Cedar Tavern

Ersatz Artist Mecca

By: Charles Giuliano - Sep 10, 2014

Cedar Tavern

Spring break the 1960s

Art student in New York

Headed to the Cedar Tavern

82 University Place between 11th and 12th Street

Mecca for artists

Legendary stories

Arguments and brawls

Pollock drunk lifting skirts

De Kooning in a booth

Studio secrets revealed

A week night

Nobody was there

Ordered a beer

Sipped slowly

Hoping to soak up the atmosphere

Just another bar on an off night

No insights resonating then to now

Wandered off into the Village

Seeking

A cheap place to sleep

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Reader Comments

"There's a short story here just waiting to be written."

Posted By: Jeff from Gloucester on 09-11-2014, 08:15 am
"Think you found that cheap place on Avenue C....some years later."

Posted By: Phil Bleeth on 09-11-2014, 08:13 am
" It's now just an empty museum, huh? Heraclitus said You can't go home again. Wait, no, Tom Wolfe said You can't piss in the same river twice, or was that something George Bush came up with? Aw, fuckit, have another shot of Old Grandad, he's still around and kicking."

Posted By: Jack from Lenox on 09-11-2014, 08:12 am
" Loved it Charles. Spent many nights there in my teens. You only had to be 18 to drink in NYC in those days. Max's was another story and another decade. Perhaps a small conversation about that another time. Hugs."

Posted By: Shango on 09-11-2014, 08:10 am
" Was it, as you say, the Cedar Tavern at 82 University Place btn 11th/12th streets, or the original Cedar Tavern, University Place btn 8th/9th streets? You got the ambience right, but you got the location wrong. So wch is it, bro?"

Posted By: The G on 09-11-2014, 08:08 am
"The Beat Generation... very retro. A collector's item? Hi Jane Jeff, Charlie and Astrid. X"

Posted By: Jane Mellery - Pratt on 09-11-2014, 03:54 am
"Nice, one gets the feeling, the longing for experience, the failing to acquire it, and yet, getting it. A template for paradox-- knowledge known, yet absent. A bit of wisdom. "

Posted By: Stephen Rifkin on 09-11-2014, 01:23 am
"Important realization."

Posted By: Jane Hudson on 09-10-2014, 06:11 pm