This place on Third Avenue

This place is a saloon that grew up in the neighborhood, like one of the kids of the same Third Avenue block, between Forty-Third and Forty-Fourth streets. It is somewhat dim and dusty and it is run in a catch-as-catch-can style, with no efficiency at all. It isn’t tough like some of the buckets-of-blood along the avenue, but practically everybody in here, customers and all, could take care of himself in a jam, each in his own way. This saloon has a good air to it, with no cheapness, although everything is plain and simple. The bar itself is plain, but solid. The wooden stools in front of it will hold you all right if you sit on them. The glasses are thick and large. These glasses, and the bottles, are the only things in here that shine. The occasional sun is nicely screened through the benign dust on the windows, some of which look out on Forty-fourth Street and the others on Third Avenue. Occasionally the “L” rumbles by. There is an active serenity about this saloon, and somebody is always doing something, at least talking, all the time it is open.