Umour De-gentrification Ritual Successful

The De-gentrification Ritual performed by Ritual Specialists Kol and Loudmouth Bill in NYC in December (and documented on the main page of this site) seems to have already achieved some success. Behold the spectacular return of the Holland Bar. This is exactly why the current economic meltdown will, ultimately, be understood for the huge blessing that it surely is. All hail this life-affirming ill-wind which bringeth down those Philistines that have corrupted and desecrated our magical city. The following article is from todays N.Y. Times:

In Midtown, the Return of a Barfly’s Paradise

By JOSHUA BRUSTEIN
Published: January 26, 2009
Three men appeared when Gary Kelly lifted the steel gate one weekday afternoon on what used to be the Holland Bar. They used to drink there, and were eager to know when their exile would end.

“I feel like a homeless person without a cardboard box,” said one of the men, who gave his name only as Harry because he did not want his girlfriend or boss to learn more about his drinking habit than they already knew.

“Don’t worry,” said Mr. Kelly, who had only stopped by that day to talk to his electrician. “I’ll get you your cardboard box.”

For decades, the Holland Bar, on Ninth Avenue between 39th and 40th Streets in Hell’s Kitchen, made a name for itself serving cheap beer to loyal drinkers who did not mind squeezing into a tiny, crusty room barely wide enough to fit the bar and the stools in front of it.

The regulars came around noon for a pint to accompany their bag lunches, watched the horses, then left, only to return for another drink after quitting time. Slumming professionals and tourists who read about the place in guidebooks mixed in enthusiastically. Anthony Bourdain, the chef and host of the cable television program “No Reservations,” described it as one of the city’s best dives.

Then last summer the Holland became one of those typical New York institutions: the beloved local haunt forced to shut down. According to Mr. Kelly, who has owned the bar since 1998, the landlord refused to renew the lease in the hopes that he could make more money converting the building for residential use or selling it off. But such plans apparently did not work out, and the landlord offered Mr. Kelly his old space back starting Jan. 1, albeit at a 20 percent increase in the rent. Now the Holland is scheduled to reopen its taps as soon as Wednesday.

(The landlord, Ebeden Wong, did not return telephone messages.)

Although the location will be familiar to patrons, Mr. Kelly still had to start practically from scratch in recreating the place. Since the Holland closed its doors, the bar had been destroyed, the plumbing had been removed, the floor had been ripped out.

And much of the physical record of the bar’s history that had been pasted to its walls — the photographs of customers who had died years before, the posters for shows at the dear, departed CBGB — is gone, too. Mr. Kelly sent many framed pictures home with regulars as farewell gifts, other memorabilia went into storage. One of the relics of the Holland’s lore — an urn containing the ashes of Charlie O’Connor, a former bartender — had gone missing.

But Mr. Kelly refused to give away the 12-foot neon sign that spelled out the bar’s name, a reminder of its original location at the Holland Hotel a few blocks away. That never left its place on the wall behind the bar, even after the bar had been demolished.

“People wanted to take the sign, but I said no,” Mr. Kelly said. “I wanted to be optimistic. I always thought there was a shot.”

The sign is, indeed, still there, along with the words “Holland Bar, established 1927,” painted on the storefront window, although Mr. Kelly said he doubted it had actually been around that long.

For Mr. Kelly, 63, who is a salesman for Time Warner Security, the past six months were the first time in many years that he had not been behind a bar. He said he spent much of his free time nagging his once and future landlord for a new lease.

Holland’s other bartenders drifted to dives in the surrounding blocks. Bill Leary, known as Dr. Bill, took over the Monday and Tuesday shifts at the Bull Moose Saloon, on 44th Street between Eighth and Ninth Avenues, and Steve Bibko has been serving free hot dogs along with Jameson shots and Budweiser back at Rudy’s Bar and Grill, at 44th and Ninth.

Some of the former Holland regulars are patiently running tabs at Rudy’s. Hank, a former regular who declined to give his full name because he “didn’t want people calling me on the telephone,” chuckled at the idea of Mr. Kelly spending his days with architects and electricians instead of gamblers and drinkers, and said he missed the claustrophobia of Holland.

“There’s something about a small bar, people talk to one another,” he said. “After five o’clock this place is full of yuppies,” he said of Rudy’s. “I don’t know them from Adam.” He shook his head. “I’m waiting.”

A few blocks away at the Bull Moose Saloon, Dr. Bill, whose title was bestowed upon him by barflies rather than an accredited medical school, said some of the Holland regulars had found him through word of mouth and a few phone calls. Others run into him and always ask when the Holland will be back. But many of those from the old lunch crowd have not made the trek five blocks north, so he goes to work not knowing whether he will see any of the old faces.

But Mr. Leary worked at Holland for almost 20 years, and remembered other seismic shifts in its history: the move, when the bar relocated from the hotel that gave it its name in 1987, and the upheaval that came when Mr. Kelly took over the bar and installed televisions, drawing criticism that he is still smarting from today. (For his part, Mr. Leary said he did not mind televisions as long as they were muted so he could hear the jukebox.)

“It was a unique place, especially at the beginning,” he said. “Then as the years went by, everybody sort of died off. The old regulars were replaced by new regulars.”

Mr. Kelly said he was confident that many of the old regulars would reappear, just like they had been doing whenever he lifted the steel gates to work on rebuilding the place. He said that the bar’s philosophy, that people would rather pay $4 for a beer here than $8 for the same drink at the bistro across the street, would remain the same. But he also said that he knew the new Holland Bar would be different from the place he feared he had closed for good last year.

Asked what exactly would change, he did not hesitate.

“Nothing, I hope,” he said.