John Lennon, a Former President, and a Famed Illusionist Were All Fans of This Haunted New York City Bar
The Beatles guitarist John Lennon was a New York City resident for nine years. He immersed himself in city life and frequented neighborhood businesses with his wife, Yoko Ono. During their years living in the Big Apple, Lennon frequented a haunted New York City Bar, which called a former president and famed illusionist as its patrons.
John Lennon lived in Greenwich Village when he first moved to the United States from England
Upon moving across the pond from England to the United States, Lennon and Yoko Ono set up a home in the West Village in New York City after The Beatles disbanded in 1970. Lennon sold his Tittenhurst Park estate to former bandmate Ringo Starr.
Per Dirt, the couple moved to the area after living for a short time at the very expensive St. Regis Hotel on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. Lennon and Ono then moved to Bank Street into a two-room walk-up apartment. The couple rented the top-floor apartment from Lovin’ Spoonful drummer Joe Butler, owner of the building.
Lennon once described Greenwich Village as the “arty-farty part of town,” full of “students and would-bes” reported The New York Post.
He frequented a haunted Greenwich Village bar
Living in the area, Lennon frequented McSorley’s Old Ale House, one of the oldest bars in New York City. Established in 1854, it serves only two types of beer, light or dark. Its slogan: “We were here before you were born,” reported Business Insider.
Communal tables and art from over a hundred years ago remain, as does its iconic sawdust floor. Ironically, the original owner of the establishment, John McSorley, also hailed from Liverpool, England, the same hometown as Lennon.
Lennon wasn’t the only famous patron of the legendary bar. Others who have drank at the establishment include Teddy Roosevelt, Woody Guthrie, Babe Ruth, Hunter S. Thompson, and Harry Houdini. President Abraham Lincoln allegedly also visited and poet E.E. Cummings wrote a piece of poetry about it.
Inside are featured a pair of Harry Houdini’s escape-proof handcuffs, a wanted poster for John Wilkes Booth (the man who killed President Lincoln) and wishbones that hang from a gas lamp over the bar. This tradition dates to World War I, when soldiers finishing their last meal before setting off to war, hung the bones over the bar for luck they would return home safely.
The bones are a haunted reminder of those who did not return and who have passed on. Rumor has it, per America’s Haunted Roadtrip, that the bar is haunted by Houdini’s ghost. Whenever a cat is seen in the window of McSorley’s, Harry Houdini is reportedly present as the spirit inside the animal.
It is unknown if any memorabilia linking Lennon’s visits to the establishment exists. However, he soon moved uptown, to the Dakota, and temporarily left life in Greenwich Village behind.
John Lennon loved the anonymity of living in New York City
Lennon loved living in New York City, where he was treated as everyone else. In a story by The New York Post, producer Jack Douglas, who produced Lennon’s last album “Double Fantasy? revealed just how ordinary life was for Lennon and his family in the 1970s.
“You’d find him at the dry cleaners,” says Douglas. “He didn’t send somebody for it, because for him, it was such a big deal to be able to do it himself. He even picked up his own drugs at the pharmacy on the corner of 72nd and Columbus. They’d say, ‘Hey, John, how you doin’? How’s the family?’”
“This city allowed him to be free, to walk the streets and be – almost – a regular New Yorker. As John said, they recognized him just enough to keep his ego afloat, but not enough to really bother him,” Douglas continued.
Lennon remained a New York City resident until his untimely death on Dec. 8, 1980 when he was gunned down in front of his beloved Dakota apartment building shortly after recording his comeback album, “Double Fantasy” at the Hit Factory recording studio.
