legacy of boxer and fight trainer Jimmy Glenn<\/a>, who owned bar from 1971 until he passed away in 2020.<\/p>\nAbout 100 people rallied in support of Jimmy\u2019s Corner on Friday. Brigitte Stelzer<\/p>\n
\u201cWe add value to these communities and right now we\u2019re fighting,\u201d said Glenn\u2019s son, Adam, 44, who gathered with a crowd of supporters holding protest signs laid out in classic boxing poster style.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are fighting the Dursts and we are in front of their offices because they are trying to take our home. So we bring the fight to their doorstep.\u201d<\/p>\n
The protest is the latest escalation in the fight between Jimmy\u2019s Corner and the Durst group, which is looking to evict the West 44th Street institution and one of the last classic New York dive bars still selling $3 beer near the Crossroads of the World.<\/p>\n
The younger Glenn sued the real estate giant in December, contending that they have a right to stay until 2029, but the landlords are looking to declare the lease void because of his father\u2019s death, an act he described as a blow below the belt. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe have to fight for the New York that we want,\u201d said owner Adam Lee Glenn. Brigitte Stelzer<\/p>\n
\u201cThe matter is, they think they sit above the community,\u201d he said. \u201cThey don\u2019t think that they\u2019re a part of this anymore. Back then, they were. The reason that we even started the relationship, the reason that this hurt so much, is that these were friends.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Durst organization, however, countered that it had not raised rent for the bar in nearly 20 years \u2014 and that the deal was only because they considered themselves in the corner of the elder Glenn, who was a friend of the late Seymour Durst. But now times have changed \u2014 and they resent being made to look like they fixed the fight.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor 50 years, the Durst family maintained a special personal relationship with the bar\u2019s original owner, Jimmy Glenn. That\u2019s why Durst helped keep the bar\u2019s doors open for decades, including through below-market rent. In fact, Durst has not raised the bar\u2019s rent in nearly 20 years,\u201d a spokesperson for Durst said in a statement.<\/p>\n
Many of the supporters have been patrons of Jimmy\u2019s Corner for decades. Brigitte Stelzer<\/p>\n
\u201cUnfortunately, no good deed goes unpunished.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite the back and forth between the sides, the patrons gathered Friday only wanted their beloved watering hole saved.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think humans have to realize that certain things are way more important than money. Certain places are just powerful. They\u2019re legendary. They keep people together,\u201d said Michael Boucher, a bartender from Brooklyn.<\/p>\n
Melvin Jones, 59, had been flocking to Jimmy\u2019s Corner from Westchester \u201con and off\u201d for the past three decades.<\/p>\n
Jimmy\u2019s Corner was opened in the early 1970s by Jimmy Glenn, a Hall of Fame boxing trainer. LP Media<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a landmark, historical landmark. Once history has gone, that\u2019s it,\u201d said Jones, a security guard.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverybody\u2019s treated fairly. I\u2019ve literally been in there when I\u2019ve seen people in tuxedos from the theater, and I\u2019ve also seen construction workers, or seen bikers,\u201d Jones said.<\/p>\n
As of Friday, Durst\u2019s position made it look like a long shot that the bar would be saved by the bell.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter Jimmy Glenn\u2019s death, Durst decided to sell the building and went above and beyond lease obligations due to the personal relationship with Jimmy,\u201d they said in their statement. \u201cAdam Glenn, a Harvard educated lawyer, was told in November 2024 that the bar would have to vacate the building, and he was subsequently offered $250,000, even though such payment and courtesy advance notice were not a requirement of the lease.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have done our best to be good neighbors, and we regret it has come to this.\u201d<\/p>\n
The bar still looks very much as it did when Glenn, who was a Hall of Fame boxing trainer, opened it in the 1970s \u2014 its narrow walls stuffed with memorabilia from the sweet science and a sign warning patrons that talking politics was banned, a rule the imposing Glenn personally enforced.<\/p>\n
The Durst Organization is looking to sell the building. LP Media<\/p>\n
Glenn rented from Seymour Durst until the real estate magnate\u2019s death in 1995, when his son Douglas Durst \u2014 another friend \u2014 took over, according to the lawsuit.<\/p>\n
The Durst Organization then allegedly took advantage of an aging Glenn in 2019 and hashed out a new lease that allowed the company to terminate the relationship with his death, the lawsuit states. Durst allegedly waited until 2025 to evict the bar, arguing the lease was void long before its stated end in 2029.<\/p>\n
The younger Glenn said the massive community showing proves Jimmy\u2019s Corner was vital to the neighborhood.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t have that much of it left in New York, so we have to fight for what we want,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Don\u2019t count them out yet. Around 100 patrons of the Jimmy\u2019s Corner tavern rallied in Midtown Friday to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":192997,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[8075,2954,57,360,9,197,11,10,4648,2990,2027,58],"class_list":{"0":"post-192996","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-bars","9":"tag-landlords","10":"tag-metro","11":"tag-midtown","12":"tag-new-york","13":"tag-new-york-city-life","14":"tag-new-york-headlines","15":"tag-new-york-news","16":"tag-protests","17":"tag-small-business","18":"tag-times-square","19":"tag-us-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192996","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=192996"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192996\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/192997"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=192996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=192996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=192996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}