walk North at lunchtime and ended up at the Reade Street Pub and could not believe that i had never been there before.....i remember they had a lunch special served only at the bar.....a burger with Blue Cheese and a pint of Guiness for $10.....a Black&Bleu .....i was in love......the woodwork cried out with the tales of 120 years.....the space at 135 Reade Street had been a bar since 1878...it became my favorite haunt....as i hired a team of friends around me at Instinet, i would take them to the Reade Street Pub for lunch on their first day...One time i brought a friend in for a pint and he stopped dead in his tracks as if he had seen a ghost after ordering a Guiness.....i asked if he was okay and he said the bartender was the spitting image of his father that had passed away years earlier....it was that kind of place, not scary, but the warmth of a million spirits seemed to float in and out......and i kept coming back....long after 9/11, if i found myself in that section of Manhattan i would stop in.......when Val and I would go to Wolfgangs for steaks at Christmas we would start with a pint at the Reade St......when i ran the Tunnels to Towers we would park on Reade Street and come back for rehydration after the race.....the space behind the bar along the mirror was a collection of memorabilia through the years....the last time i was there....pre pandemic.....amongst the patches from the first responders around the world...nestled in between the photos of various ticker tape parades was a green bumper sticker that stated SHAKEDOWN STREET.........yep, this place was dam close to home. I am sorry to report that in May of 2021 she closed her doors for good.........2+3=BEEER.........tomorrow i will share news of another gem that has fallen off the crown

Don't let it bring you down
It's only castles burning
Find someone who's turning
And you will come around