A Bar Crawl In Queens With Gene From The BBC

Okay, usually I take Friday off and get ready for next week’s activities and put up a Blooper Reel today. The only problem was, I didn’t have that many Blooper photos to post. Then I remembered TWM friend, commenter and one third of the famed BBC (Baltimore Bar Crawlers), Gene Rubbico was coming to town this weekend. I couldn’t go out with him last night, but I asked him to take photos and send them in and that’s exactly what he did and here they are!

The train pulls into the city.

Sorry about this Al...

But you just can't go through Penn Station without getting a giant beer and a Papaya dog! A perfect start to a bar crawling day!

Walter's Bar used to be here and now it's vacant. What a shame!

Happily, Billymarks West is still in business, time to really start this bar crawl.

Three amigos in Billymarks: Mark, Mike and Skippy.

Here's the Flying Puck, which is just a block from Penn Station.

You gotta love the floor in here!

31st and Northern Blvd. In Queens.

Home sweet home for the next three nights.

And we're off to some bars in Queens! (Marty's note: In an email, Gene told me he was going to do all Queens from here on in and I replied, "That's what Freddie Mercury said and he wasn't talking about his band!")

The Mad Donkey Beer Bar and Grill.

Getting sliders for a snack. Just got a Yuengling draft that tasted like crap. Traded it in for a Breckenridge Vanilla Porter. Much better!

Veronica's, a classic place with great signage!

And now we're at the Sunswick bar.

Watermelons and is that a CBBM cousin in the upper left?

As night falls, it's time for the Tippin Inn.

Here's Chris, who looks like he's tipped a few at the Tippin Inn!

They have the cleanest bathroom I've ever seen in a bar and two kinds of air fresheners!

Time for another snack, a mushroom slice and a garlic knot to soak up some of the suds!

Next stop, Cronin & Phelan.

And back to Tippin Inn for a nightcap or three.

Great bar crawl, Gene! Thanks for the photos and narrative! Check in tomorrow for Gene and I on a Cheeseburger Saturday Night adventure!

Further reading: 365 Bars, 365 Bars and 365 bars.

I'm trying to walk a straight line,
On sour mash and cheap wine.

Surprise link, click on it...I dare you!

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Bonus Gidget Photo!
DJ Gidget left a comment last week when I went to The House Of Oldies and mentioned a dress she wore for lipsyncing Nancy Sinatra songs called, “The Boots Dress.” I asked her to send in a picture of her wearing this dress and here it is. Looking great, Gidget! And don’t forget to tune in to the “Secret Weapon” the show where “Boris” picks the tunes and Gidget spins them. It’s on Woody Radio and you can listen right now, so do it! Thanks for sending in the photo, Gidget!

Motor City Bar

There’s a bar in the Lower East Side that I used to go to a lot called, Motor City Bar. I haven’t been there in quite a while and after seeing that Roger & Me screening on Tuesday, I thought this would be an appropriate week to go and check it out for this week’s happy hour.

Here comes the F train...

And baboom, here we are. There's no sign outside, you just have to know where to go.

Although the door handles do give you a little bit of a clue as to where you are.

And here we are. This place gets packed at night, but it's still the afternoon, so there's plenty of seats to be had.

The bartender was a little shy and didn't want her photo taken, so Lee jumped off his bar stool so I could get a people shot. Lee's a real character and a nice guy. He's a regular at Motor City and has lived in the East Village for over thirty years. Okay, let's take a tour of the bar.

Here's some lit up bottles behind the bar with an "M" made out of wrenches hovering overhead.

Check out the tire table!

An entire wall is covered with this cool black and white painting of a car in action.

Beneath it are actual car seats to put you in a real Motor City mood.

Bare bulbs hang over the bar and illuminate it.

I love the lit up Ford sign on the brick wall in the back room. This has been hanging there since they opened Motor City back in 1996.

And it wouldn't be a true Motor City bar without a giant license plate from the original Motor City: Detroit, Michigan.

This sign made me think of my Canadian friend, Lex. Hi Lex! She may be making an appearance here in June. Stay tuned!

There's a red leather banquette to lounge on in the back room.

And there's a pinball machine back here too.

Here's a painting of a woman racer on the wall, go speed racer, go!

And now the party can really begin, The Duncester and Shawn have shown up. Check out the  mug shot Steve McQueen shirt on Duncester. "Legends Never Die," too cool!

esquared joined us as well, but rather than being in the photo, he took this behind the scenes picture of me shooting the above photo. I'm dizzy after typing that!

He also got a shot of this woman practicing a David Lee Roth move. Nice shot, esquared, thanks for sending it along for this post!

And after several rounds and fun conversation, it's out the door to head on home. Thanks to esquared, The Duncester and Shawn for coming to this week's happy hour!

Motor City Bar
127 Ludlow St. (Between Rivington and Delancey)
212-358-1595
Happy Hour Specials: Two for one well drinks and beers from 4PM to 7PM

Further Reading: New York Magazine, Village Voice and Time Out New York.

Philadelphia, PA,
Baltimore in DC now,
Don't forget The Motor City.

Surprise link, click on it...I dare you!

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Bonus Comic Book Cover Sent In By Jaws!

Jaws the Cabbie sent in this comic book cover to illustrate his comment. Thanks, Jaws!

The House Of Oldies

It’s been reported that vinyl records are making a comeback these days, but threre’s a store in Greenwich Village where it never went away. The House of Oldies had been selling vinyl and only vinyl on Carmine Street just off Bleecker for over 50 years. So today I thought we’d take a trip to this house that vinyl built.

And here we are on Carmine Street at the House Of Oldies. That name could also be used for a cool senior citizens home.

This sign says it all.

I wonder if Diane and Paul Prianti shop here?

Wow, this store is jam-packed with vinyl. No CD's, no records, just vinyl, vinyl and more vinyl.

Here's the owner of House of Oldies, Bob Abramson. The store was originally located around the corner on Bleecker Street when it opened in 1962. Bob took it over in 1968 and in 1980 moved it to this location on Carmine Street. Bob's a really nice guy and told me that with the records stored below the store, The House of Oldies has around 750,000 records in stock. You can shop online and the link is directly below this post.

Check out the wall of 45's! If it's not in stock here, most likely it doesn't exist.

Vinyl albums are packed in bins and there's piles of them below the bins.

And here's more of them packed around the vintage cash register.

There's boxes of three very different genres of music stacked in the front window.

And there's albums lining the corkboard wall. Let's take a look at some of them.

I love this Eldorados' cover. Album cover art is something I could look at forever, it's something you don't get when you download music.

Here's The Teenagers featuring little Frankie Lymon.

Jan and Dean meet Batman. I guess Robin liked the Beach Boys better.

Here's a great Yardbirds album, Over Under Sideways Down. One of these days I have to write about going to Memphis with The Yardbirds drummer, Jim McCarty.

Okay, enough of the wall, let's browse and flip through the bins for a real record store experience.

I think this is the only place where Nancy and Frank are sandwiched between U2 and The Clash. And speaking of Nancy...

I always have to check to see if they've got my favorite Nancy Sinatra album cover. I spent countless hours staring at this as a kid!

Here's a cool and diverse mix of musicians!

Beatle oddities, let's check this out.

George Martin's Off The Beatle Track, I forgot this album even existed!

This album cover is great, it looks like something out of Mad magazine!

The albums aren't cheap in here, most of them range between twenty to forty bucks and there's a good chunk priced higher than that, but they do have several rows of ten buck bargain bin albums.

I love this tune tote bag!

I decided to get this Ronnie Spector 45. Nice legs!

And here she is hanging around in my apartment. From One House of Oldies to another!

Further Reading: Mitch Broder’s Vintage New York, Hudson/Houston and NFT.

45 rpm keep on running to the end,
45 rpm keep on running to the end.

Surprise link, click on it...I dare you!