GEOFFREY COBB
Author, “Greenpoint Brooklyn’s Forgotten Past”
gcobb91839@Aol.com
McGinn’s looked like a hundred other working-class taverns scattered across Brooklyn, but to the men who gathered there every evening it was much more than a bar. It was where neighbors traded news, argued about baseball and politics, found jobs on the waterfront, celebrated births, mourned deaths, and forgot the hardships of another day’s work. In old Greenpoint, a neighborhood tavern served as a second living room.
If McGinn’s itself was unremarkable, its new bartender was anything but. Thirty-two-year-old Roger Kennedy possessed the rare gift of making customers feel as though they had come not merely for a drink but for his company. Men who intended to stop for one beer often found themselves lingering for three.
Kennedy had arrived in New York only a short time earlier, and McGinn’s was his first American bartending job. His Irish brogue was so thick that customers often asked him to repeat himself, something that only made him laugh. He quickly learned every regular’s name and favorite drink. He listened far more than he spoke, but when he did speak, it was usually with warmth, wit, or quiet wisdom.
Good-natured and endlessly patient, Kennedy reminded many customers of their Irish fathers and grandfathers. He possessed an instinctive feel for tending bar. He knew when a man wanted nothing more than a beer and a few moments of silence, and when another needed someone to listen. His Irish jokes and stories about life back home regularly filled the tavern with laughter.
The regulars delighted in teaching Kennedy about America. They explained baseball, the hiring “shape-up” on the docks, banking, tipping, and a hundred other customs that were second nature to them but completely foreign to the newcomer from Ireland.
Nothing amused them more than Kennedy’s introduction to American tipping. After one of his first customers left a one-dollar tip, the bewildered bartender ran after him, insisting he had forgotten his money. The regulars laughed heartily before explaining that the extra dollar was his to keep. They also introduced him to the tradition of the complimentary “buy-back” beer that generous bartenders often offered loyal customers, a custom that usually resulted in even larger tips. Kennedy’s warmth, humor, and Irish charm soon ensured that he walked home most nights with a healthy pocketful of tip money.
Night after night Kennedy heard the same conversations. The men complained that Greenpoint no longer felt like the neighborhood where they had grown up. They spoke about rising crime, changing streets, and arguments with wives who wanted to leave Brooklyn for the quieter suburbs of Long Island.
Even McGinn’s was changing. Years earlier the regulars had never thought twice about walking home after midnight. Lately there were stories of muggings, robberies, and strangers drifting into neighborhood bars. Most dismissed them as isolated incidents. They were wrong.
Then, in early April, Greenpointers opened the Daily News and were horrified to discover that Roger Kennedy had been shot and killed in their neighborhood tavern. Just after last call, Kennedy was counting the night’s receipts and preparing to lock them in the safe when a young man entered carrying a .45-caliber pistol and announced a holdup. Kennedy reacted instinctively. Rather than surrender the evening’s modest receipts, he vaulted over the bar and grabbed the gunman.
It was a courageous decision—and a fatal one. The robber, later identified as twenty-three-year-old John Coonan of Manhattan, broke free and fired four shots. Two struck Kennedy in the chest, killing him instantly. Sixty-three-year-old Vincent Kessner, a longtime Greenpoint resident, was so enraged by the murder that he forgot his own safety and chased the gunman into the street, shouting at the top of his lungs, “Get him! Get him!”
Two young men who had left the tavern only moments earlier, twenty-two-year-old Robert Ceruto and twenty-three-year-old Thomas Solecki, heard the shots and turned to see Coonan running down the street with the pistol still in his hand. They immediately gave chase.
Realizing the two men were gaining on him, Coonan suddenly wheeled around and attempted to aim the pistol at them. Whether he lost his nerve or simply panicked, he turned and ran again instead of firing, allowing his pursuers to close within a few feet.
Near Calyer Street, Ceruto finally tackled the fleeing gunman. As the pistol discharged harmlessly, Solecki threw himself onto Coonan. The two enraged men held him down and pummeled him until police officers arrived seconds later and pulled them away.
Most of McGinn’s regulars attended Kennedy’s funeral at St. Anthony’s Church. They were still struggling to comprehend that such a senseless act of violence had happened in the place where they had gathered night after night. They remembered his warmth, his humor, and the way he made everyone feel welcome. As the priest spoke of Kennedy’s kindness and generosity, many in the congregation quietly wiped away tears.
To them, Kennedy’s murder was more than a terrible crime. It symbolized the passing of the Greenpoint they had loved—a neighborhood where people once left their doors unlocked, children played safely in the streets, and everyone knew the bartender by name.
32-year-old Roger Kennedy, bartender at McGinn’s. Photo via Vintage American Bars, Lounges, Clubs, Taverns & Saloons on Facebook.
