O’Connor’s: Park Slope’s Classic Dive Bar

The world needs O’Connor’s more than O’Connor’s needs the world.  I say this because O’Connor’s lets us believe that there are still some things worth romanticizing.  How else would you describe a bar that opened in 1931 (prohibition wasn’t repealed until 1933) and who, as of a few proprietors ago, was owned by a Brooklyn native named Dutch Joe? The last time I hung out here, the bartender was a guy my age who seemed like he unintentionally dressed like James Dean and looked like he could’ve been a bartender in any decade from the 50’s on.  The only songs he played on the speakers was early soul music and he was cool in the traditional sense of the word, never smiling but not unapproachable.

O’Connor’s feels like a Jim Jarmusch movie, both strange and wonderful.  While the place gets crackin on the weekends, I prefer to spend my time with the old timers who come here during the week and talk about all the great New York City bars that have come and gone.  The drinks are cheap, so its easy to sit here and talk all night.

O’Connor’s
39 5^th Ave. btw Bergen & Dean Sts.
[Park Slope]

photo from Manny F. on Yelp