A Greenwich Village resident who is suing to block the re-opening of a Prohibition Era pub bizarrely compared the literary landmark — a favorite haunt of authors F. Scott Fitzgerald and Norman Mailer — to the area’s shuttered brothels.
“To deceptively paint the picture that this ‘speakeasy’ of the 1920s is a part of the ‘fabric’ of our neighborhood is as ridiculous as suggesting that the brothels that existed around the same time are part of its fabric too,” whines Bedford Street resident Thomas Kearney, 35, who has lived on the block with his family for 10 years.
“Should we ‘re-open the brothels too?” the angry dad of two huffs in court papers.
The private equity honcho filed the affidavit in response to something said by Chumley’s owner, retired firefighter Jim Miller, who told The Post, “We’re woven into the fabric of Greenwich Village,” in response to Kearney’s suit.
The 1922 former speakeasy at 86 Bedford St. — where the term “86’d” was coined after a drunken patron was tossed out the back door — closed after its facade collapsed in 2007.
Kearney claims the Chumley’s crowd had changed over the years from literary giants to obnoxious “bridge-and-tunnel partygoers.”
Kearney and almost 50 of his neighbors sued the State Liquor Authority in February after the agency granted the historic establishment an operating license.