Photographer: Roger Gaess/Getty Images
Jul 25, 2014 (Bloomberg) -- Subway Inn, the New York City institution that clung to its dive-bar roots even as its Upper East Side neighborhood sprouted steel-and-glass office and apartment towers, is serving its last drink.
The bar, which opened in 1937, will close on Aug. 15 and seek another location, according to a notice on its Facebook page. A bartender who would give his name only as Steven S. and said he was the son of the owner, confirmed yesterday that the building’s landlord had given it notice. A spokesman for World-Wide Group, the building’s owner, declined to comment.
“This place is New York,” said Alex Kalich, 32, as he sat at the bar sipping a vodka and soda yesterday. “This is what New York used to be like. It’s a place with a soul.”
The bar is the latest casualty of rising rents and fierce competition for space to build housing and offices in Midtown. Rodeo Bar, the Murray Hill honky-tonk, said this month that it will close this weekend after 27 years in business.
