Culture
Manhattan Bar Covered Floor To Ceiling In 7,000 First Responder Patches Refuses To Take Any Down
By BSN Staff, . BSN Network. Satire.
NEW YORK, NY, A bar in lower Manhattan has run out of wall.
O'Hara's Restaurant and Pub, located on Cedar Street approximately one block from the World Trade Center site, has spent the better part of twenty-three years accumulating patches from first responders, a collection that now exceeds 7,000 individual items and has effectively consumed every vertical surface inside the establishment, including a section of ceiling that owner Tom Valva describes as 'a judgment call.'
The patches began arriving in the weeks after September 11, 2001, when first responders from across the country started mailing tokens of solidarity to a bar that had, by geographic accident, become a de facto gathering place for the people digging through the rubble a block away. Police departments, fire stations, EMS units and search-and-rescue teams from all fifty states eventually contributed. Then Canada got involved. Then several countries that do not share a border with Canada.
There are currently patches from fire departments in Bavaria, a constabulary unit from the Scottish Highlands, and at least one organization from New Zealand whose name, when translated, refers to a type of indigenous bird rather than any emergency service, though Valva says he is giving them the benefit of the doubt.
'We are not curating,' Valva told reporters, using the word 'curating' in the way that people use it when they mean the opposite. 'If a first responder sent it, it goes up.'
A spokesperson for the New York City Buildings Department confirmed that the department is 'aware of the establishment' and described the patch situation as 'something we continue to monitor,' which is the precise language agencies use when they have decided to never actually do anything.
Architects who have visited the bar report that the patches have achieved what one structural consultant called 'a load-bearing quality,' meaning that at this point the patches may be providing more structural integrity than the drywall beneath them. This claim has not been independently verified, partly because no one can see the drywall.
The bar itself, for those unfamiliar, is a traditional Irish pub that serves food and drinks and operates as a normal restaurant except for the part where the hamburger arrives and you are being watched by 7,000 simultaneous emblems of institutional authority from forty countries. First-time visitors report a sensation described variously as 'moving,' 'overwhelming,' and 'like eating a Reuben inside a government building that has feelings.'
Regular patrons have reportedly stopped noticing. This is the more disturbing detail.
'You get used to it,' said one man who has been drinking at O'Hara's since 2003 and could not, when pressed, name a single patch he specifically remembered. 'It's like wallpaper.' He then appeared to realize what he had said and ordered another beer.
New patches continue to arrive at a rate that Valva estimates at several per week. A recent delivery included contributions from a volunteer fire brigade in rural Finland, a harbor patrol unit from Portugal, and what appears to be an internal morale patch from a federal agency that asked not to be identified, which raises questions that O'Hara's is not equipped to answer and has no intention of pursuing.
Valva says the collection will not be taken down, reorganized, or moved to a larger facility. He says this is about respect. He also says there is simply no way to get the first ones off the wall anymore without a licensed contractor and possibly a court order.
Both things are true.
The story we are making fun of: https://nypost.com/us-news/bar-near-ground-zero-is-a-tribute-to-more-than-7k-9-11-first-responders/