Montero’s is part of a series of tidbits from the chapters of my book Bars, Taverns and Dives New Yorkers Love, published by Rizzoli. You can order it from Powell’s, Amazon, Rizzoli, and Barnes & Noble. Signed prints of all the bars in the book are available here.
Wood paneling covers the walls at Montero’s Bar, real wood the color of dark chocolate, seasoned by a million cigarettes, and mounted with portraits of ships, photos and posters like the one from Spain touting bull fights featuring “Juan H. Garcia, EL CALIFA” and “Jesus Iglesias, EL CAMPESINO.” There are nautical-themed timepieces, carved figurines of assorted salty dogs, and lanterns, hats, caps, flags and flying machines of all kinds hanging from the ceiling. Look for five portholes—thick, heavy, brass and glass suckers—gifted by three different sailors, several bells, and more model ships than I wanted to count, including a massive model of the Cutty Sark in a glass case above the front door. She was an 1869 British clipper, yar, one of the fastest and most famous ships in the world, her name lifted from Robert Burns’s 1791 poem Tam o’ Shanter, wherein is described one beguilingly beautiful witch, Nannie Dee, who, during some late night witchery, is espied wearing a sinfully-delicious short chemise, a cutty-sark in Scottish, and, well…. It goes on. You can see where a good docent like owner Pepe Montero himself adds to the Montero’s experience.
A lot of the stuff at Montero’s was gifted by the seamen who ate, drank, bird-dogged, cashed their paychecks and beat each other up there. They had a strong connection to the place, since not only was it close to the waterfront where they docked, but also because founder Joe Montero, Pepe’s father, was a merchant marine himself. These were his people. He and his wife, Pilar, made them feel welcome for decades, and Pepe continued that after Joe gave him the bar. This kind of seafaring clientele would of course lead to a bunch of good stories, and I’ll give you one…. But ya gotta buy the book! BURN!
Next up:
Mona’s of Manhattan’s East Village: still real, still wonderfully divey, still packing ’em in on Monday and Tuesday nights for bluegrass and trad jazz jams respectively, and another chapter of my book Bars, Taverns and Dives New Yorkers Love, which you can order right here. Limited-edition signed prints of the bars are available here.