The Mermaid Lives!

Good news.  Reader Virginia Maksymowicz, whose father Henry "Hank" Maksymowicz once tended bar in the Seafarers Union building at 675 Fourth, has been investigating the fate of the boat-shaped bar at the Union's Port-O-Call bar, after the Union headquarters moved, first to 635 Fourth, and more recently to New Jersey, and has come up trumps. In a recent e-mail, she included a letter from Mark A. Clements, the Content Curator of the Seafarers International Union. Here's part of it:

 I had a hunch as to the correct answer to your question, but I just needed to confirm it: the figurehead was relocated in 1984 to the SIU-affiliated Paul Hall Center (for Maritime training) in Piney Point, Maryland. It can still be found there today, at the Mooney Pub/Anchor Bar located in the Center’s hotel. As with its original placement in Brooklyn, it’s on the prow of a boat-shaped bar

Thanks, Virginia, for tracking down the mermaid!  How good to know that she wasn't destroyed in the move to 635, and is still at the center of bar & seafaring culture. Perhaps a road trip to Maryland beckons ...

Earlier:
The Port-of-Call
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