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March 5, 2010
Freddy's Looks Back on 13 Years of Art; Should it Close, Expect Freddy's II
Fork in the Road [Village Voice blog]
by Chantal Martineau
The Voice's food-and-drink blog sits down with Freddy's manager Donald O'Finn.
Donald O'Finn has spend a great deal of time talking about his bar's struggle to survive a city-backed development plan that would see the beloved drinking hole flattened. But now, he says, the time has come to think about what Freddy's Back Room was first meant to be: a place for artists to showcase their work to the community. A retrospective of the last 13 years of Freddy's art opens this Sunday.
...So, looking back, what's been your favorite part of running a bar?
It's been a dream come true, in every sense. Even in the sense of what has happened with the Atlantic Yards project. It was the ultimate test of the bar as a community. A good bar is a community. So, whatever happens, we just totally passed the test.The neighborhood, the people who come to the bar, everyone has just impressed me so much with their intelligence, how hard they worked for the right issues. When you start a bar, you're so concerned about whether it will work, and then those nights happen where you get absolute confirmation that you're the hottest game in town. And it's just such a wonderful feeling when the room is just throbbing with life and people and music... It's a wonderful thing to see that something is completely maximized. I don't think you could squeeze anything more out of Freddy's.
Posted by eric at March 5, 2010 11:57 AM