P.J. Clarke's (New York City, New York)

 bar, interesting place, commercial building

2-story mercantile building completed in 1884 as a 4-story structure. It lost the top two floors when the skyscraper surrounding it went up in the late 1960s. The long, narrow building is clad in red brick. Facing Third Avenue the west facade has a black cast-iron storefront at the ground floor, with a tall service door at the north end, and two sets of wood-and-glass double-doors flanking a plate-glass window in the middle. All three of the south bays have transoms, and slender columns flank the doorways, with globe light fixtures atop each column. There is a rounded southwest corner of stained glass, and a short return of the storefront on the west end of the south facade, with another set of doors and columns. The 2nd floor on the avenue has three bays of single-windows with black metal cornices. A simple stone coping caps the roof line.

The much longer south facade has a stained glass window at the ground floor to the east of the west-end storefront, with black metal cornice and black wooden exterior shutters. Continuing east is a wood-and-glass double-door framed by the same iron columns with globe light fixtures, topped by two small transoms and a small, steep-sloped shingle rooflet with a tiny gable. To the right is another window, narrower, with a stained-glass upper pane, and also with a black metal cornice and black shutters. The east half of the ground floor has three bays of windows with black stone sills and lintels and more exterior shutters, followed by a paneled wood door with a transom, flanked by columns and topped by a wide lintel. At the east end is a glass-and-wood door with columns and globe light fixtures and a transom, accessing the 2nd floor. It is flanked by black wooden service doors with vents above them, all topped by a wide lintel. The west half of the 2nd floor has five large single-windows, the western one set farther apart, with black stone sills and black metal cornices. The east half of the 2nd floor has four bays of smaller paired windows, and a single-window at the east end, all with black stone sills and lintels.

A set-back, 1-story connecting wing of black metal and glass at the north side joins the old building to the office tower, and at the east end there is a small 1-story extension clad in black granite.

One of the oldest saloons in New York City, it was established in 1884 to attract the neighborhood’s copious Irish laborers. One such immigrant named Patrick Joseph Clarke began bartending there around 1902, and devoted himself to the barroom until he earned enough to buy it a decade later – and give it his name. Sidecar is a semi-private upstairs dining room of P.J. Clarke's, accessed by a discreet door on 55th Street with a member's card.

915 3rd Avenue
New York, NY 10022
(212) 317-1616
pjclarkes.com/menu/third-avenue/