CHEERS

01.02.1612:00 AM ET

The Bars Where Warhol Made Merry: New York’s Coolest Art Hangouts

The art world socialized in its own discreet hotspots, until the McNally brothers opened Odeon—and suddenly the worlds of celebrity and overt wealth joined in too.
In the mid 1970s when I moved to Manhattan the Upper East Side was still very much the art district. And Les Pleiades, a French restaurant on East 76th, notorious for the execrable paintings on its walls, was where the art world in which Leo Castelli and Ileana Sonnabend were totemic presences on daily display.
That was where European dealers would be likely to show their faces soon after they got in from JFK and for more casual cruising there was the Bemelmans Bar in the Carlyle or Three Guys, just across Madison, a diner that Warhol used often enough and liked well enough to put into his diary. It was an old school art world, deceptively genteel, steely fingers in soft gloves.
Then the earth moved. SoHo.

You will have noted that only dealers seem to have occupied that particular haute art continuum, not artists, the inevitable Andy aside.
With the rise of SoHo, though, a melt began, as the art world we know today was being born, and the most public birthing took place in hangouts.
Fanelli’s at 94 Prince was one of the first and deservedly so. Records show that a saloon had been on the spot in 1863. It became Fanelli’s in 1922 and its well-worn ambiance, which includes a wall of vintage boxing photos, commended it to the crowd who took over as the art boom took hold.
Other art-inflected eateries were budding, like One Fifth and Raoul’s.
Below SoHo in the raw, freshly named district, TriBeCa, were El Teddy’s, Magoo’s and Puffy’s Tavern on Harrison and Hudson.
Then in 1980 Keith and Brian McNally opened Odeon on West Broadway, along with Keith’s wife, Lynn ...



:::::||CONTINUE READING||---»-»



http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/01/02/the-bars-where-warhol-made-merry-new-york-s-coolest-art-hangouts.html?via=newsletter&source=DDMorning