September 13, 2022 • 38 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, Jimmy Neary was an Irish immigrant who boarded a ship to America in the 1950s and went on to open a namesake restaurant in Manhattan that has for more than a half century been a famed canteen in the heart of New York City. Here to tell his story is Jimmy’s daughter, Una.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habib and this is Our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American People.
And to search for the Our American Stories podcast, go
to the iHeartRadio app, to Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
get your podcasts. Jimmy Nary was an Irish immigrant who
boarded a ship to America in the nineteen fifties, and
(00:32):
he went on to open a namesake restaurant in Manhattan
that has for more than a half century been a
famed canteen in the heart of New York City. Here
to tell his story is Jimmy's daughter Una. Let's take
a listen. My father was born in a small town
(00:56):
called Tubacurry, County Sligo, which is in the west part
of Ireland, very rural country. He was one of six children.
He was the second youngest. His father passed away when
he was quite young, so his mother was the one
that raised the family on the farm. However, my father
was certainly not somebody who was interested in farming. He
(01:16):
loved people, he loved dealing with people, so the thoughts
of my father being out on a farm was nothing
that ever appealed to him. Obviously, he went to school
but he only went to sixth grade. But I would
always describe, and I always do describe my father as
being one of the smartest men I know, and it
wasn't from a classroom. So my father his love was people,
(01:40):
and anytime his mom would bring him into the town
at Tubacurry, which was a small little town at a
bunch of little shops, and she would go into the
local grocery store. Part of the grocery store had a
bar and a little lounge, and Dad would just watch
the bartenders behind the bar and watch them engage in
conversation and joking and pouring drinks with the men that
(02:01):
were in the lounge while the wives were typically in
the grocery store getting the week's groceries. And my father
knew literally from a very young age, he said, that's
what I want to do. Now. What's interesting about my dad?
If you see pictures of him or for people that
knew my father, he was very tiny. We jokingly called
him a living leprechaun. So my father first started out
(02:24):
as a hackney driver, which is also known as a
cab driver in the local area. And because my father
was so tiny, he needed books underneath him, so he
could actually see over the dashboard. And everybody in town
knew my father. He was a tremendous storyteller, a great
choke teller, and he knew that Tubac Curry was a
(02:46):
fantastic place to grow up, but he knew it wasn't
big enough for him. He wanted to experience something different.
And this one particular day, my grandmother was at home
and she had a visitor from America and her name
was Annie Gallaher and she mentioned to my grandmother, I'd
love to take and they called my father back in Ireland,
his name is Shamus. Everyone calls him Shamus Neary. He said,
(03:08):
I'd love to take Shamus back to America if he's interested.
So my grandmother asked my father and my father said,
I would love to go to America. And she's like,
what would you do there? He's like, I don't know,
but I'll figure it out. So obviously Dad didn't have
much money, even though he had these two jobs. But
what he did have was he had been given two
lambs by one of his neighbors. And my father, being
(03:31):
a very smart man, knew that lambs would make him money.
So he had the lambs and he borrowed one of
our neighbors, that farming neighbors Rams. They let the rams
and the lambs get together and each year, over a
couple of year period, multiple lambs were made and created.
So Dad at this point had raised fourteen lamb and
(03:52):
so he decided the way he could pay for his
trip to America was by selling his lamb. So he
brought his lamb to the fair day and got very
good price for them, the equivalent one hundred and ninety
six dollars that was able to pay for his fare
to America. This just to give everybody a sense, this
was in nineteen fifty four. So he came over on
the USS Olympia and docked in New York City. But
(04:15):
he had no job. So his first job he went
to a woman named Maureen Milcahey who was very known
to the Irish community. Would help place you in jobs. Well,
she sent him to a warehouse and the gentleman was
pretty brutal and pointed out that my father's height, that
there would be no way he could get a job
in the warehouse because he's too tiny to do anything.
(04:38):
My father, instead of being upset about it, burst out laughing.
Thought it was the funniest thing. And he said, well,
how about that a fellow irishman, what a fabulous greeting
to America. Just laughed and left. And Dad was living
in the Bronx at the time. He went into a
small coffee shop up by his apartment and he saw
(04:58):
one of his friends from Ireland that was sitting at
the coffee shop, and he told him the story. So
this gentleman said to him, I'll tell you where you
go tomorrow. I'll arrange it for you. You go to
the New York Athletic Club and see the general manager
at the pool. Sure enough, Dad goes. The next day,
he meets the general manager at the pool and my
father said, you know, I had this experience yesterday, so
(05:21):
I don't know anything about pools, but you do. You
have a job for me, And he said, and obviously
I'm not tall, so this may not work out. And
he said pull down one second, and then he brings
out the employees that were working at the pool, and
my dad became lifelong friends with him. They were all
Mexican and they were all tinier than my father. And
he said, you're going to be the largest tallest poolboy
(05:42):
that we ever had at the New York Athletic Club,
and so sure enough Dad got the job, and he
loved it, and they just fell in love with Dad.
I mean, it's the experience. Everyone meets Dad for the
first time and there's just something special about him, and
Dad did that for a period of time. So this
was in nineteen fifty four. He got drafted. That was
one of the requirements coming to America. If you got drafted,
(06:04):
you had to serve. So sure enough Dad got the
letter announcing that he had to serve. But he went
into the US Army. So he left the job obviously
at the New York Athletic Club. He only served for
thirteen months. In peacetime, he went to Fort Hood, Texas
for his basic training, and then he went to Germany
where he was a tank driver, which he was very
(06:24):
proud of that because back then, the way the tanks
were made, you had to be small to fit in
to drive it. So it was an asset for my
father that his height was tiny because he was driving
the tanks. And you've been listening to Una Eerie tell
a heck of a story about her father. Jimmy one
of six children. He only had a sixth grade education,
(06:46):
Una said about her dad, but he was the smartest
man I know. He didn't get his education in school.
She also pointed out that he loved people, and of course,
what better business to be in the business you're about
to hear that Jimmy finds himself in. And last, but
not least, I'd love to go to America, he said
to a relative. I don't know what I'll do, but
(07:09):
I'll figure it out. And did he? Ever? When we
come back, more of this remarkable love story, A daughter's
love of her father, the father's love of his work,
and in the end, the country that adopted him. Here
on our American story. Here are our American Stories. We
(07:31):
bring you inspiring stories of history, sports, business, faith and love.
Stories from a great and beautiful country that need to
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(07:52):
help us keep the great American stories coming. That's our
American Stories dot Com. And we continue with our American Stories.
(08:12):
We last left off with Jimmy Neary leaving his job
at the New York Athletic Club in nineteen fifty four
to serve in the army as a tank driver. Let's
return to this story as told by Jimmy's daughter Una.
But when he came back, he went right back to
his job at the New York Athletic Club and got
that back. And he was doing that during the day
(08:33):
when one of the members was a gentleman named PJ. Moriarty,
and PJ happened to be a very well known Irish
restaurant tour He had two very famous places in New
York and he just loved Dad. He loved my father's
joke telling and storytelling. So basically he told the general
manager at the Athletic Club he wanted my father to
work for him at night in one of his places.
(08:56):
So when the general manager called my father over and said,
I want to let you know PJ. Moriarty wants you
to work for him, and Dad said, are you firing me?
He said, no, I'm not firing you. You're keeping your
day job with us and you're going to work with
him at night. And so Dad literally did that. He
had the two jobs he worked in the day as
a poolboy in the athletic club and then started bartending
and learning the restaurant business by working for PJ. Moriarty
(09:20):
at night, and he loved both jobs. He absolutely loved it.
A funny story you might get a kick out of.
So while Dad grew up in Ireland and there was
plenty of lakes around, Dad never went in the lakes.
He didn't know how to swim at all. And one
day the general manager said to my father, you know, Jimmy,
you have to wash down the tables and chairs. So
Dad said, sure, no problem. Who He took the tables
(09:42):
and chairs and threw them in the pool. The general
manager comes out and said to my father, Jimmy, what
did you do? And Dad honestly didn't know he did
anything wrong. He goes, I don't know what you mean.
You told me to wash down the tables and chairs.
He goes, not in the pool, get in there and
get them out. Dad goes, I'm not going in there.
I don't know how to swim. Somebody else is go
I have to take the chairs out of the pool.
(10:02):
That was one of the famous stories that the Athletic
Club that gets told over and over over the years.
So eventually my father did leave the job at the
New York Athletic Club to work more full time at
PJ Mariarti's. And PJ was so good to my father.
He really taught my father the ropes, but he started
really as a bartender. But PJ was a character in
(10:22):
his own right. So in the front of the restaurant,
PJ would pull up in his car, and in the
trunk of his car he had a fake fire hydrant,
and one of my father's jobs was to put the
fire hydrant in the front of the restaurant to protect
the parking spot. So when PJ pulled up, Dad would
lift up the fire hydrant and PJ would get the
spot and Dad would throw it in the trunk of
(10:43):
the car. So Dad and PJ just had a fantastic relationship.
And PJ, like I said, really taught my father the
ropes of the restaurant business. But Dad just knew he
wanted to find an opportunity for the right place at
the right time to open up his own restaurant. But
in the meantime he had met my beautiful mom. Eileen
(11:04):
to me was her name, and she was from Dublin.
My dad was from Sligo. My mom was from Dublin,
and she came out to America many years earlier. My
mother was actually dating a gentleman named Kevin Higgins who
owned an Irish bar in Queens, but she had heard
about this Shamus Nearie. Every dad had a reputation. Everybody
knew this Shamusnarie, that he was a character. Everyone had
(11:25):
to go into Pj's to meet him. So my mother
came in for the first time with a couple of
girlfriends and relatives cousins of hers, and she just was
attracted to him right from the first time she saw him.
So they would periodically go in and then this one
particular night they were in from my mother's birthday and
my cousin, my second cousin, Madeleine, said to my mom,
(11:46):
you know, why don't you say something. She said, well,
I'm not saying anything to Shamus. And so Madeleine said
to my father, you know, Samus, Eileen's coming in here
on her birthday because she's attracted to you and she's
interested in you, and he's like, she's dating my friend
and Kevin Higgins. And she said, well, she'd rather be
with you, and so Dad, clueless about these things, he said, okay,
(12:07):
I'll ask her out. So he asked her out and
their very first date was quite memorable. So my father
loved John Wayne movies, absolutely loved John Wayne, and my
mother had no interest in John Wayne at all. She
found them boring and they would have put her to sleep.
So the first date, they decided they'd go to a
movie and Dad picked my mom up and whatever the
(12:29):
first movie house that they came upon, that would be
the movie that they would go see. Well, it happened
to be a John Wayne movie anyway. Sure enough, shortly
into the movie, Mom fell asleep, so Dad watched the
rest of the movie. The movie ends, he wakes my
mother up and he said, come on, Eileena, I'll drop
you off and you can finish the rest of your
sleep at home. And that was it. He was Donnie.
(12:49):
He was never going to take her out again, and
my mother would devastated because she really liked my father.
But PJ. Mariarty and his wife Trudy loved my mother
and knew she would be great for my dad. So
one night PJ said to my father, I want to
take you out to dinner with my wife. The three
of us go out to dinner and it was kind
of odd, but Dad said, sure, of course. So they
(13:10):
went to a restaurant and they're sitting there and it's
a table set for four, and then in walks my
mother and PJ said, you guys need to get back together.
So it was because of PJ. Mariarty that my parents
got back together, and then the rest was history. They
got married in nineteen sixty six. They moved to New
Jersey Demris, New Jersey, where we grew up and had
(13:32):
four children, my brother Patrick, then I came, and my
sister Anne Marie, and a sister Aileen. But now my
father knew after my mother and father got married in
sixty six, he knew it was time for him to
do something different, and so he and another gentleman, Brian Mulligan,
a good friend of my father's, started looking for ads
in the New York Times. They found a restaurant or
(13:54):
a location that they could open up a restaurant at
three five eight's fifty seventh Street, and they went and
looked at the place and Dad immediately loved it. It
was the ground floor of a brownstone, and he just
he could see the restaurant. The second he walked in
the door. He knew exactly what he wanted. So it's
a tiny restaurant. It's a three story brownstone, but the
(14:16):
square footage is it's twenty by eighty, so it's really
quite a small restaurant. We see twenty tables and a
long bar upfront. But it was exactly what he wanted.
He could envision what the future of that restaurant would be.
And because he had worked at Pjmoriarti's, which was an
upscale Irish restaurant, that was what he was looking for.
He wanted it to be fine dining. He wasn't looking
(14:38):
for a pub, a traditional Irish pub, and from day
one he also had a dress code. It evolved over
the years, but not by much so for most of
the time it was for men a jacket and tie
and for women kind of preper business style dress. It
was only in more recent years he agreed to golf
shirts and that you didn't have to wear a sports jacket,
(15:00):
but you couldn't wear a T shirt, you couldn't wear
a baseball cap. He was very strict on those rules.
He wanted it to always look like a fine dining restaurant.
So when he and his partner Brian Mulligan met with
mister Senville, who was the owner of the building, they
looked at it and my father said, we'll take it.
What my father and Brian Mulligan didn't know at the
(15:20):
time was that same location had been a three time
loser before, and three restaurants had come in and out
within five years. And my father would often tell the story.
If he had known that at the time, he would
never have gone in there. And it was just fortunate
that story had never been told to him because it
ended up being the perfect spot for him to open
(15:41):
his restaurant. So Brian and my father decided, and i'd
really say my father decided that the name of the
restaurant was going to be called Nearies. There was enough
Mulligan's around and Nearies was an unusual name, not as common,
so sure enough they creed on the name Nearis for
(16:01):
the restaurant. They opened, unsurprisingly on Saint Patrick's Day on
March seventeenth, nineteen sixty seven, so early days in the restaurant,
as you can imagine, we're tough, you know, it was
a new restaurant in a new location. And my father
and Brian literally were working there seven days a week
around the clock. You know, we had very limited staff
(16:22):
that we hired because they weren't making any money. Actually,
Brian's sister, Mulligan was her maiden name. She got married.
Liz Farley was one of our first employees. She started
on June seventh of nineteen sixty seven. She is still
with us. We also still have Mary O'Connor who has
been with us. She's coming up on forty five years
(16:44):
this December. And that was just the type of person
my father was. When people came either to as an employee,
they felt like they were part of an eerie family
or the customers that started growing in numbers over the
years just fell in love with Nieri's and my father
his hospitality, his charm, his storytelling, and they felt like
(17:05):
they were coming in to my father's private dinning room
and that they were invited guests. And that was the
environment he created. And you've been listening to Una Nearie
tell one heck of a story about her father and
life is unimaginable for the Nearie family without PJ. Moriarty,
who helped UNA's dad get a job that Moore resembled
(17:29):
what his career would look like, and basically, as Una said,
taught my father the ropes of the restaurant business. But
then he did something even more important. He insisted that
the woman he would marry should be given a second chance,
and he set it up and he made it happen.
When we come back more of this remarkable immigrant story,
(17:50):
the Nearrie family story here on our American story, and
we returned to our American stories and the story of
(18:11):
Jimmy Nary as told by his daughter Una. Let's pick
up when we last left off. The only day were
closed his Christmas Day, and on Christmas Day we would
have customers who had no family come and spend Christmas
with us that would come into New York City. We
were living in New Jersey, that would come into New
York City, pick them up and bring them out to
(18:33):
New Jersey so they weren't alone on Christmas and they
would have Christmas dinner with us. And then after Christmas
dinner was over, he would drive them back into the
city to wherever they were living because they were part
of our family. And in addition to the restaurant being
very meaningful to my father, obviously it was what he loved.
It wasn't a job. He always said, he never worked
(18:54):
a day in his life. But equally important to him
and my mother was their faith. We are Catholic family,
and my parents would go to Mass every single day,
and the routine, it was quite funny. My parents routine
was very set. It was the same routine every day.
They would get up, they would get dressed, they would
go to Mass. Dad would do the readings in church.
(19:15):
Almost every morning. After they finished going to Mass, Dad
and mom would go to breakfast, and the dad would
get into his car and go into the city and
go to the restaurant and he'd be in there from
anywhere from eleven eleven thirty until possibly midnight every day,
and the mom would get in her car from the
diner and go home and raise us. So mom was
taking care of us, raising the four children and doing
(19:36):
all of that to keep the house and us going
while Dad was working in the restaurant. But their time
together every morning was their precious time. Mass and breakfast
every morning, and it was a tradition that they carried
on literally until my mom passed away almost fifteen years ago.
She passed away of cancer. Actually after my mother passed away.
(19:57):
They had just such a tremendous relationship that Dad's routine
changed obviously after my mom passed away. But what he
didn't change was going to Mass every day. But before
he went to Mass every day, he would go visit
my mom at the cemetery. And visit my mom every day,
then go to the cemetery, then go to breakfast, and
then into the restaurant. There was this beautiful picture of
(20:20):
my mom and Dad, a wedding picture of the two
of them, And before he left the house every day,
he would lean in and he would kiss the picture
and kiss my mom. Because I was living in the
city and I'm still living in New York City, I
wanted to always be able to keep an eye on
my dad because he was living in the house by
himself and traveling back and forth from New York to
New Jersey. So and he knew this, but I installed
(20:42):
the nest camera so I could make sure I could
see him and know that everything was okay. And you know,
it would flash on my phone, so I knew when
he would come in at night or when he was
leaving every morning. But I would watch him. He would
not only do it in the morning, he would kiss
the picture of my mom, but when he came home
at night, he stood in front of the picture and
he would talk to her, and I would watch it
(21:05):
on the camera, and it touched me in such a
way because he wanted to share the day with her
and tell her everything that she was obviously seeing from heaven,
but he wanted to share the day with her and
tell her about the people he saw on the stories
that were told, and that's how strong their relationship was.
And people customers several years after my mom passed away,
(21:28):
said Jimmy, you know, would you be interested and interested
in what he knew exactly what they meant in what
are you kidding me? He said, I had the love
of my life. I'm interested in nobody except my Eyeleen. So,
because my father literally was working seven days a week,
his partner that I mentioned, Brian Mulligan, actually passed away
(21:51):
in nineteen eighty five, actually on the evening of his
twin daughters graduation from high school. So obviously, when Brian
passed away, my father worked out a deal with his wife,
Melda Mulligan, to buy out the business. So, beginning in
nineteen eighty five, Dad owned the restaurant outright, So while
Brian was a partner, Dad was able to take some
(22:13):
time off, you know, during the week. Once Brian passed away,
Dad was there seven days a week, literally lunch and
dinner seven days a week. So we never saw my
father for no other reason than he was working the
hours he worked. The four children we were going to
school early in the morning, Dad was asleep by the
time we came home from school, obviously Dad was at work.
(22:34):
We would be in bed, Dad would come home, and
this was the routine. So we really didn't get to
see Dad. And so I said to my parents. I
was twelve at the time, and I said, I really
want to spend time with Dad. And I said, so
let me work in the restaurant. And both my parents
were like, what will you do? And we would go
into the restaurant obviously to visit Dad, but it wasn't
(22:55):
enough for me. I wanted to spend more time with him.
So they said what will you do and I said, well,
let me work in the coroom. I'll check coats. So
it was every Friday night, and I remember I was
twelve and I was thinking, oh my god, this is
the greatest job. Ever, and more importantly, I got to
watch my dad. But I was watching my father, and
I was watching him deal with people and talk to
people and communicate with people. And the relationship he had
(23:19):
with every single customer was so special, and every single
person felt like they were the most special person in
the room. That's how strongly he connected with people. And
I saw the way he treated his staff. Liz Farley,
our waitress who I mentioned, who has been with us
for fifty five years. Her husband had just retired and unfortunately,
(23:40):
in a very tragic way, passed away, and Liz decided
she needed to step away from nearis. She couldn't do
it anymore, and she was obviously devastated. So my father
said he completely understood. And so my father a couple
minutes later, picked up the phone and said, hey, Liz,
it's Jimmy. I'm checking in on you. And she said, Jimmy,
you know I'm doing okay. You know I'm trying to
adjust to my new life. He said, great, well, listen,
(24:03):
nobody's covering your shift tonight, so you better get back
to work. And she's like, Jimmy, and he said, no,
nobody's covering a shift. They've covered it long enough, It's
time for you to get back to work. And she said, okay,
Jimmy Albion and he just knew how to help people
feel better and cope with very kind of difficult times
in their lives. And as I mentioned earlier, Liza is
still with us fifty five years later. The staff adored him,
(24:27):
they worked hard for him, they loved him. And I said,
if I could learn any of these or be able
to pick up any of these skills that my father
has that come so naturally to him, that I knew
I would do well in my career. Whatever that would,
you know, path would take me. It didn't matter who
walked in that door. You could be a doorman, you
(24:49):
could be President Clinton came in, so you could be
a doorman, or you could be a president of the
United States, and you were treated with the same love,
respect and care. And that's just what my father apart
he didn't distinguish anybody by the title what they did.
While he was certainly impressed by lots of customers who
came in, they were customers and they were family when
(25:09):
they walked in that door. And I learned that all
from standing in the courtroom just watching my father interact
and it was the lesson of a lifetime, because there
was nobody better than my father. One of my father's
greatest joys was the day when he bought the building.
So I had mentioned how he had a partner for many,
(25:29):
many years, Brian Mulligan, but they were renting downstairs and
obviously had a lease. But my father said to mister Senville,
the landlord, at one point, will you ever give me
a shot at the building. And mister Senville, who owned
lots of real estate in New York, said maybe one day.
And my father made it a priority to never cause
(25:50):
him one day of problems. So even when there were
issues in the restaurant, something that the building could have
been held responsible for, Dad just took care of it.
He was always early with his rent payment, and he
never never complained about anything. And you've been listening to
Una Eery share the story of her father, a New
York City restaurateur and legend, and my goodness, what a
(26:13):
story she tells about her mother and father, the importance
of faith in their lives, that daily mass, that daily breakfast,
And when I leaned past the love of Jimmy's life,
well he still had that daily mass, and still had
that daily breakfast, but every day that stop at the cemetery.
Then Una started to talk about their experience working in
(26:35):
that coatroom and getting to know her dad in action.
I learned so much from working with my dad in
that coatroom. He treated Dorman or the President of the
United States the same, He treated all people the same.
There was nobody better than my father, Una said. And
my goodness, there are two kinds of dads in this world.
(26:57):
I've said them many times. The father whose daughter says
some thing like that about you, and the father whose
daughter doesn't. When we come back, more of this remarkable
story of Jimmy Neary is told by his daughter Una.
Here on our American stories, and we continue with our
(27:38):
American stories, and with the story of Jimmy Nearie as
told by his daughter Una. Let's continue where we last
left all in nineteen eighty six. Above Nearis at the
time was a gentleman that lived up there and he
had an arts studio. It was his apartment, but he
had an arts studio, and all the customers knew. My
(27:58):
father wanted to buy the build if the opportunity ever
presented itself to him, and a customer is flying back
from California, flying first class, sitting beside this gentleman. They
start talking. Anyway, long story short, the gentleman said, yeah,
you know, I'm midtown Manhattan and our customers said, well,
where fifty seventh Street? He said, oh, fifty seventh and
(28:20):
what first he said, well, you must know Nearies, my
favorite restaurant in New York. And he said, yes, I
actually live above the restaurant. He said, you're kidding. He
said yeah. Jimmy is a good friend of mine. And
he said, well, I just bought the building. And he said,
to you what, and he said, yeah, I just bought
the building. So that's the end of the conversation. The
flight lands, the customer comes into Neearies and he said, Jimmy,
(28:41):
did the guy upstairs by the building? He goes, I
don't know what you're talking about. He said, I was
on the flight, and he tells him the story. Dad goes,
I honestly have no idea what you're talking about. Dad
calls mister Senville and never raised the question again from
the first time he raised it, which was years earlier.
He said, mister Senville, can I ask you a question?
And he said, sure, Jimmy, why And he said, did
you sell the building to the guy upstairs? And mister
(29:03):
Senville just answered the following way, He said, did I
call you? And hung up. The next day or a
couple days later, a U haul truck comes and the
guy moves out, and Dad thought it was the oddest thing.
So there was no tenant upstairs. A couple weeks later,
the phone rings and it's mister Senville's assistant, and his
(29:26):
assistant never called Dad and said mister Senville would like
to talk to you, and Dad said, okay, is everything
all right? She said, please hold, so he picks up
the phone. He said, mister Senville, is everything okay? He goes,
this is the call you've been waiting for. He said,
I will sell you the building for one million, three
hundred and seventy five thousand. You have two weeks to
(29:48):
think about it and let me know. And that was it.
So Dad's first call instead of being to my mom,
he called the Bank of Ireland, and he called the
president of the Bank of Ireland in New York. Name
was Bill Burke, another man from Tubbercurry County, Sligo. So
a lot of wonderful people came out of tubber and
he called Bill and he said, Bill, it's Jimmy near eight.
I need to borrow a million, three hundred and seventy
(30:10):
five thousand dollars. And Bill started laughing, is Jimmy is
it to buy that brownstone on fifty seventh Street and
he said it is. He said, then you've got the loan.
So then my father called my mother and he never
called her in the middle of the day and she
said to my father, Samus, is everything okay? He said,
sit down? She said, oh no, what did you do
this time? He said, well, I just borrowed a million,
(30:31):
three hundred and seventy five thousand dollars to buy the building.
And Mom started laughing. She said, well, you broke us,
but you made the kids wealthy. Congratulations. And Dad paid
the loan back in a few years. He saved every
penny he had with my mom and they paid the
mortgage off very quickly. But the reality of it is,
if Dad had not been given the opportunity to buy
(30:52):
the building and was able to do it, we would
be long gone the rent. My father couldn't have made
the rent payments to continue to be renting bottom. You
just it's restaurant business. It's a very tough business. And
he knew. He just knew again only going to sixth grade.
But the smartest man I knew, he knew he'd be
out an X amount of years in the future because
he couldn't afford the rent payments. And the reason we're
(31:15):
still there today is because my father was able to
buy that building. You know COVID. We were closed for
fourteen months, so there was clearly no rent coming in,
but we didn't have to worry. Unfortunately, other small businesses
weren't as fortunate. But it was the turning point for
my dad when he was able to buy that building,
and a tremendously proud moment for him and for our family.
(31:40):
The words my father would say, and people heard him
say it over and over again, I love my life.
I love my life, and he meant it. And we
talked about this before, but money didn't matter. It was people.
It was being with people was the greatest reward he
could ever get. And my father always said that when
(32:00):
customers to say, Jimmy, would you ever retire? He goes retire,
First of all, what would I do? And secondly, not
a chance he goes the only way they're going to
get me out of here is in a wooden overcoat.
And actually on his final night, so September thirtieth, it
was a Thursday night and it was a very busy
day at the restaurant and the three gentlemen at the bar.
(32:20):
Dad grabbed his Irish cap, put it on his head,
and he had his little walking cane that he used
when he was outside, and he said to the three
gentleman with the big smile on the hand in the air,
he said good night and I'll see you tomorrow. He
had a storied life, he really did, and all went
back to having strong faith, love of family, love of country,
(32:44):
love of people, and he exuded that it just was
everything in his presence, and anybody that knew him and
had a chance to be around him just were blessed.
After my father passed away, one of our customers, Brian Anderson,
came up to me at the restaurant one day and
he said, I have a question for you. What would
(33:05):
you think about me trying to put a petition together
to have fifty seventh and first co named Jimmy erie Way.
I literally immediately filled up with tears, and I said absolutely,
it would be amazing, and it was approved. So now
fifty seventh and first, hopefully on September fourteenth, which is
my dad's birthday, there will be the unveiling of the
(33:28):
street sign and it'll be called Jimmy Erie Way. So
we had a lot of traditions and I'm still carrying
most of them forward since my father passed away. But
whether it was a very happy occasion, like a special
day of the year such as Saint Patrick's Day or
the fourth of July, or Memorial Day or even Labor Day,
(33:50):
special days that brought happiness, or even in very sad
days like September eleventh, my father was so proud of
this country. It was no he loved Ireland, he loved
history is coming from Ireland and being raised in Ireland,
but he was so proud of America. And our tradition
was singing God Bless America. And again it would be
(34:11):
in the happiest times or in the sad times when
we needed to unite the country, like in September eleventh,
and every customer, without exception, would stop whatever they were
doing and would join in song, and my father would
get up there and belt it out. You could feel
the passion of him singing God Bless America. And it's
in the documentary of my dad singing God Bless America,
(34:32):
and there's one scene with his arms stretched out wide
because he loved America. He loved New York City, but
that was his favorite song. And you would hear my
father talk about this country. If anyone had a bad
word to say about America, my father was quick to
straighten them out. He would literally say, if you don't
love this country, then you don't have to be here.
(34:52):
But this is the greatest country in the world. It
gives you the opportunities of a lifetime. If you work
hard and you do your part to give, you'll enjoy
the riches of it. And he really did. And my
whole family just watching my mother and father be so
proud of what they accomplished here in this country obviously
trickles down to all of us because we feel equally
(35:13):
as strongly. He also not only loved this country for
everything it offered him. My father was a fierce supporter
of our military as well as law enforcement. It would
be funny we would be walking down the street, the
police officer could be on the other side of the street,
(35:34):
and I would be pleased at let's just keep going. Nope, nope,
and we would have to cross the street. It didn't
matter where we were going, if we were later or not.
And he was absolutely right to do it. But he
would literally stop whatever he was doing. If we were
on a mission to go somewhere, he would stop it.
Go across the street, or go down the block if
you saw a police officer, and he would literally say,
thank you very much, thank you for what you're doing.
(35:56):
You're protecting us, you're protecting this city. And actually when
my father passed away, we had the mass at Saint
Patrick's Cathedral in New York City. But what the New
York Police Department did was they shut down Fifth Avenue
as we came out of the cathedral for forty five minutes.
There were people lined up across the street filming this
(36:16):
because they could not understand who possibly was the person
that was being taken out of the cathedral that they
shut down Fifth Avenue. It just doesn't happen. So then
they closed down Madison Avenue, Then they closed down fifty
seventh Street. Then the police closed down First Avenue, they
closed down the FDR, they closed down the Harlem River Drive.
(36:37):
They closed the upper level of the outbound of the
George Washington Bridge, escorted us across the bridge, escorted us
through the Palisades Parkway, and then ultimately passed our house
in Demorest, and we did a thirty second stop outside
a house where we grew up and where my dad lived,
and then brought us to the cemetery and the police
officer who helped to arrange all of that with me.
(36:59):
I literally he said to him, I have no words
of thanks. I don't know what to say. And his
comment was, in the thirty years he had been doing
kind of his job, he said, except for somebody who's
lying in state, a civilian does not get these honors,
and the only person that is deserving of it was
your father. And a terrific job on the editing and
(37:22):
production by Greg Engler and a special thanks to Una
Eerie for sharing the story of her father. And you
can see the documentary on Amazon called Neeries The Dream
at the End of the Rainbow, a beautiful story about
an Irish immigrant who turned his love of people into
a restaurant you must go to if you're ever on
(37:43):
fifty seventh Street down by a first and second avenue
in that part of the city called Sutton Place. Stop
by neeries and by all means, have the pork chops.
It was one of my favorites until Una suggested the
lamb chops. And I think I'll never eat anything else
ever when I go back, and of course you must
have their rice pudding. The story of Neari's restaurant, the
story of Jimmy Nearie, the story of so much more,
(38:06):
but particularly the love of a daughter or her father,
all of it here on our American stories.
This is Lee Habib and this is Our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American People.
And to search for the Our American Stories podcast, go
to the iHeartRadio app, to Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
get your podcasts. Jimmy Nary was an Irish immigrant who
boarded a ship to America in the nineteen fifties, and
(00:32):
he went on to open a namesake restaurant in Manhattan
that has for more than a half century been a
famed canteen in the heart of New York City. Here
to tell his story is Jimmy's daughter Una. Let's take
a listen. My father was born in a small town
(00:56):
called Tubacurry, County Sligo, which is in the west part
of Ireland, very rural country. He was one of six children.
He was the second youngest. His father passed away when
he was quite young, so his mother was the one
that raised the family on the farm. However, my father
was certainly not somebody who was interested in farming. He
(01:16):
loved people, he loved dealing with people, so the thoughts
of my father being out on a farm was nothing
that ever appealed to him. Obviously, he went to school
but he only went to sixth grade. But I would
always describe, and I always do describe my father as
being one of the smartest men I know, and it
wasn't from a classroom. So my father his love was people,
(01:40):
and anytime his mom would bring him into the town
at Tubacurry, which was a small little town at a
bunch of little shops, and she would go into the
local grocery store. Part of the grocery store had a
bar and a little lounge, and Dad would just watch
the bartenders behind the bar and watch them engage in
conversation and joking and pouring drinks with the men that
(02:01):
were in the lounge while the wives were typically in
the grocery store getting the week's groceries. And my father
knew literally from a very young age, he said, that's
what I want to do. Now. What's interesting about my dad?
If you see pictures of him or for people that
knew my father, he was very tiny. We jokingly called
him a living leprechaun. So my father first started out
(02:24):
as a hackney driver, which is also known as a
cab driver in the local area. And because my father
was so tiny, he needed books underneath him, so he
could actually see over the dashboard. And everybody in town
knew my father. He was a tremendous storyteller, a great
choke teller, and he knew that Tubac Curry was a
(02:46):
fantastic place to grow up, but he knew it wasn't
big enough for him. He wanted to experience something different.
And this one particular day, my grandmother was at home
and she had a visitor from America and her name
was Annie Gallaher and she mentioned to my grandmother, I'd
love to take and they called my father back in Ireland,
his name is Shamus. Everyone calls him Shamus Neary. He said,
(03:08):
I'd love to take Shamus back to America if he's interested.
So my grandmother asked my father and my father said,
I would love to go to America. And she's like,
what would you do there? He's like, I don't know,
but I'll figure it out. So obviously Dad didn't have
much money, even though he had these two jobs. But
what he did have was he had been given two
lambs by one of his neighbors. And my father, being
(03:31):
a very smart man, knew that lambs would make him money.
So he had the lambs and he borrowed one of
our neighbors, that farming neighbors Rams. They let the rams
and the lambs get together and each year, over a
couple of year period, multiple lambs were made and created.
So Dad at this point had raised fourteen lamb and
(03:52):
so he decided the way he could pay for his
trip to America was by selling his lamb. So he
brought his lamb to the fair day and got very
good price for them, the equivalent one hundred and ninety
six dollars that was able to pay for his fare
to America. This just to give everybody a sense, this
was in nineteen fifty four. So he came over on
the USS Olympia and docked in New York City. But
(04:15):
he had no job. So his first job he went
to a woman named Maureen Milcahey who was very known
to the Irish community. Would help place you in jobs. Well,
she sent him to a warehouse and the gentleman was
pretty brutal and pointed out that my father's height, that
there would be no way he could get a job
in the warehouse because he's too tiny to do anything.
(04:38):
My father, instead of being upset about it, burst out laughing.
Thought it was the funniest thing. And he said, well,
how about that a fellow irishman, what a fabulous greeting
to America. Just laughed and left. And Dad was living
in the Bronx at the time. He went into a
small coffee shop up by his apartment and he saw
(04:58):
one of his friends from Ireland that was sitting at
the coffee shop, and he told him the story. So
this gentleman said to him, I'll tell you where you
go tomorrow. I'll arrange it for you. You go to
the New York Athletic Club and see the general manager
at the pool. Sure enough, Dad goes. The next day,
he meets the general manager at the pool and my
father said, you know, I had this experience yesterday, so
(05:21):
I don't know anything about pools, but you do. You
have a job for me, And he said, and obviously
I'm not tall, so this may not work out. And
he said pull down one second, and then he brings
out the employees that were working at the pool, and
my dad became lifelong friends with him. They were all
Mexican and they were all tinier than my father. And
he said, you're going to be the largest tallest poolboy
(05:42):
that we ever had at the New York Athletic Club,
and so sure enough Dad got the job, and he
loved it, and they just fell in love with Dad.
I mean, it's the experience. Everyone meets Dad for the
first time and there's just something special about him, and
Dad did that for a period of time. So this
was in nineteen fifty four. He got drafted. That was
one of the requirements coming to America. If you got drafted,
(06:04):
you had to serve. So sure enough Dad got the
letter announcing that he had to serve. But he went
into the US Army. So he left the job obviously
at the New York Athletic Club. He only served for
thirteen months. In peacetime, he went to Fort Hood, Texas
for his basic training, and then he went to Germany
where he was a tank driver, which he was very
(06:24):
proud of that because back then, the way the tanks
were made, you had to be small to fit in
to drive it. So it was an asset for my
father that his height was tiny because he was driving
the tanks. And you've been listening to Una Eerie tell
a heck of a story about her father. Jimmy one
of six children. He only had a sixth grade education,
(06:46):
Una said about her dad, but he was the smartest
man I know. He didn't get his education in school.
She also pointed out that he loved people, and of course,
what better business to be in the business you're about
to hear that Jimmy finds himself in. And last, but
not least, I'd love to go to America, he said
to a relative. I don't know what I'll do, but
(07:09):
I'll figure it out. And did he? Ever? When we
come back, more of this remarkable love story, A daughter's
love of her father, the father's love of his work,
and in the end, the country that adopted him. Here
on our American story. Here are our American Stories. We
(07:31):
bring you inspiring stories of history, sports, business, faith and love.
Stories from a great and beautiful country that need to
be told. But we can't do it without you. Our
stories are free to listen to, but they're not free
to make. If you love our stories in America like
we do, please go to our American Stories dot com
and click the donate button. Give a little, give a lot,
(07:52):
help us keep the great American stories coming. That's our
American Stories dot Com. And we continue with our American Stories.
(08:12):
We last left off with Jimmy Neary leaving his job
at the New York Athletic Club in nineteen fifty four
to serve in the army as a tank driver. Let's
return to this story as told by Jimmy's daughter Una.
But when he came back, he went right back to
his job at the New York Athletic Club and got
that back. And he was doing that during the day
(08:33):
when one of the members was a gentleman named PJ. Moriarty,
and PJ happened to be a very well known Irish
restaurant tour He had two very famous places in New
York and he just loved Dad. He loved my father's
joke telling and storytelling. So basically he told the general
manager at the Athletic Club he wanted my father to
work for him at night in one of his places.
(08:56):
So when the general manager called my father over and said,
I want to let you know PJ. Moriarty wants you
to work for him, and Dad said, are you firing me?
He said, no, I'm not firing you. You're keeping your
day job with us and you're going to work with
him at night. And so Dad literally did that. He
had the two jobs he worked in the day as
a poolboy in the athletic club and then started bartending
and learning the restaurant business by working for PJ. Moriarty
(09:20):
at night, and he loved both jobs. He absolutely loved it.
A funny story you might get a kick out of.
So while Dad grew up in Ireland and there was
plenty of lakes around, Dad never went in the lakes.
He didn't know how to swim at all. And one
day the general manager said to my father, you know, Jimmy,
you have to wash down the tables and chairs. So
Dad said, sure, no problem. Who He took the tables
(09:42):
and chairs and threw them in the pool. The general
manager comes out and said to my father, Jimmy, what
did you do? And Dad honestly didn't know he did
anything wrong. He goes, I don't know what you mean.
You told me to wash down the tables and chairs.
He goes, not in the pool, get in there and
get them out. Dad goes, I'm not going in there.
I don't know how to swim. Somebody else is go
I have to take the chairs out of the pool.
(10:02):
That was one of the famous stories that the Athletic
Club that gets told over and over over the years.
So eventually my father did leave the job at the
New York Athletic Club to work more full time at
PJ Mariarti's. And PJ was so good to my father.
He really taught my father the ropes, but he started
really as a bartender. But PJ was a character in
(10:22):
his own right. So in the front of the restaurant,
PJ would pull up in his car, and in the
trunk of his car he had a fake fire hydrant,
and one of my father's jobs was to put the
fire hydrant in the front of the restaurant to protect
the parking spot. So when PJ pulled up, Dad would
lift up the fire hydrant and PJ would get the
spot and Dad would throw it in the trunk of
(10:43):
the car. So Dad and PJ just had a fantastic relationship.
And PJ, like I said, really taught my father the
ropes of the restaurant business. But Dad just knew he
wanted to find an opportunity for the right place at
the right time to open up his own restaurant. But
in the meantime he had met my beautiful mom. Eileen
(11:04):
to me was her name, and she was from Dublin.
My dad was from Sligo. My mom was from Dublin,
and she came out to America many years earlier. My
mother was actually dating a gentleman named Kevin Higgins who
owned an Irish bar in Queens, but she had heard
about this Shamus Nearie. Every dad had a reputation. Everybody
knew this Shamusnarie, that he was a character. Everyone had
(11:25):
to go into Pj's to meet him. So my mother
came in for the first time with a couple of
girlfriends and relatives cousins of hers, and she just was
attracted to him right from the first time she saw him.
So they would periodically go in and then this one
particular night they were in from my mother's birthday and
my cousin, my second cousin, Madeleine, said to my mom,
(11:46):
you know, why don't you say something. She said, well,
I'm not saying anything to Shamus. And so Madeleine said
to my father, you know, Samus, Eileen's coming in here
on her birthday because she's attracted to you and she's
interested in you, and he's like, she's dating my friend
and Kevin Higgins. And she said, well, she'd rather be
with you, and so Dad, clueless about these things, he said, okay,
(12:07):
I'll ask her out. So he asked her out and
their very first date was quite memorable. So my father
loved John Wayne movies, absolutely loved John Wayne, and my
mother had no interest in John Wayne at all. She
found them boring and they would have put her to sleep.
So the first date, they decided they'd go to a
movie and Dad picked my mom up and whatever the
(12:29):
first movie house that they came upon, that would be
the movie that they would go see. Well, it happened
to be a John Wayne movie anyway. Sure enough, shortly
into the movie, Mom fell asleep, so Dad watched the
rest of the movie. The movie ends, he wakes my
mother up and he said, come on, Eileena, I'll drop
you off and you can finish the rest of your
sleep at home. And that was it. He was Donnie.
(12:49):
He was never going to take her out again, and
my mother would devastated because she really liked my father.
But PJ. Mariarty and his wife Trudy loved my mother
and knew she would be great for my dad. So
one night PJ said to my father, I want to
take you out to dinner with my wife. The three
of us go out to dinner and it was kind
of odd, but Dad said, sure, of course. So they
(13:10):
went to a restaurant and they're sitting there and it's
a table set for four, and then in walks my
mother and PJ said, you guys need to get back together.
So it was because of PJ. Mariarty that my parents
got back together, and then the rest was history. They
got married in nineteen sixty six. They moved to New
Jersey Demris, New Jersey, where we grew up and had
(13:32):
four children, my brother Patrick, then I came, and my
sister Anne Marie, and a sister Aileen. But now my
father knew after my mother and father got married in
sixty six, he knew it was time for him to
do something different, and so he and another gentleman, Brian Mulligan,
a good friend of my father's, started looking for ads
in the New York Times. They found a restaurant or
(13:54):
a location that they could open up a restaurant at
three five eight's fifty seventh Street, and they went and
looked at the place and Dad immediately loved it. It
was the ground floor of a brownstone, and he just
he could see the restaurant. The second he walked in
the door. He knew exactly what he wanted. So it's
a tiny restaurant. It's a three story brownstone, but the
(14:16):
square footage is it's twenty by eighty, so it's really
quite a small restaurant. We see twenty tables and a
long bar upfront. But it was exactly what he wanted.
He could envision what the future of that restaurant would be.
And because he had worked at Pjmoriarti's, which was an
upscale Irish restaurant, that was what he was looking for.
He wanted it to be fine dining. He wasn't looking
(14:38):
for a pub, a traditional Irish pub, and from day
one he also had a dress code. It evolved over
the years, but not by much so for most of
the time it was for men a jacket and tie
and for women kind of preper business style dress. It
was only in more recent years he agreed to golf
shirts and that you didn't have to wear a sports jacket,
(15:00):
but you couldn't wear a T shirt, you couldn't wear
a baseball cap. He was very strict on those rules.
He wanted it to always look like a fine dining restaurant.
So when he and his partner Brian Mulligan met with
mister Senville, who was the owner of the building, they
looked at it and my father said, we'll take it.
What my father and Brian Mulligan didn't know at the
(15:20):
time was that same location had been a three time
loser before, and three restaurants had come in and out
within five years. And my father would often tell the story.
If he had known that at the time, he would
never have gone in there. And it was just fortunate
that story had never been told to him because it
ended up being the perfect spot for him to open
(15:41):
his restaurant. So Brian and my father decided, and i'd
really say my father decided that the name of the
restaurant was going to be called Nearies. There was enough
Mulligan's around and Nearies was an unusual name, not as common,
so sure enough they creed on the name Nearis for
(16:01):
the restaurant. They opened, unsurprisingly on Saint Patrick's Day on
March seventeenth, nineteen sixty seven, so early days in the restaurant,
as you can imagine, we're tough, you know, it was
a new restaurant in a new location. And my father
and Brian literally were working there seven days a week
around the clock. You know, we had very limited staff
(16:22):
that we hired because they weren't making any money. Actually,
Brian's sister, Mulligan was her maiden name. She got married.
Liz Farley was one of our first employees. She started
on June seventh of nineteen sixty seven. She is still
with us. We also still have Mary O'Connor who has
been with us. She's coming up on forty five years
(16:44):
this December. And that was just the type of person
my father was. When people came either to as an employee,
they felt like they were part of an eerie family
or the customers that started growing in numbers over the
years just fell in love with Nieri's and my father
his hospitality, his charm, his storytelling, and they felt like
(17:05):
they were coming in to my father's private dinning room
and that they were invited guests. And that was the
environment he created. And you've been listening to Una Nearie
tell one heck of a story about her father and
life is unimaginable for the Nearie family without PJ. Moriarty,
who helped UNA's dad get a job that Moore resembled
(17:29):
what his career would look like, and basically, as Una said,
taught my father the ropes of the restaurant business. But
then he did something even more important. He insisted that
the woman he would marry should be given a second chance,
and he set it up and he made it happen.
When we come back more of this remarkable immigrant story,
(17:50):
the Nearrie family story here on our American story, and
we returned to our American stories and the story of
(18:11):
Jimmy Nary as told by his daughter Una. Let's pick
up when we last left off. The only day were
closed his Christmas Day, and on Christmas Day we would
have customers who had no family come and spend Christmas
with us that would come into New York City. We
were living in New Jersey, that would come into New
York City, pick them up and bring them out to
(18:33):
New Jersey so they weren't alone on Christmas and they
would have Christmas dinner with us. And then after Christmas
dinner was over, he would drive them back into the
city to wherever they were living because they were part
of our family. And in addition to the restaurant being
very meaningful to my father, obviously it was what he loved.
It wasn't a job. He always said, he never worked
(18:54):
a day in his life. But equally important to him
and my mother was their faith. We are Catholic family,
and my parents would go to Mass every single day,
and the routine, it was quite funny. My parents routine
was very set. It was the same routine every day.
They would get up, they would get dressed, they would
go to Mass. Dad would do the readings in church.
(19:15):
Almost every morning. After they finished going to Mass, Dad
and mom would go to breakfast, and the dad would
get into his car and go into the city and
go to the restaurant and he'd be in there from
anywhere from eleven eleven thirty until possibly midnight every day,
and the mom would get in her car from the
diner and go home and raise us. So mom was
taking care of us, raising the four children and doing
(19:36):
all of that to keep the house and us going
while Dad was working in the restaurant. But their time
together every morning was their precious time. Mass and breakfast
every morning, and it was a tradition that they carried
on literally until my mom passed away almost fifteen years ago.
She passed away of cancer. Actually after my mother passed away.
(19:57):
They had just such a tremendous relationship that Dad's routine
changed obviously after my mom passed away. But what he
didn't change was going to Mass every day. But before
he went to Mass every day, he would go visit
my mom at the cemetery. And visit my mom every day,
then go to the cemetery, then go to breakfast, and
then into the restaurant. There was this beautiful picture of
(20:20):
my mom and Dad, a wedding picture of the two
of them, And before he left the house every day,
he would lean in and he would kiss the picture
and kiss my mom. Because I was living in the
city and I'm still living in New York City, I
wanted to always be able to keep an eye on
my dad because he was living in the house by
himself and traveling back and forth from New York to
New Jersey. So and he knew this, but I installed
(20:42):
the nest camera so I could make sure I could
see him and know that everything was okay. And you know,
it would flash on my phone, so I knew when
he would come in at night or when he was
leaving every morning. But I would watch him. He would
not only do it in the morning, he would kiss
the picture of my mom, but when he came home
at night, he stood in front of the picture and
he would talk to her, and I would watch it
(21:05):
on the camera, and it touched me in such a
way because he wanted to share the day with her
and tell her everything that she was obviously seeing from heaven,
but he wanted to share the day with her and
tell her about the people he saw on the stories
that were told, and that's how strong their relationship was.
And people customers several years after my mom passed away,
(21:28):
said Jimmy, you know, would you be interested and interested
in what he knew exactly what they meant in what
are you kidding me? He said, I had the love
of my life. I'm interested in nobody except my Eyeleen. So,
because my father literally was working seven days a week,
his partner that I mentioned, Brian Mulligan, actually passed away
(21:51):
in nineteen eighty five, actually on the evening of his
twin daughters graduation from high school. So obviously, when Brian
passed away, my father worked out a deal with his wife,
Melda Mulligan, to buy out the business. So, beginning in
nineteen eighty five, Dad owned the restaurant outright, So while
Brian was a partner, Dad was able to take some
(22:13):
time off, you know, during the week. Once Brian passed away,
Dad was there seven days a week, literally lunch and
dinner seven days a week. So we never saw my
father for no other reason than he was working the
hours he worked. The four children we were going to
school early in the morning, Dad was asleep by the
time we came home from school, obviously Dad was at work.
(22:34):
We would be in bed, Dad would come home, and
this was the routine. So we really didn't get to
see Dad. And so I said to my parents. I
was twelve at the time, and I said, I really
want to spend time with Dad. And I said, so
let me work in the restaurant. And both my parents
were like, what will you do? And we would go
into the restaurant obviously to visit Dad, but it wasn't
(22:55):
enough for me. I wanted to spend more time with him.
So they said what will you do and I said, well,
let me work in the coroom. I'll check coats. So
it was every Friday night, and I remember I was
twelve and I was thinking, oh my god, this is
the greatest job. Ever, and more importantly, I got to
watch my dad. But I was watching my father, and
I was watching him deal with people and talk to
people and communicate with people. And the relationship he had
(23:19):
with every single customer was so special, and every single
person felt like they were the most special person in
the room. That's how strongly he connected with people. And
I saw the way he treated his staff. Liz Farley,
our waitress who I mentioned, who has been with us
for fifty five years. Her husband had just retired and unfortunately,
(23:40):
in a very tragic way, passed away, and Liz decided
she needed to step away from nearis. She couldn't do
it anymore, and she was obviously devastated. So my father
said he completely understood. And so my father a couple
minutes later, picked up the phone and said, hey, Liz,
it's Jimmy. I'm checking in on you. And she said, Jimmy,
you know I'm doing okay. You know I'm trying to
adjust to my new life. He said, great, well, listen,
(24:03):
nobody's covering your shift tonight, so you better get back
to work. And she's like, Jimmy, and he said, no,
nobody's covering a shift. They've covered it long enough, It's
time for you to get back to work. And she said, okay,
Jimmy Albion and he just knew how to help people
feel better and cope with very kind of difficult times
in their lives. And as I mentioned earlier, Liza is
still with us fifty five years later. The staff adored him,
(24:27):
they worked hard for him, they loved him. And I said,
if I could learn any of these or be able
to pick up any of these skills that my father
has that come so naturally to him, that I knew
I would do well in my career. Whatever that would,
you know, path would take me. It didn't matter who
walked in that door. You could be a doorman, you
(24:49):
could be President Clinton came in, so you could be
a doorman, or you could be a president of the
United States, and you were treated with the same love,
respect and care. And that's just what my father apart
he didn't distinguish anybody by the title what they did.
While he was certainly impressed by lots of customers who
came in, they were customers and they were family when
(25:09):
they walked in that door. And I learned that all
from standing in the courtroom just watching my father interact
and it was the lesson of a lifetime, because there
was nobody better than my father. One of my father's
greatest joys was the day when he bought the building.
So I had mentioned how he had a partner for many,
(25:29):
many years, Brian Mulligan, but they were renting downstairs and
obviously had a lease. But my father said to mister Senville,
the landlord, at one point, will you ever give me
a shot at the building. And mister Senville, who owned
lots of real estate in New York, said maybe one day.
And my father made it a priority to never cause
(25:50):
him one day of problems. So even when there were
issues in the restaurant, something that the building could have
been held responsible for, Dad just took care of it.
He was always early with his rent payment, and he
never never complained about anything. And you've been listening to
Una Eery share the story of her father, a New
York City restaurateur and legend, and my goodness, what a
(26:13):
story she tells about her mother and father, the importance
of faith in their lives, that daily mass, that daily breakfast,
And when I leaned past the love of Jimmy's life,
well he still had that daily mass, and still had
that daily breakfast, but every day that stop at the cemetery.
Then Una started to talk about their experience working in
(26:35):
that coatroom and getting to know her dad in action.
I learned so much from working with my dad in
that coatroom. He treated Dorman or the President of the
United States the same, He treated all people the same.
There was nobody better than my father, Una said. And
my goodness, there are two kinds of dads in this world.
(26:57):
I've said them many times. The father whose daughter says
some thing like that about you, and the father whose
daughter doesn't. When we come back, more of this remarkable
story of Jimmy Neary is told by his daughter Una.
Here on our American stories, and we continue with our
(27:38):
American stories, and with the story of Jimmy Nearie as
told by his daughter Una. Let's continue where we last
left all in nineteen eighty six. Above Nearis at the
time was a gentleman that lived up there and he
had an arts studio. It was his apartment, but he
had an arts studio, and all the customers knew. My
(27:58):
father wanted to buy the build if the opportunity ever
presented itself to him, and a customer is flying back
from California, flying first class, sitting beside this gentleman. They
start talking. Anyway, long story short, the gentleman said, yeah,
you know, I'm midtown Manhattan and our customers said, well,
where fifty seventh Street? He said, oh, fifty seventh and
(28:20):
what first he said, well, you must know Nearies, my
favorite restaurant in New York. And he said, yes, I
actually live above the restaurant. He said, you're kidding. He
said yeah. Jimmy is a good friend of mine. And
he said, well, I just bought the building. And he said,
to you what, and he said, yeah, I just bought
the building. So that's the end of the conversation. The
flight lands, the customer comes into Neearies and he said, Jimmy,
(28:41):
did the guy upstairs by the building? He goes, I
don't know what you're talking about. He said, I was
on the flight, and he tells him the story. Dad goes,
I honestly have no idea what you're talking about. Dad
calls mister Senville and never raised the question again from
the first time he raised it, which was years earlier.
He said, mister Senville, can I ask you a question?
And he said, sure, Jimmy, why And he said, did
you sell the building to the guy upstairs? And mister
(29:03):
Senville just answered the following way, He said, did I
call you? And hung up. The next day or a
couple days later, a U haul truck comes and the
guy moves out, and Dad thought it was the oddest thing.
So there was no tenant upstairs. A couple weeks later,
the phone rings and it's mister Senville's assistant, and his
(29:26):
assistant never called Dad and said mister Senville would like
to talk to you, and Dad said, okay, is everything
all right? She said, please hold, so he picks up
the phone. He said, mister Senville, is everything okay? He goes,
this is the call you've been waiting for. He said,
I will sell you the building for one million, three
hundred and seventy five thousand. You have two weeks to
(29:48):
think about it and let me know. And that was it.
So Dad's first call instead of being to my mom,
he called the Bank of Ireland, and he called the
president of the Bank of Ireland in New York. Name
was Bill Burke, another man from Tubbercurry County, Sligo. So
a lot of wonderful people came out of tubber and
he called Bill and he said, Bill, it's Jimmy near eight.
I need to borrow a million, three hundred and seventy
(30:10):
five thousand dollars. And Bill started laughing, is Jimmy is
it to buy that brownstone on fifty seventh Street and
he said it is. He said, then you've got the loan.
So then my father called my mother and he never
called her in the middle of the day and she
said to my father, Samus, is everything okay? He said,
sit down? She said, oh no, what did you do
this time? He said, well, I just borrowed a million,
(30:31):
three hundred and seventy five thousand dollars to buy the building.
And Mom started laughing. She said, well, you broke us,
but you made the kids wealthy. Congratulations. And Dad paid
the loan back in a few years. He saved every
penny he had with my mom and they paid the
mortgage off very quickly. But the reality of it is,
if Dad had not been given the opportunity to buy
(30:52):
the building and was able to do it, we would
be long gone the rent. My father couldn't have made
the rent payments to continue to be renting bottom. You
just it's restaurant business. It's a very tough business. And
he knew. He just knew again only going to sixth grade.
But the smartest man I knew, he knew he'd be
out an X amount of years in the future because
he couldn't afford the rent payments. And the reason we're
(31:15):
still there today is because my father was able to
buy that building. You know COVID. We were closed for
fourteen months, so there was clearly no rent coming in,
but we didn't have to worry. Unfortunately, other small businesses
weren't as fortunate. But it was the turning point for
my dad when he was able to buy that building,
and a tremendously proud moment for him and for our family.
(31:40):
The words my father would say, and people heard him
say it over and over again, I love my life.
I love my life, and he meant it. And we
talked about this before, but money didn't matter. It was people.
It was being with people was the greatest reward he
could ever get. And my father always said that when
(32:00):
customers to say, Jimmy, would you ever retire? He goes retire,
First of all, what would I do? And secondly, not
a chance he goes the only way they're going to
get me out of here is in a wooden overcoat.
And actually on his final night, so September thirtieth, it
was a Thursday night and it was a very busy
day at the restaurant and the three gentlemen at the bar.
(32:20):
Dad grabbed his Irish cap, put it on his head,
and he had his little walking cane that he used
when he was outside, and he said to the three
gentleman with the big smile on the hand in the air,
he said good night and I'll see you tomorrow. He
had a storied life, he really did, and all went
back to having strong faith, love of family, love of country,
(32:44):
love of people, and he exuded that it just was
everything in his presence, and anybody that knew him and
had a chance to be around him just were blessed.
After my father passed away, one of our customers, Brian Anderson,
came up to me at the restaurant one day and
he said, I have a question for you. What would
(33:05):
you think about me trying to put a petition together
to have fifty seventh and first co named Jimmy erie Way.
I literally immediately filled up with tears, and I said absolutely,
it would be amazing, and it was approved. So now
fifty seventh and first, hopefully on September fourteenth, which is
my dad's birthday, there will be the unveiling of the
(33:28):
street sign and it'll be called Jimmy Erie Way. So
we had a lot of traditions and I'm still carrying
most of them forward since my father passed away. But
whether it was a very happy occasion, like a special
day of the year such as Saint Patrick's Day or
the fourth of July, or Memorial Day or even Labor Day,
(33:50):
special days that brought happiness, or even in very sad
days like September eleventh, my father was so proud of
this country. It was no he loved Ireland, he loved
history is coming from Ireland and being raised in Ireland,
but he was so proud of America. And our tradition
was singing God Bless America. And again it would be
(34:11):
in the happiest times or in the sad times when
we needed to unite the country, like in September eleventh,
and every customer, without exception, would stop whatever they were
doing and would join in song, and my father would
get up there and belt it out. You could feel
the passion of him singing God Bless America. And it's
in the documentary of my dad singing God Bless America,
(34:32):
and there's one scene with his arms stretched out wide
because he loved America. He loved New York City, but
that was his favorite song. And you would hear my
father talk about this country. If anyone had a bad
word to say about America, my father was quick to
straighten them out. He would literally say, if you don't
love this country, then you don't have to be here.
(34:52):
But this is the greatest country in the world. It
gives you the opportunities of a lifetime. If you work
hard and you do your part to give, you'll enjoy
the riches of it. And he really did. And my
whole family just watching my mother and father be so
proud of what they accomplished here in this country obviously
trickles down to all of us because we feel equally
(35:13):
as strongly. He also not only loved this country for
everything it offered him. My father was a fierce supporter
of our military as well as law enforcement. It would
be funny we would be walking down the street, the
police officer could be on the other side of the street,
(35:34):
and I would be pleased at let's just keep going. Nope, nope,
and we would have to cross the street. It didn't
matter where we were going, if we were later or not.
And he was absolutely right to do it. But he
would literally stop whatever he was doing. If we were
on a mission to go somewhere, he would stop it.
Go across the street, or go down the block if
you saw a police officer, and he would literally say,
thank you very much, thank you for what you're doing.
(35:56):
You're protecting us, you're protecting this city. And actually when
my father passed away, we had the mass at Saint
Patrick's Cathedral in New York City. But what the New
York Police Department did was they shut down Fifth Avenue
as we came out of the cathedral for forty five minutes.
There were people lined up across the street filming this
(36:16):
because they could not understand who possibly was the person
that was being taken out of the cathedral that they
shut down Fifth Avenue. It just doesn't happen. So then
they closed down Madison Avenue, Then they closed down fifty
seventh Street. Then the police closed down First Avenue, they
closed down the FDR, they closed down the Harlem River Drive.
(36:37):
They closed the upper level of the outbound of the
George Washington Bridge, escorted us across the bridge, escorted us
through the Palisades Parkway, and then ultimately passed our house
in Demorest, and we did a thirty second stop outside
a house where we grew up and where my dad lived,
and then brought us to the cemetery and the police
officer who helped to arrange all of that with me.
(36:59):
I literally he said to him, I have no words
of thanks. I don't know what to say. And his
comment was, in the thirty years he had been doing
kind of his job, he said, except for somebody who's
lying in state, a civilian does not get these honors,
and the only person that is deserving of it was
your father. And a terrific job on the editing and
(37:22):
production by Greg Engler and a special thanks to Una
Eerie for sharing the story of her father. And you
can see the documentary on Amazon called Neeries The Dream
at the End of the Rainbow, a beautiful story about
an Irish immigrant who turned his love of people into
a restaurant you must go to if you're ever on
(37:43):
fifty seventh Street down by a first and second avenue
in that part of the city called Sutton Place. Stop
by neeries and by all means, have the pork chops.
It was one of my favorites until Una suggested the
lamb chops. And I think I'll never eat anything else
ever when I go back, and of course you must
have their rice pudding. The story of Neari's restaurant, the
story of Jimmy Nearie, the story of so much more,
(38:06):
but particularly the love of a daughter or her father,
all of it here on our American stories.
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