Knickerbocker Saloon Neighborhood Bar

Years ago, when I lived in Paris I finally got to Harry's New York Bar and it brought home to me the difference between the French cafe experience I had been having for months and the usual American bar scene.  To a great degree, it was a question of configuration.  Geometry.  Layout.

At the bar, people sit alone facing the bartender.  Even if they're together, with friends, there's a solitary feeling.  Me and my drink.  Inevitably, there is that reflective moment, when the patron stares down at the drink, at the bar top.

So it seemed with Mr. Charles McCarty who sat down next to me at the Knickerbocker Saloon late one afternoon.  He ordered his dinner from the bartender -- a steak to go -- and a dark beer while he waited for it.  He stared down at the glass.

I had just had a brief, lively conversation with three young people to my right -- two girls who had been sitting there for a while when a guy arrived.  I gave him my barstool so he could sit next to his friends, much as an airline traveler might do, except I did it before being asked, as soon as he appeared, for which they thanked me.

It opened the door to an exchange in which they told me that they had grown up in  Massachusetts -- the guy and one of the girls on Cape Cod -- and the second girl who was visiting, still lived in Boston.  It was a reunion of sorts.  The two from Cape Cod told me how magical the place of their birth would always be, but quickly added how much they liked New York, the neighborhood, and the bar, which they called "a neighborhood bar."  We had that conversation about how natural New Yorkers are born all over of the country but only feel at home when they finally arrive in this city.

When I turned to him, Mr. McCarty looked up from his glass, and proudly informed me that he was now in his 92nd year.  He had lived in the neighborhood since the 1960's.  Four years ago, he had lost his wife of more than 50 years. 

"Add 2 more years," he said, "if you count when we lived in sin, if you believe in sin." 

"It can't be sin," I said, "if it lasts for 50 years."

"Charles Stoneham McCarty," he introduced himself, and challenged me to tell him what the "Stoneham" might stand for.

 "Owner of the baseball New York Giants?" I offered.

"I'm named for him," he said.

"Then you must like baseball."

"Baseball is chess," he said.  "All the others are checkers."

The sound of many conversations rose above the neighborhood bar, rose above the limitations of geometry.