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The New Yorker Magazine once described Times Square as the place, quote, "where everything fell apart and hell wafted up through the manhole covers." Today, one of the last dive bars in Times Square faces eviction. Jimmy's Corner has been owned by the same family for over 50 years. Now they're suing their landlord. NPR's Henry Larson reports.
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HENRY LARSON, BYLINE: At first glance, it does not seem like the kind of place worth suing over. Jimmy's Corner is narrow. It's cluttered, and it sells dirt-cheap drinks. But regulars all talk about it with this sense of reverence.
EVAN WILSON: It's sort of an oasis out of time and space.
MIKE BRASSIC: Is there a possible way for the entire world to become the Jimmy's Corner community?
LARSON: Evan Wilson and Mike Brassic are both regulars. And to hear them talk about it, it's like a religion or a legend.
BRASSIC: The legend of Jimmy Glenn shall last forever.
LARSON: Jimmy Glenn is the founder of this bar. He died in 2020 of COVID. He was a boxing trainer, and Jimmy's Corner is covered in portraits and memorabilia from his life.
BRASSIC: Every time I pass by that glove, I tap it and spread the love.
WILSON: The walls adorned with pictures from floor to ceiling of boxing memorabilia, most of them are collected by Jimmy himself.
LARSON: Evan Wilson, again.
WILSON: The greatest fighters, the greatest gladiators of the modern age, are all on the walls.
LARSON: Wilson is also - kid you not - an archaeologist.
WILSON: There is actual mosaic in some parts of the bar. You can see it coming up out of the Earth, and it reminds me of when you find these old Roman villas in parts of Italy. As an archaeologist, it screams time.
LARSON: The legend most at Jimmy's seems to know is this one. Jimmy bought the bar in the '70s and turned it into a safe haven for people looking for a drink in what was a pretty disreputable part of town.
ADAM GLENN: It was rough. There were pimps. There were hookers. There were mobsters.
LARSON: This is Adam Glenn, Jimmy's son. He decided to launch that lawsuit. Another legend, Adam told me, the day his father apparently saved a very important man's life.
GLENN: My dad saved the elder Durst - Seymour Durst - from getting robbed out in Times Square one day.
LARSON: The Dursts - massively wealthy New York real estate family and owner of the building that houses Jimmy's Corner.
GLENN: My dad saw some people trying to rob him, and, you know, he came over. He stopped it. Cut it out. And that just started a relationship.
LARSON: Now, The Durst Organization couldn't confirm that part. But the part they did acknowledge is how the two families - landlord and renter - bonded. For decades, the rent stayed cheap and things were good. But then, shortly after the turn of the century, things changed.
GLENN: That caused my dad to let his guard down a little bit. And in one of the modifications of the lease, they snuck a provision in there that if my dad dies, they could kick us out.
LARSON: That provision foreshadowed hard days ahead for the bar. Once the pandemic ended, the Dursts started trying to sell their building. Glenn filed a lawsuit last December, and The Durst Organization moved to evict. A spokesperson for the organization said it went above and beyond in its lease obligations by giving advanced notice and offering to pay Glenn $250,000. The spokesperson said these efforts have not been met with good faith.
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LARSON: Back in the bar, the eviction looms over newcomer, Mary Hager.
MARY HAGER: I guess I can't really sympathize with wanting to kick out a paying tenant just 'cause you can squeeze more money out of someone else.
LARSON: Glenn's drummed up a fair bit of support for his efforts to save the bar, but he thinks it won't be enough. His lawsuit is less frontal assault, more fighting retreat.
GLENN: I have people who work here. I have family. I have customers that love this place. I want the time way more than the money. I want to make sure that my workers all have a soft landing, no matter what it is, whether it's in my next spot. I want to know that I'm taking care of the community around here.
LARSON: The best-case scenario is something like this. He buys his team a bit more time and another bar with the money he hopes to win from the lawsuit. And as regular Evan Wilson hopes, the legend of Jimmy Glenn continues somewhere else.
WILSON: This building is going to be taken. It's not his to keep in the end. I mean, the landlords have the right to own it. That's really the death of New York. I mean, it's been happening for too long, and another institution's about to be slain by, you know, the landlord scourge.
LARSON: But for now, the bar is still standing. Last week, a judge temporarily halted eviction proceedings, while the lawsuit plays out.
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LARSON: Henry Larson, NPR News in Times Square.
(SOUNDBITE OF SEMISONIC SONG, "CLOSING TIME") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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