East River Bar

I've lived in New York for over seven years and during that time many of my assignments for the Village Voice have been to photograph bars. I would guess I've photographed at least 60-70 by now. Some are memorable, most are not so much. In 2004 I was assigned to photograph East River Bar, which is located on the Brooklyn side of the Williamsburg Bridge. With the bars I always like to call ahead of time to let them know I'm coming and ask when the best time is. I can't remember exactly, but the owner or manager at ERB would have said something like "Sure, come on over tonight. We should have a good crowd by around 8:30 or 9:00." So I walked over the bridge, pausing on the Brooklyn side to admire the sunset over Lower Manhattan. I arrived at the bar and saw immediately that almost everybody was out on the patio, where you can bring your own food to grill (BYOBBQ). There was a couple inside playing pool and so I dutifully photographed them as well. Over a year later, in the fall of 2005 when I had begun playing regularly, I went back to ERB in search of a game. This time, unfortunately, nobody was playing pool but I still wanted to shoot around a bit. The table was more beat up than I remembered, and it been re-oriented since my first visit, presumably because they have live music on the same platform. I do recall one funny detail, and I wish I had taken a picture of it: apparently the 8 ball had gone missing and so they got out a spare cue ball and used a marker to draw the number 8 with a circle around it. I am due for another visit, perhaps this winter once it's cold and they've got the portable fireplace up and running.