Noho’s Bleecker Street Bar reopens after nearly three years
The original location of the Bleecker Street Bar. Photo by Village Preservation on Flickr
Noho’s beloved Bleecker Street Bar reopened its doors on Wednesday after closing two-and-a-half years ago due to the pandemic. The bar, which has served Noho residents for more than 30 years, joined an extensive list of neighborhood bars and restaurants that were forced to close their doors due to the financial impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. Bleecker Street Bar’s new location is 648 Broadway.
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Bleecker Street Bar opened in 1980, quickly becoming a local favorite as a spot to watch sports, play pool and darts, and enjoy good drinks. The bar’s original location was at 56 Bleecker Street, a historic building once home to the New York Infirmary for Women and Children, which opened in 1857 as the first hospital run by and for women in the nation. The institution was run by Elizabeth Blackwell, the first woman in the country to earn a medical degree. The Village Preservation dedicated a historic plaque to mark the building in 2018.
In August 2020, the bar announced it was closing permanently after failing to reach a lease extension with its landlord. In a post published to its Facebook and Instagram accounts, Bleecker’s owners and staff wrote while they had failed to “negotiate a reasonable lease extension,” they were “looking into some possible future incarnation of Bleecker Street Bar.” The bar closed its doors on Sunday, August 30, 2020.
Last February, it was revealed that renovations were being done behind the closed doors and papered windows of 648 Broadway, as first reported by EV Grieve. Pictures published on the bar’s Instagram account showed new pool tables, dart boards, and high-top tables, familiar fixtures from Bleecker’s original location.
Photo by Beyond My Ken on Wikimedia
Like the original establishment, Bleecker Street Bar’s new location also boasts historic charm. The 10-story Renaissance Revival-style building at 648 Broadway was built in 1891 to 1892 and designed by Cleverdon & Putzel. Known as the Banner Building for its original owner Peter Banner, the building was home to apparel manufacturers and surplus stores, and later, jazz and night clubs and the Gay and Lesbian Switchboard, as Daytonian in Manhattan explained.
Bleecker Street Bar is open 365 days a year, from 11 a.m. to 2 a.m. on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Sundays, and from 11 a.m. to 4 a.m. on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays.
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