by Mallory Richardson, Photo by Duncan Harris

In the mid-1960s, my great aunt Genevieve was a well known character in parts of Greenwich Village, and a regular at Danny Letteri’s No-Name Bar. He was apparently captivated by her ability to recite Irish poetry and sing. Every day, with increasingly failing eyesight, she would make the trip from her nursing home, across West 12th Street, to the bar. Every day, without fail, she would have a bottle of Guinness, sometimes a martini, two cigarettes and a packet of mints. After this, she would recite poetry or sing a song. And before leaving, she would continue her long-running mock spat with the barman, for her own amusement, and the amusement of anyone who happened to be listening. She never paid for anything.

Duncan Harris

Ten years later, for her 94th birthday, Mr. Letteri tore up her bar tab: $10,462. When questioned by the local press, Mr Letteri said “She was 83 when she asked if she could run up the tab and I figured…how much longer could it last?” Mr Letteri said that he was going to start a new tab for Genevieve and he didn’t care if it ran for another 10 years. The Guinness Brewery gave Mr Letteri $5,000, but he turned it over to her financially strapped nursing home.

“Figure one Guinness, one bottle of spring water and a pack of mints every day for ten years—I could retire on that,” Letteri said once. “But Genevieve earns her keep.”