Growing up my first real adult, or semi-adult, “bar home” was Runyons on 52nd street just off of Second Avenue. At Fordham we were lucky enough to be the last class where the drinking age was 18, and somehow we found our way over the years into the storied saloon to listen to everyone from Mike Lupica to Thomas Wolfe tell stories and learn, along with having a few cocktails. It is where I went with my soon to be wife Laura and our friends Kelly and Len Welch after we got engaged, yes on the scoreboard at Madison Square Garden during the ECAC Holiday Festival. The Runyon’s parties at the Final Four still go on, but for me that time, decades ago somehow, was so much a part of my formative years…mostly for the good…in learning and building friendships that continue to last to this day.
Alas Runyon’s moved and eventually faded away from what it was. As a cruel side note, the building that housed it was actually destroyed several years ago by one of the horrific crane collapses that occurred in New York and ironically and sadly, one of those killed in the collapse was a former Fordham star second baseman named Santy Gallone who was driving the crane on that fateful day. (There is always a story tied in, right?)
Runyon’s went the way of so much in New York history…it was overrun by progress. New York, unlike most cities, still has a way of not celebrating it’s history, it reinvents it, and that’s kind of what happened with Runyons. Gone…but not forgotten through its people and places and experiences, at least for me and countless others.
So with that in the rearview mirror over a decade ago I was introduced to Foley’s…hard by the Empire State Building, with the urinals…the oldest in the city still functioning…from the original Waldorf Astoria (which was across the street before it too met its maker to have the ESB built) and its owner Shaun Clancy. And thus began a new tradition…one based far less on drinks, and more on fun and relationships.
My Fordham classmate John Mooney helped Shaun out on the PR side, always coming up with fun stunts…banning Danny Boy, creating the Irish American Baseball Hall of Fame, countless fundraisers disguised as sandwiches and on and on…and it all worked and worked well. In addition to the stuffed burgers Foley’s was also stuffed with stories, and stuffed with memorabilia. Several loyalists had their own part of the walls in the dining room…one of the first I ever noticed was a section that one of my longest connections to the business…photographer Dave Schofield has..with pictures and credentials and all kinds of stuff (I first met Dave when he was our photographer at then Monmouth College in 1986…I was the wet behind the ears and very young Sports Information Director for the Hawks, and he befriended me and taught me so much about dealing with people…as I said there is always a story), and those sections in the bar always became a point of interest whenever we brought someone new to Foley’s. The stuff also included thousands of baseballs signed by people from all walks of life…from the star athletes of past and present to media members to Porn stars to yes, PR peeps. Everyone who has signed always came in to try and find their ball on the wall…and it was part of the relationship we all had with Foley’s.
But while Foley’s has been about the stuff, it was more about the people…the fireman and construction workers, the umpires and the broadcasters, the Penguins fans (it was the official Penguins bar in NY) and the teachers…all of whom made their way in. In a world of no’s and maybe’s and shouting, Foley’s and its staff was always about a yes and figuring out how to help well beyond a burger and a beer, and that’s what made it special. Every time we brought someone to Foley’s…college roommates, high school friends, work pals, my brother Chris and his friends…they left with a sense of awe and wonder. Ironically it was also one of the places I had lunch with my friend Jim Tsokanos, an Iona grad who stared at the walls for most of our lunch and talked with Shaun about the Gaels (as some may know we also lost Jim to coronavirus last month).
And thanks to Mooney and Clancy, we had our share of fun events there as well. Need a spot to bring women’s hockey players? Lets do it at Foley’s (another story…Amanda Kessel, one of the best women’s players on the planet, came to an event and found out it was the Penguins bar…her brother Phil is a Penguins legend…and became a semi-regular). Have women’s golfer’s in NY in January and want to do something different? How about Foley’s? Taking Olympic wrestlers to the top of the Empire State Building? Why not do a little event afterwards across the street at Foley’s…and then they kept going back ON THEIR OWN. Why? Not because it was hip or chic, it was because they were treated so well by Shaun and his staff. They just wandered back in with friends.
And another friends story…my colleague Jerry Milani was working on an event with actor Michael Rooker…he of many roles but of the baseball film “Eight Men Out” as well…and had him in town for some media opportunities. So take him to Foley’s right? But who does Michael call and get to come along…legendary actor, David Strathairn known for hundreds of roles but who also had a key part as White Sox pitcher Eddie Cicotte in the film…and it all happened at Foley’s.
They may not have always been the biggest of names we brought, but Shaun and his team made everyone feel big and important…and that’s what good leaders, good people do. Lift the tide for everyone around you.
On Friday the tide set out on Foley’s, a victim finally of high rents and the Coronavirus. Shaun put out a post, and sent subsequent messages that reopening could not make business sense. It is ironic because I think few thought about Foley’s as a business…it was a part of the fabric of New York sports culture, like Runyon’s and Toots Shor’s and some other places before it…also gone to the memory bank.
Yes it’s was just a place, but Shaun always made it feel like your place and that is rare today in a cookie cutter world of hospitality. We often talk about authenticity in social media. Foley’s was as authentic as it gets.
Just before hearing the news on Friday, which arrived via text from my friend and colleague Kevin Monaghan, I was on a call about a soon to be announced project that Shaun, by the way, is going to love. It involved several people from a prominent organization, and myself and another longtime colleague, Tony Ponturo, presented the idea to those on the Zoom chat with great enthusiasm.
One of the people on the call asked a great question…one which caught us off guard…and one which I thought about for the next half day, until writing this. She asked what is the expected ROI on this project? Frankly, it wasn’t something we could explain right away, as she was looking at an event that we had thought about as fun and noteworthy, in a different way…in an analytic sense, not an emotional or personal one. We gave what we thought was a pretty good answer, but as I sipped my Wawa coffee as the sun rose today, I came up with a better answer, and it really ties to Foley’s
“Sometimes in this business (sports and entertainment) the return is not based on a number. I would bet if you asked those 2,500 fans who were smart enough to join the star player Zoom chat it was the experience of a lifetime. That’s the business we are also in. It is a business of people and experiences that sometimes can’t be measured in numbers.
That being said the ROI will also be, as one person from the organization said, in the conversations, positive ones, we can drum up at a time when people are still looking for positivity. and we can help on providing some fun and different voices through all that we have leading up to this.
What I do know is that every one of those people who join in or watch the recording or hear about it will smile and enjoy…and in these challenging times isn’t that a great thing to be doing for your fans? Giving them a unique way to smile?”
We are in for very challenging times in the months ahead. Some of my personal fears were realized in the incidents that took place in Minneapolis this past week, and I hope and pray that those incidents lead to better social discourse and learning and improving lives than hurting them. I also think the challenging times, especially through the lens of sports and entertainment, are still much more in front of us, as jobs and internships, and businesses like those in Minor League Baseball, do NOT come back, and a void continues to open that we cannot close quickly or creatively. That’s stark reality, and that reality was brought to the forefront personally for me and thousands of others with the news about Foley’s and other Foley’s-like places around the country and the world, coming to light.
However in closing let’s talk about light, not darkness, because that’s what Shaun and his team did for thousands at Foley’s every night and day for over 16 years. They brought us together for shared experiences, made us smile and have fun, and took us in out of the rain. We need that now more than ever, it’s an ROI we can’t measure all the time in numbers, we measure it in heart, and Shaun Clancy is all heart. He will always have mine, and we are forever in HIS debt for bringing us together, for minutes, hours and days and weeks.
Thanks again Clancy, we will see you soon.
In the words of the great Forrest Gump. That’s all I have to say about that.
