Costello's

Costello's Restaurant was an Irish pub at the intersection of East 44th Street and Third Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, that was known for being popular with journalists, writers, and cartoonists. The bar was founded in 1929 on Third Avenue by brothers Tim and Joe Costello, who had emigrated to the United States from the Republic of Ireland. In the early 1930s, the bar moved to the corner of East 44th Street and Third Avenue, before moving one door north on 44th Street in 1949. The bar moved to its final location at 225 East 44th Street in 1974.

Notable regular customers included the cartoonist James Thurber, writers and columnists The New Yorker and New York Daily News,

The writer Jack McNulty is credited with creating a mythology around Costello's in a series of short stories published in The New Yorker. McNulty told various stories about interactions and dialogues at the bar.

cartoon walls

History

Tim Costello (1895–1962), along with his brother Joe, opened the eponymous Costello's Restaurant in 1929 as a speakeasy on Third Avenue, near the intersection with East 44th Street, in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. Tim and Joe were born and raised in County Offaly, Republic of Ireland, before immigrating to New York. In On the Town in New York, the food writers Michael and Ariane Batterberry stated that Tim was a supporter of the Irish Republican Army and that he drove a taxi in Dublin. The historian Jack Morgan wrote that Tim was a former bootlegger.

In the early 1930s, the bar moved to the northeast corner of Third Avenue and East 44th Street. During World War II, the bar became popular with the Madison Avenue advertising industry, as well as reporters and columnists for The New Yorker and the New York Daily News, the Associated Press and United Press International, and cartoonists for Yank Magazine. In 1949, the bar moved one door north on Third Avenue. Taken over by son, Timothy Costello The bar moved to its final location at 225 East 44th Street in 1974.

Hemmingway, Mencken, Walt Kelly, Brendan Behan

McNulty, John O’Hara, Brendan Gill, and Maeve Brennan

Cartoon walls

c. 1934–1935, Thurber painted walls. Schumach says borrowed the keys and did them one day in the winter of 1935. Tomasson relays that he did it throughout 1934–1935, arriving late at night, progressing from booth to booth, varnish in the AM

at some point, accidentally painted over, leading to Thurber to do new cartoons. moved to new location.

April 8, 1972 = restoration of Thurbers by Yank Magazine cartoonists.

1976 = Bill Gallo, threw a party for 40 cartoonists, including Stan Lee, Mort Walker, Al Jaffee, and Dik Browne.

2005 = Gallo, new wall at Overlook, painted where Thurber used to be, with two dozen other cartoonists.

Mythology

John McNulty created the mythos of Costello's in short stories that he wrote for The New Yorker.

McNulty wrote that Tim missed the prohibition era because he could control who could come into the bar and create a "homelike" atmosphere.

"Nobody goes there anymore, it’s too crowded".

"slightly dingy"

spring of 1944 Ernest Hemingway shillelagh story; there is one that hangs over the bar All agree John O'Hara walked in with a cane. The Batterberrys wrote he snapped it in half with his hands. As told by John Hershey: group in the backroom, as some are leaving O'Hara is arriving drunk, sees them, goes into bar angry that he wasn't invited, starts drinking. later, Hemingway on the way out, asks O'Hara why he has a cane, O'Hara says it's the finest blackhorn in NYC, Hemingway says he can break it with his hands, O'Hara bets $50, Hemingway ups the ante, says he can break it over O'Hara's head, puts a pile of napkins on head, and broke it. O'Hara later said Hemingway promised to replace it, he didn't, and John Steinbeck got him a new one for his 51st birthday, broke over John O'Hara's head.

• Allan Churchill says Hemmingway was "too big a snob" to patronize Costello's.

Thurber, The Day Vassar Beat Harvard

References

172

Sources

Books

• Batterberry, Michael; Batterberry, Ariane (1999) [First published 1973 by Scribner: New York]. On the Town in New York: The Landmark History of Eating, Drinking, and Entertainments from the American Revolution to the Food Revolution (25th anniversary special ed.). New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-92020-5.
• Morgan, Jack (2011). New World Irish: Notes on One Hundred Years of Lives and Letters in American Culture (eBook ed.). New York: Palgrave Macmillan. doi:10.1057/9781137001269. ISBN 978-1-137-00126-9 – via Springer Link.
• Via, Maria (2006). "Douglas Warner Gorsline: Bar Scene, 1942" (PDF). In Searl, Marjorie B.; Blanpied, John W. (eds.). Seeing America: Painting and Sculpture from the Collection of the Memorial Art Gallery of the University of Rochester. University of Rochester Press. pp. 249–253. ISBN 978-1-58046-244-0. Archived from the original on July 12, 2024. Retrieved July 12, 2024.

Newspaper and magazine articles

• Arden, Patrick (November 20, 2005). "Immortality on 44th St". Metro New York. Archived from the original on February 5, 2023. Retrieved July 12, 2024.
• Deacy, Jack (March 13, 1972). "Paddy's Day Primer". New York. Vol. 5, no. 11. p. 64.
• Loh, Jules (March 12, 1989). "Patrons Come Just to Watch Herbie: World's Worst Waiter Turns Tables on Doubters". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on November 29, 2022. Retrieved July 12, 2024.
• Schumach, Murray (April 9, 1972). "Thurber Creatures 'Live' Again in Bar Here". The New York Times. p. 70. Archived from the original on May 30, 2024. Retrieved July 12, 2024.
• Tomasson, Robert E. (October 3, 1973). "Old Haunt of Literati, Costello's, Is Closing". The New York Times. p. 49. Archived from the original on January 29, 2022. Retrieved July 12, 2024.