The jukebox leans heavily toward the Clancy Brothers. There are plaques of Jack Kennedy and photographs of other Irish politicians, as well as four large murals depicting pastoral Irish scenes. It still serves corned beef and Guinness. Mostly they come because they are welcome. They come because it is safe and familiar. Stevenson and the others participate in whatever it is that draws people to a dark congenial room with a convivial proprietor and just enough beer or whisky to cool the blood or loosen the tongue. "The place has changed only minutely over the years," he said. His lunch-hour vodka and tonic is usually on the bar by the time he walks from the front door to what he calls his assigned seat. "It's a rare day when fewer than half of those at the bar are not regulars," said Ben Stevenson, getting a little closer to an answer. "It's the jewel of Newark," said Alan Howe. "It's a friendly place," said Ed Mueller, finishing a sandwich and a beer. So the question persists: How did McGovern's survive? They disappeared when the factories closed, when the movie houses and department stores departed, when the rooming houses grew empty and the streets were deserted after dark. "We like to think we pour a good drink at a fair price," he says.Īnd so he does, but the answer is incomplete, especially in a city like Newark, which once supported about 600 taverns and now lists barely more than 100. But ask him the secret of McGovern's longevity and he responds with the words of a straightforward and sincere businessman. Scully is as voluble a taproom wisecracker as ever came from County Galway. And so are friends of the late Frank McGovern and the man he sold the business to, William Scully. So are graduate students and faculty members from Rutgers, Seton Hall and the New Jersey Institute of Technology. Rubbing elbows with the older crowd are some of the new, Irish or not, who work as Newark's police officers, firefighters and secretaries, as well as its lawyers, judges and bureaucrats. "Duffy's Tavern" is long gone from radio, "Cheers" is about to leave prime time forever and the Irish immigrants who came here generations ago have moved to the suburbs.īut they still come to McGovern's Tavern, much as they did in 1936, when Frank McGovern converted a tiny speakeasy on New Street into a pub that also served as an ad hoc employment office and home-away-from-home for his countrymen. Dowd, there was McGovern's, a real Irish pub in the heart of Newark when Newark was home to a large Irish population. BEFORE there was "Duffy's Tavern," or "Cheers" or the play that created America's most endearing barfly, Elwood P.
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