The Only Living Boys on Sixth Avenue

Ask me to cite the music that defines New York City — or my New York City, anyway — and I’m liable to spout off a long, windy list of names from the universally canonized to the comparatively less celebrated and onto the pretentiously esoteric. Ask someone else and they’ll invariably give you a completely different list of their own favorites. Some will cite Hip Hop. Others Jazz or maybe Disco. There is certainly no shortage of luminaries to choose from.

But prior to being renowned as the birthplace of Punk, Disco and Hip Hop — well prior to Chic, The Last Poets, The New York Dolls, Suicide, The Velvet Underground and even The Fugs, there was one outfit that just embodied New York City to the bone. That outfit — or duo, more specifically — was Simon & Garfunkel.

Born of Greenwich Villages’s once-thriving folk scene, Simon & Garfunkel embodied the sound of NYC years before Lou Reed or Gil Scot-Heron or Richard Hell or James Chance or The Strokes or ________ (insert your favorite here).

When I hear Simon & Garfunkel, meanwhile, I guess I just think of my parents’ record collection. Bridge Over Troubled Water was the big family favorite. As I mentioned here, in 7th Grade, meanwhile, I had a cool teacher named Mr. Imbeli who decided to introduce us to S&G’s comparatively dark album, Bookends. It may have been my first instance, as a budding music fan, with hearing another’s rapturous evangelization about a record. He sat our desks in a circle around the portable record player and dissected the album song by song. I’d like to think it was because he thought it was music worth passing on. In truth, he was probably sick and tired of hearing us all froth at the mouth about KISS, “We Will Rock You” and “Another Break in the Wall Part II.”

By and large it worked, though. While I probably wouldn’t rush to cite them in the same list of NYC favorites as, say, the Jim Carroll Band, the Cro-Mags or Cop Shoot Cop, I do love me some Simon & Garfunkel.

All this misty-eyed recollection, meanwhile is to serve as preamble for the photograph below.

Spotted on the Facebook group NYC 1950 to Present, it’s a shot and Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel hanging out on Sixth Avenue circa March 1966.

I have to say, I’ve never heard any invocation of a bar on that strip called The English Pub. I wonder what it was like. Today, meanwhile, that strip looks like this (taken by me about a half hour ago).

In trying to find more, I happened upon this video for, suitably enough, “The Only Living Boy in New York,” which actually features footage shot on the same day. Amazing. Enjoy.

Comments

[Martin]

Ah…..The English Pub. It was owned by Vito DiLucia who was a friend of my Fathers. Vito also owned two other restaurants on 6th Avenue: La Groceria the wedge shaped building where Sixth Avenue meets W. 4th. (There's a Papaya place there now) and O'Henry's Steak House on the same corner.

I drank in The English Pub from the early 70’s to the early 80’s. They had a good (for its time) selection of beer, including several English beers on tap. Bear in mind these were the days before so called “craft beers” so it was kind of a big deal. They also had a patio out back, and if they weren’t busy, you could smoke joints out there and the wait staff didn’t care or would join you. Next door was an Italian restaurant called Emilio’s that also had an out outdoor garden, I remember it being nicer than the pub’s garden.

[Nick Kaplan]

Does anyone know the address of the English Pub? Are there anymore photos and when did it disappear?
-Nick Kaplan

[Glenn Leahey]

I remember going to the English Pub...not to drink...born in 1963, I went there with my older sister, and me ex=brother in law...who lived over my St. Mark's Place...Astor Place...rent-free through the every early 197s....knew it was on 6th Avenue...had NO idea it was so close to the Waverly THeater...and to 8th Street. It MUST have been closed by @1983 or so...should check for the EXACT address...maybe walk down there with my sister...and at least one of her kids...on a shopping/walking trip through that segment of the West Village. I knew 8th Stret...COLD in the 1980s...and even early 90s..until it became ALL women's shoe stores. Had a co-worker...and English lady for played organ/keyboard for Patti Austin...lived on north side of Eighth Street...one of those walk up brownstones which have since either been torn down or concerted to retail only....she was in the 2nd/3rd buioding in from the GREY'S PAPAYA...which is also on 72nd abd Broadway (since the 70s), and I believe also on 86th @3rd Avenue.

[Brian O'Malley]

I used to go to the English Pub frequently in the late 1960's as a fugitive from the 21 year old drinking age in New Jersey (18 was legal in New York at the time). I remember it as dark, rustic and very like, well, an English Pub. I don't remember the theater being that close either, but there it is belying my recollection.

[T.P. Williams]

Drank there in early 70’s. Had L shaped bar with short end by the front window. Had a wonderful dark beer - Prior Dark - on tap as well as Watney’s Red Barrel. Best eats - plowman’s lunch (a kind of cheese board). Great jukebox. Unbelievably funny and wild graffiti in men’s room. Sometimes live music in the back. Liked it was like 15 feet from subway entrance. Waverly Theater steps away.

[Giorgio]

Please delete the post I made on july,08 2020 at 09.55AM.I should not have mentioned names.

Thank You,

Giorgio

[Alex in NYC]

Done.

[Giorgio]

Giorgio here. I believe that the Pub closed sometime around 1980-81. They had a four year lease from what I was told recently, but there were apparently other issues involved in the closing. I still keep in contact with an english woman who worked there, and her husband. They live up in the Woodstock area. I was a regular at the pub beginning in the summer of 1974 (maybe 1975). Their Sheppard's Pie was renowned throughout the Village. For dinner, we used to gravitate between the Pub and McBells, Just a couple blocks up the street. A lot of the crew from Folk City used to hang out with us at the Pub, icluding The Roche Sisters who worked the bar, Frank Christian, and The Porko family who would stop in from time to time. I worked there briefly sometime around '76-'78' and saw Pacino, Woody Allen, Robert Palmer (NY Times), Phil Ochs (a couple days before hie died), and a bevy of other artists on an occasional basis. Lucinda Willimas was a bar maid at Folk City and used to come in to visit me and our long time pal Teddy Johnson, a Folk City cook whose "office" like mine, was The Pub. Oh how I miss that joint. My wife advised that to preserve others privacy, that I should not mention the names of the women who were leasing the place.