Speakeasy to Landmark: The Ear Inn Story

by Oliver E. Allen

Although it’s not in Tribeca, the Ear Inn—a bar and restaurant at 326 Spring St., just off Greenwich Street—can count numberless enthusiasts from our area who happily trudge north of Canal to savor its relaxed, funky air and no-nonsense cooking.

James Brown House in 1973
 

Now, this venerable institution with the odd name has been celebrated in a delightful, amply illustrated book by Andrew Coe called Ear Inn Virons. Copies ($16.95) are at Bazzini (339 Greenwich St.), on line at jamesbrownhouse.com or at the Ear Inn.

The story is worth telling not just because the Inn has witnessed so much history but because there’s an element of mystery about the place as well.


The building is called the James Brown House because someone by that name built it in 1817 and sold tobacco there. Who was he? There’s no way to know for sure, but legend has it that he was black and had fought in the American Revolution; some say he is the lone black soldier who appears in Emanuel Leutze’s famous painting, “Washington Crossing the Delaware.” (Leutze actually had no idea who was in the boat except for Washington.) In any event, Brown kept his building until 1833 when he sold it to two merchants who ran a nearby apothecary shop, at 326 Spring St. Meanwhile the neighborhood, which had been residential, was turning commercial and deteriorating. Dominated by the nearby waterfront, the block became a warren of tenements, housing immigrants who worked the piers. Dingy bars were everywhere.


Some time after 1890 the Brown House was bought by an Irish immigrant named Thomas Cloke, a merchant who sold liquor and beer to ships. Cloke and his brother Patrick bottled corn whiskey in the basement and made beer in the backyard, and on the ground floor they established a bar and grill which soon was flourishing as a typical waterfront saloon.

When Prohibition arrived in 1919 the Clokes sold out, and the new owner operated the place as a speakeasy until liquor sales again became legal. Meanwhile during the ’20s the neighborhood was jarred and jostled by the building of the Holland Tunnel, which in fact passes directly beneath the Inn. But the Cloke Bar and Grill survived as a longshoreman’s joint.


In the ’50s and ’60s came another jolt, the decline of the waterfront as shipping moved elsewhere. Somehow the Clokes hung on, patronized by a few resolute barflies. In 1969, the Landmarks Preservation Commission designated 326 Spring Street a landmark, claiming it added “charm, intimate scale, a provocative change of pace to our city life and scene.” But its outlook seemed unpromising.

Then in 1973 a Columbia student named Rip Hayman, in search of cheap lodging, stumbled on the house and rented a room on an upper floor. He fixed the broken windows and cleaned out decades worth of junk. He also acquired some housemates including an artist named Sari Dienes. When, in 1977, the building’s owner asked Hayman if he was interested in buying the place, he and his friends realized they’d likely be evicted if they didn’t act. So Sari Dienes sold a Robert Rauschenberg painting she happened to own to raise cash and the deal was done.
The Ear Inn today.
     

Although they wanted a new identity for their place, they shied away from changing the facade as it would involve too much Landmarks Commission paperwork. Instead, Hayman took some black paint to the “Bar” sign out front and covered the ends of the “B.” The Ear Inn was born.


The reinvigorated institution began organizing events that attracted luminaries such as John Lennon, John Cage and Allen Ginsberg, and business picked up considerably.

Today it has new owners, Martin Sheridan and Jerry Walker, who have further upgraded the place and the building. With the neighborhood improving, it does seem as if the James Brown House now has not only a past but a distinct future as well.