Bukovac's, ca. 1940
This is the first lost venue that I have even the slightest personal information about. Someone I knew's father bartended there and another person's first date with his wife, sometime in the sixties, was there.
Bukovac's opened at least in the early forties. The spot, though, was around as some sort of hall long before that. The Advance has an article that repeats a rumor that Buffalo Bill stayed there when he brought his Wild West Show to the city in 1886, Mariner's Harbor in particular. It's an old building, even if it doesn't appear on the 1874 map, so it's entirely possible.
Blue Goose, 18-20 Union Avenue, ca. 1940
Mary Bukovac and her husband Frank operated Bukovac's and several other bars and halls over their long careers. Her obituary from the Advance in 2004, reports that their primary establishment was the Blue Goose, a bar on Union Avenue they bought in the late forties. In 1956 Frank pled guilty to bookmaking out of the Blue Goose. Years later, it became the Club Island. In 1997, after several smaller fires, it burned down. The story I heard at the time was that the owners had run afoul of the mob, but the FDNY ruled it happened because of a space heater left on overnight.
SI Advance - November 27th, 1948
It appears to have operated as Bukovac's until at least 1971. The next name on the building was the Rainbow Room. Later, yet, it became the Eagle's Nest. That's the name I saw on the building when I actually first saw it sometime in the early nineties. The Eagle's Nest was open into the 21st century, but like all things, it too passed.
SI Advance - July 1, 1988
Now, the building is owned by a Mar Thoma church but as far as I know, the building hasn't been renovated and it isn't open.
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