TERMINAL BAR, EIGHT AVENUE: THE END IS NEAR
By Peter Genovese
Home News Staff Writer
1982 NEW YORK CITY

The bar is situated smack in the middle of one of the dirtiest, toughest, wildest neighborhoods anywhere: 8th Avenue, just off 42nd Street. Anything can happen here, and does.

Bums stagger along the street, holding on to lamp posts and garbage cans for support. Street hustlers offer marijuana, cocaine. Well-dressed business men and women hurry to appointments uptown. High school students, dodging traffic, run across the street to the Port Authority Bus Terminal.

Sheldon Nadelman watches the action from inside the Terminal Bar, just as he watched it for the past ten years as the bar's manager. Yesterday, he watched it for the last time. The Terminal Bar closes for good tomorrow. The lease is up, and owner Murray Goldman, Nadelman's father-in-law, doesn't think the place is worth the increased rent the landlord is asking: $125,000 a year.

"I've seen so much after 10 years, nothing surprises me anymore." says Nadelman. He looks 35, with his rough hewn face and curly hair, but he's actually 46. He looks like the manager of a bar, or a longshoreman.

Nadelman looks at the Terminal's muscular bartender, whom everyone calls Jersey. "There's always something going on," Nadelman says. "Especially with Jersey here. He's the authority on the whole world."

"Through these doors," says Paul, one of the regulars, "pass some of the most miserable people on earth." He smiles. Paul has been coming down to the Terminal from Harlem for a dozen years. "I come here in the morning," he says. "My grandchildren drive me crazy." At 10 a.m., he's drinking rum and coke.

The bar is not much to look at, inside or out. The exterior is gray and grimy, and the sidewalk smells of urine. The interior is drafty, but there's plenty of room, and nearly 200 bottles of liquor from which to make drinks.

A banner announces Open House on New Year's, featuring Ruth Brown. "That's not the famous Ruth Brown," Paul says, "but Ruth Brown, the female impersonator." At the Terminal, anything goes. it's the bar one magazine called New York City's "toughest".

"The majority of the people who come here," Paul says smiling, "are on some kind of medication to keep them stabilized." "We get the top to the bottom here." Nadelman says. "Most of them are destituted," Paul says. He looks at Nadelman. "If he doesn't get a job, he'll be destituted too." "Destitute." Nadelman corrects him.

The Terminal has seen the rich and famous however. "You have professional fighters come in here." Paul says. "Emile Griffith is a customer." Nadelman says proudly. "We have actors here too. Gene Tierney comes here. We have an awful lot of cooks too. If you dropped a bomb on this place," he says, laughing, "all the restaurants in New York would be out of business."

Nadelman remembers the faces well. For the last 10 years, he has been taking pictures of customers inside the bar and of the derelicts and wanders outside. He has three albums worth of portraits and street scenes. More than 30 of the photographs were recently shown at the East Brunswick library.

"There have been so many interesting faces, so many," he says. "So many girls...prostitutes. I could do a show just on prostitutes." "We get a lot of characters in here," Paul says. "The Duchess, Sweet Pea, The Godfather."

At the other end of the bar, several men, one in a luxurious full-length wool coat, another in a security guard's uinform, a third in a pullover sweater, argue about sports (Ali is/is not the greatest fighter ever, Kentucky is/is not better than North Carolina; the Giants will/will not beat SanFrancisco). "Why is Dallas so good?" one of the men says angrily. "You stop Dorsett, you stop Dallas." "You stop Rob Carpenter you stop the Giants." the other says. The first man swears loudly. The second yells at him. They start shouting at eachother. Jersey relaxes against the bar and eats potato chips. He'll step in if necessary, but it won't be: the men know eachother, and sports is definitely not worth fighting over. The arguing dies down.

"This goes on all the time here," Nadelman says. "You don't have to be right, just loud." "Here's a human interest story," Paul says, stirring his rum and coke. Jersey comes over to listen. "We have a woman who comes in here," Paul begins, smiling. It's clear he wants to tell this story. "She's not charming. She's short, fat, sweaty and funky. We call her Amtrak." Everyone breaks up in laughter. "She comes in here," Paul continues, looking up at a list of drinks above the bar, "and orders Fleischman's, Seagram's, Gordon's, Bacardi, right down the line. And let me tell you, she leaves here straight. When she leaves, she can still show you a good time." Everyone laughs again.

A regular comes in the bar with bottles of air freshener. He sprays the lemon scent around the bar, asking Jersey and the others if they want to buy a bottle or two. "I'm not going to buy anything from you," Jersey says laughing. "You sold me those hankies for $8 apiece. They came back from the laundromat smaller than a Ritz cracker." He reaches behind the bar to push a buzzer. Someone wants to get in the bathroom, and the buzzer opens the door. "That's to ensure privacy." Paul explains. He stops. "I'm jaded," he says. "I've seen so much after 10 years, nothing surprises me anymore."

Any trouble at the bar? "Like Old Faithful," Nadelman replies. "At night, there's always a problem. No one's been killed inside while I've been here," he says. "Someone was killed right outside, though. I came in one morning and they had the chalk outlines outside. I never knew who it was or how it happened." He looks at the front doors. "If those doors could talk." he says.

Some of the customers whose pictures he took have since since died. "One guy I took, a New York City schoolteacher, was killed," Nadelman recalls. "You try to pick up somebody outside, a guy or a hooker, it's Russian roulette. They took him up to a room and iced him."

What's he trying to show in his photographs?

"I'm trying to tell people what's happening," he replies. "If you don't put it down on paper, nobody knows. The people who come out of the Port Authority are so jaded. They come out there in the morning, step right over the bodies, and go to work. And they step over them on the way back. And nobody says nothing. "When one person's lying in the street, everyone's lying in the street." he adds.

The bar manager is not sure what kind of job he'll land now, but he knows he needs one fast. He has a wife, Rita, and two children, Stefan and Cary, to support. He's sorry to see the Terminal Bar go, but he'll get over it. His father-in-law doesn't take it so well.

"After 24 years..." Murray Goldman begins, tears in his eyes. "I'm not taking it good. To tell you the truth, I'm not looking for another place. I'm 69. I just want something to keep me busy."

"This is going to affect my social life," Paul says laughing. "Probably means I'm going to have to get a job. Hey, when you put the name of the place down, put 'The Terminal Lounge.' When my mother reads this, I don't want her to think I'm hanging around a bad place."

Nadelman says that when he started working at the Terminal 10 years ago New York was "all right". "Now it's a ripoff city," he says. "There's nothing more here as far as I can see." Isn't he being pessimistic? "Pessimistic is my nature," he replies. "Being here doesn't help it one bit."

"Well," Jersey says, coming over, "the end is here. No more Duchess. No more Jimmy Jones." "No more Amtrak," Paul says. Paul is asked where he'll go now. "Oh," he says, head resting in his hands, "there's 18,000 bars in New York. There's always somewhere else."

"They called this the roughest bar in New York," Goldman says, reflective. "What bullshit. The trouble was always outside, never inside."

"They're building a McDonald's here, "Jersey says, sadness and wonder in his voice. "I hope the pipes break."