(March 26 update ... here's the N and T article mentioned below)
On Sunday: For Grover's sake, what's up with 922 Culbertson Avenue?
While walking today, I saw a familiar face snapping photos of the building at 922 Culbertson Avenue, a process of demolition at which apparently started, then was stopped by the city. It appears that a News and Tribune staffer is looking into it, which is good .
Later I had ten minutes (literally) in the Indiana Room at the library, and gave the city guides a cursory browsing for information on the taverns at 922 Culbertson.
It looks as if Haughey's Place was established around 1937. It was still called Haughey's Place in 1966; if Grover Haughey still was alive, he'd have been around 81. There was a woman named Dorothy listed as living at 922 Culbertson in 1966; I forgot to record her last name, but something tells me she may have been a relative of Grover's. This would explain John Gonder's recollection of the establishment being called Dorothy's during the 1960s.
By 1969, it was called Dieckmann's, and the 1978 city guide records it as Al Mels, which it remained through the early 1990s. In 1996, the listing read Culbertson Avenue Tavern. In the combined 1997/1998 guide, there was no commercial listing for it. In 1999, it appears as home for two persons.
As TC noted on Fb:
"I loved that bar. Grew up two blocks away. hard boiled eggs and pickled bologna -- it opened at six a.m.! It is hard to find an elementary school with a good bar across the road in New Albany any more."
Indeed, it is. It's hard to find an elementary school, period.
