Glasses Up To The Lot Of Them

Pat Fenton: Their beat was up in the bars of Bainbridge Avenue in the Bronx, it was Beach 116th Street in Rockaway, and places like 9th Avenue down in Windsor Terrace, Brooklyn, that once had Irish saloons on both corners of 17th Street, Kerrigan’s and McNulty’s, it was T.J. English’s Hell’s Kitchen, and Breslin’s Queens Boulevard, lined with bars and cocktail lounges all the way down to the entrance of the 59th Street Bridge — bars where stories of the city were told again and again over whiskey and beer on Saturday nights.

They were all writing about the ordinary ruck of life that existed in these places.