Cheers for Neir’s: Ancient bar staves off extinction with city intervention

Mayor Bill de Blasio (center), Neir’s owner Loy Gordon (right) and Queens Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Tom Grech celebrate Neir’s Tavern. Eagle photos by David Brand

By David Brand

When Gary Piper got off work Friday evening and headed down the street to Neir’s Tavern, his end-of-week ritual for the past four years, he figured it would be the last time he ever sat at the bar and sipped his customary pair of Finbacks. The 190-year-old Woodhaven watering hole — “a good place to unwind” after a tough work week, Piper said — was set to close Sunday.

But soon after Piper arrived, so too did scores of new faces, a convoy of TV news trucks and even a handful of burly guys with earpieces in — Mayor’s Bill de Blasio’s advance team. Neir’s, Piper learned, wasn’t closing after all. The owner of the near-bicentennial bar, perhaps the city’s oldest, worked out a deal with the landlord, with help from the Queens Chamber of Commerce and local lawmakers. 

“I locked the door and said we’re not leaving until we have a deal,” Queens Chamber President and CEO Tom Grech said later. The de Blasio administration provided a $90,000 grant through the city’s “Love Your Local” program and the landlord reportedly agreed to a five-year lease.

Woodhaven resident Gary Piper comes to Neir’s every Friday to sip a pair of Finbacks after the work week ends.

As the Knicks played the Pelicans on a TV hanging over the bar, celebrants poured into Neir’s, cramming claustrophobically into the dining area and the narrow space behind Piper and the other stool-seated patrons. De Blasio entered at about 8 p.m., and he and Grech joined owner Loy Gordon near the taps to deliver celebratory speeches.

“We’re all a community, whether it’s the landlord, the owner, the politicians,” Gordon said. “This is the community.” 

Earlier in the day, Gordon had called in to WNYC’s “The Brian Lehrer Show” to appeal directly to de Blasio during the show’s weekly  “Ask the Mayor” segment. De Blasio was familiar with the pub’s plight and chastened the building landlord for allegedly raising the rent.

“This is just absolutely inappropriate. This is a 190-year-old business. This is inappropriate. If you want to make a buck, this is not the way to do it,” De Blasio said.

Gordon’s wife Aisha told the Eagle she did not expect the phone call to actually have such an immediate impact, however. 

“I just was crossing my fingers. I was being hopeful,” she said, while holding the couple’s son, Evan, near a portrait of Mae West, who reportedly performed at Neir’s early in her career. 

Aisha Gordon said she looked forward to de Blasio getting behind the bar that her husband salvaged in 2009. “He should pour us a drink,” she said of the mayor. “Maybe I’ll get a chardonnay.” 

De Blasio instead pulled a Glendale-brewed Finback from the tap, before raising his glass for a toast.

“There is some good news in the world,” he said. “We can’t lose this bar. We can’t lose this part of our history. We can’t lose this part of our community.”

Cheers for Neir’s.