As a result, saloon keepers became important figures in Irish neighborhoods like Five Points, Hell’s Kitchen and across the river in Brooklyn. But it was also where you could learn the latest news from the old country, find a job and make other social connections that could help you survive. “It was where you could unwind over whiskey or beer after a hard day’s work as a cart driver, longshoreman, factory hand or laundress. “The neighborhood ‘saloon’ really became a community center for these folks,” he says. Jaffe, PhD, a curator at the Museum of the City of New York, the Irish bar has played a key role in the city’s recreational life since the mid-19th century, when the Great Famine saw Irish immigrants fleeing to New York. Those who complain about the removal of a phone book holder might have history on their side.
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Peter McManus Café has been in the same spot since 1936 (the original, at 43rd and 11th, opened in 1911 and closed during Prohibition) and under the management of 36-year-old Justin McManus since 2007. Whether it was the wave of younger folks a decade ago asking for PBR (they’ve never carried it) or how he initially resisted Red Bull’s ascendance, as the head of an institution he’s had to consider where to change and where to stay the same in a city that will never cease to move along without you. What he does have to keep an eye on, though, are the selections behind the bar. McManus has had to make more significant changes, too, but no one’s complained about the new tap lines, credit card readers or flat-screen TVs. This was 10 years ago and people still bring it up.”
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This piece of wood was always the biggest bottleneck when we were busy.” So he had it removed. “Just a wooden plank that was 10 inches, maybe a foot out that held a phone book. “There was a little piece of wood, right near the phone booth,” he tells me, gesturing toward the center of the bar. When he took over from his father, who took over from his father and so on, there were rumblings among the regulars that the Cornell graduate would change too much. McManus Café has been in this spot since 1936 (the original, at 43rd and 11th, opened in 1911 and closed during Prohibition) and under the management of 36-year-old Justin McManus since 2007. Still, who would’ve expected options at a place where there are payphones, where the game is on the TV, where an Irish and American flag fly by the door, side by side? “We have a malbec, cabernet and pinot noir.” While I silently root for her to try the malbec, they both go for the cab. She and her friend debate about what to order-she doesn’t drink beer-and settle on wine, a red. On a Thursday evening in January, an older woman with a stack of silver bangles climbing her wrist steps up to the bar at Peter McManus Café on Seventh Avenue at 19th Street. Where the notion of an Irish bar gets truly turned on its head is at the West Village’s the Spaniard-because, as you can tell by its name, it’s not an Irish bar.