75. James Brown House
A.K.A.: The Ear Inn
Location: 326 Spring Street
Built: 1817
Architect: Unknown
National Register Number: 83001717
Listed: August 11, 1983
Visited: June 1, 2008
Good God, y'all. A dignified gent that refuses to live out its golden years in retirement, this rare Federal townhouse is home to the Ear Inn bar, a neighborhood bar without a neighborhood. On the hot June Sunday I visit, folks with kids and strollers lounge around in the front, sipping Heinies under two trees as almost as crooked as the building. There are strings of lights and dead garlands from the holiday season that nobody's bothered to take down. There's no need to. People are chill here. It is a island of vibrancy, practically the only life in the neighborhood, which is still industrial in feel regardless of all the glassy new residences, including the impressive modern-parasitizes-old Greenwich Street Project, but they stay dumb save for the white noise roar of air-conditioning. (Where are these people coming from? How far must they walk?)
I don't go in. I'd feel awkward going in with a camera, just to take pictures.
James Brown: it has not been definitively established just who he was. The Ear Inn website relates stories, passed down from generation to generation, of a black man who may have been an aide-de-campe to George Washington and who just might be depicted in the iconic Washington Crossing the Delaware painting. (Amusingly, the site refers to the artist as Cass Gilbert, probably meaning Gilbert Stuart, even though it's actually Emanuel Leutze.) Christopher Gray, in a 2001 Streetscapes column, shows that the census records don't quite support the story, as the James Browns we have evidence of were either too young or too old. Or white. The landmark plaque above the entrance doesn't even go into all of that, preferring to talk in the certainties of its later life, its unique architectural detail, blah blah blah. As such, James Brown is this half-forgotten specimen of New York City history, just as his house is a half-forgotten specimen of New York City life.
Location: 326 Spring Street
Built: 1817
Architect: Unknown
National Register Number: 83001717
Listed: August 11, 1983
Visited: June 1, 2008
Good God, y'all. A dignified gent that refuses to live out its golden years in retirement, this rare Federal townhouse is home to the Ear Inn bar, a neighborhood bar without a neighborhood. On the hot June Sunday I visit, folks with kids and strollers lounge around in the front, sipping Heinies under two trees as almost as crooked as the building. There are strings of lights and dead garlands from the holiday season that nobody's bothered to take down. There's no need to. People are chill here. It is a island of vibrancy, practically the only life in the neighborhood, which is still industrial in feel regardless of all the glassy new residences, including the impressive modern-parasitizes-old Greenwich Street Project, but they stay dumb save for the white noise roar of air-conditioning. (Where are these people coming from? How far must they walk?)
I don't go in. I'd feel awkward going in with a camera, just to take pictures.
James Brown: it has not been definitively established just who he was. The Ear Inn website relates stories, passed down from generation to generation, of a black man who may have been an aide-de-campe to George Washington and who just might be depicted in the iconic Washington Crossing the Delaware painting. (Amusingly, the site refers to the artist as Cass Gilbert, probably meaning Gilbert Stuart, even though it's actually Emanuel Leutze.) Christopher Gray, in a 2001 Streetscapes column, shows that the census records don't quite support the story, as the James Browns we have evidence of were either too young or too old. Or white. The landmark plaque above the entrance doesn't even go into all of that, preferring to talk in the certainties of its later life, its unique architectural detail, blah blah blah. As such, James Brown is this half-forgotten specimen of New York City history, just as his house is a half-forgotten specimen of New York City life.
Labels: bar, Ear Inn, Federal Style, James Brown House, South Village
posted by Michael at
2:40 PM
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