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=                             Costello's                             =
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                             Introduction                             
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The bar was founded in 1929 as a speakeasy on Third Avenue by brothers
Tim and Joe Costello, who had emigrated to the United States from
Ireland. Tim was known as an affable, intelligent proprietor with an
interest in literature. In the early 1930s, the bar moved to the
corner of East 44th Street and Third Avenue, before moving one door
away on Third Avenue in 1949. The bar moved to its final location at
225 East 44th Street in 1974. Costello's closed in 1992; the Turtle
Bay Café took over the space, operating until 2005. Since then, the
location has been occupied by a sports bar called the Overlook. The
bar is remembered through the stories that have been told about it
over the years. The writer John McNulty is credited with creating a
mythology around Costello's—which he called "this place on Third
Avenue"—through a series of short stories published in 'The New
Yorker' in the 1940s.


                       Early years (1929–1950s)                       
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Tim Costello (September 5, 1895 - November 7, 1962) and his brother
Joe opened the eponymous Costello's (also known as Tim's) in 1929
(during prohibition) as a speakeasy—a bar illicitly selling alcohol—in
Midtown Manhattan, New York City. It was located on Third Avenue near
the East 44th Street intersection and under the Third Avenue El. Tim
and Joe were born and raised in Ferbane, Ireland, to James and Teresa
(), who owned a drapery shop. As a young adult, Tim worked as a taxi
driver in Dublin. He was arrested in 1922 for dangerous driving,
sentenced to three months in prison, and fined  (value=10). Tim
emigrated to the United States in 1927; in transit, he met his future
wife, Kathleen Gordon. Tim was known as an affable, intellectual
proprietor, who was knowledgeable about literature, opinionated about
art, and often well-dressed in a Brooks Brothers suit.

After the 1933 repeal of the prohibition of alcohol in the United
States, Costello's moved to 701 Third Avenue, on the corner of Third
Avenue and East 44th Street. From opening at 701 Third Avenue through
World War II, Costello's and its neighbor P. J. Clarke's "were the
great egalitarian mixers of New York", according to a 1976 story in
'The New York Times', where "chauffeurs, ice-men, taxi drivers and hod
carriers" dined and drank with writers, journalists, and artists.
Contributors to 'The New Yorker', columnists and reporters for the
'New York Daily News', correspondents with the Associated Press and
United Press International, and cartoonists for 'Yank Magazine', as
well as people working in the Madison Avenue advertising industry,
were attracted to Costello's because of its proprietor's literary
knowledge and charm. The journalist John McNulty, a regular at the
bar, described it as "somewhat dim and dusty" and "run in a
catch-as-catch-can style, with no efficiency at all". Other notable
regulars included the author Ernest Hemingway, the cartoonist James
Thurber, the poet Brendan Behan, the short-story writer John O'Hara,
and the writers Maeve Brennan and A. J. Liebling. In 1949, Costello's
moved one door south to 699 Third Avenue.


                       Later years (1960s–1992)                       
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When Tim died in 1962 at the age of 67, his son Timothy Costello
inherited and continued operating the business. In the 1970s,
Costello's began to change along with the neighborhood, which was
being developed by larger businesses and facing increasing rents. By
1972, Costello's was no longer a gathering place for authors and
journalists; rather, according to Timothy Costello, it catered to
businesspeople, whom Costello referred to as "technicians". The
bartender John Gallagher said that many of their customers worked on
Wall Street. Through the 1970s, however, some 'Daily News' journalists
continued to frequent the bar.

Costello's was evicted from 699 Third Avenue in 1973 because the
building's owners intended to tear the building down; the 'Times'
reported that a spokesperson for the building's owner said "Yes, ...
it's too bad about Costello's." Despite claiming that he could not
afford rent in the neighborhood, Timothy Costello reopened the
following year at 225 East 44th Street. Costello's closed in the
morning of February 29, 1992, in part as a result of the early 1990s
recession. Later that year, a dive bar called The Turtle Bay Café
moved into the location. The bar was frequented by diplomats, United
Nations employees, and the cast and crew of the soap opera 'Guiding
Light'. 225 East 44th Street has been occupied by a sports bar called
the Overlook since 2004. Regarding the closure of Costello's, the
wines and spirits journalist Robert Simonson observed: "How quickly
the character drains from things in 21st-century New York."


                            Cartoon walls                             
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There are several conflicting accounts of when and how Thurber
completed the cartoon. 'The New York Times' journalist Murray Schumach
wrote that he borrowed the keys to the bar and painted the cartoon in
one day in the winter of 1935. Susan Edmiston and Linda D. Cirino
reported that, one night, he drew the cartoon in 90 minutes. By
contrast, the 'Times' journalist Robert Tomasson stated that Thurber
worked throughout 1934-1935; he would arrive to the bar late at night,
working from booth to booth, and in the morning, the walls would be
varnished to preserve the illustrations. The cartoon was accidentally
destroyed when painters hired by Tim Costello painted over them.
Thurber then again illustrated the wall with a similar cartoon. In
1949, that section of the wall was removed and moved to the bar's new
location at 699 Third Avenue. On April 8, 1972, several cartoonists
who had worked for 'Yank Magazine' during World War II restored the
illustrations. The Thurber cartoons were brought to the bar's final
location at 701, where they were only occasionally displayed. The
Thurber cartoons disappeared in the 1990s.

In 1976, two years after Costello's moved to its final location,
Timothy Costello enlisted the cartoonist Bill Gallo, who was then
president of the National Cartoonists Society, to illustrate one of
the walls. Gallo initially declined because he "didn't want to compete
with Thurber". Eventually, he struck a deal with Costello to close the
bar and provide free food and drink for the approximately 40
cartoonists who contributed to the wall, including Stan Lee, Mort
Walker, Al Jaffee, Sergio Aragonés, and Dik Browne. The wall features
characters such as Hägar the Horrible, Beetle Bailey, and Spider-Man.
In 2005, the cartoonist Bill Kresse called the wall the "Sistine
Chapel" of the National Cartoonists Society.

When the Overlook took over the lease in 2004, there was fear that the
cartoons would be removed during renovations. The Overlook's owner
denied that they had intended to remove the cartoons; instead, they
preserved the cartoons—including old graffiti—under glass. Gallo and
two dozen other cartoonists returned in 2005 at the invitation of the
Overlook's owner to illustrate a corner of the bar. In 2009, the wines
and spirits journalist Robert Simonson wrote that the 2005
illustrations "feel like wan attempts to recapture a more glorious
artistic past", noting that each of the characters had been given
dialogue advertising the Overlook.


                                Legacy                                
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Costello's is a part of the stories and mythologies of several
writers. John McNulty wrote about the discussions and happenings at
the bar, which he called "this place on Third Avenue", in the 1940s in
a series of short stories for 'The New Yorker'. In those stories,
McNulty recorded the bar's customers and staff, their doings, and
their discussions. The journalist Thomas Vinciguerra called McNulty's
short stories "rambling yarns with titles as long and shaggy as the
stories themselves". According to the journalist George Frazier in
'Esquire', "there were those 'New Yorker' writers who considered it
unthinkable to hand in their manuscripts to the magazine before
getting [Tim Costello's] approval".

In one oft-repeated story about Costello's—which was recorded in 'The
Oxford Book of American Literary Anecdotes'—in the spring of 1944,
Ernest Hemingway and John O'Hara bet $50 (value=50) that Hemingway
could not break a blackthorn cane over O'Hara's head. Hemingway then
proceeded to do so. The cane was allegedly a gift from John Steinbeck,
who was reportedly "disgusted by the incident and lost any personal
admiration he had for Hemingway". The two halves of the broken cane
were displayed over the bar until Costello's closed.


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Original Article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Costello's