The Original Sports Bar - Toots Shor's

In America today there are over 1,500 sports bars and every town has a good one, but in the 1950s in New York City there was only one choice Toots Shor’s.

It wasn’t a place where you could watch a game or even listen to it,  but it became known as the country’s unofficial sports headquarters.

On any given night a who’s who of the sporting world could be found there, as well as the writers that covered them..

Try to imagine a sanctuary where baseball players, celebrities and notables would gather and since they are in such close proximity,  actually interact.

A couple blocks from Madison Square Garden and across the street from Radio City Music Hall,  a sign attached to a modern building at 51 West 51st Street tells the story.

“The original site of Toots Shor’s restaurant where the ‘crumb bums’ who played sports and the ‘crumb bums’ who wrote about them got together with those who rooted for them and read them.  Especially Toots”

Born into a Jewish family in 1903, he was nicknamed Tootsie because of his mop of curly blonde hair, later the nickname was shortened to Toots.

He and his two sisters were raised in a home above the family candy store in South Philadelphia, where he often hung out at pool halls and gambled.

Shor studied at the Drexel Institute and briefly at the Wharton School before heading to New York City.

Standing over 6 ft tall and over 250 punds, he became a bouncer and greeter at several speakeasies.

A passionate sports fan,  Shor signed a 21-year lease for his own bar and restaurant,  that cost $141,000 to complete and opened April 30th 1940.

“If God told me I could have anything and do anything I wanted in life,  I would say to be a saloon keeper because where else could I make the friends I’ve got”.

One legendary night in the ’40’s,  Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Babe Ruth and Jack Dempsey walked together from the circular bar to their private tables as the place erupted with applause.

New York dominated baseball in the ’50s with three major league teams, the New York Yankees, the Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Giants.

Toots always welcomed athletes from any sport, but his first love was baseball.

Joe DiMaggio was often there with Marilyn Monroe.

Mickey Mantle could stay late assured that no one would be leaking his whereabouts to Yankees manager Casey Stengel.

Whitey Ford and Yogi Berra signed their contracts at Shor’s and supposedly Yogi was introduced to Ernest Hemingway there and asked “what paper you with Ernie?”

Gangster Frank Costello, Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren, actors Jackie Gleason, Pat O’Brien, Frank Sinatra were regulars along with the Kennedys and the Rockefellers.

Writer Gay Talese,  Jimmy Breslin, Howard Cosell, Ed Sullivan, Johnny Carson, Bob Hope, Frank Gifford, boxers Rocky Marciano and Rocky Graziano, jockey Eddie Arcaro, golfer Jimmy Demeret, and author James Michener frequented.

Toots bar much like the man himself had its own unwritten code:  wives while not barred we’re not particularly welcome. Even less welcome we’re married men with women who weren’t their wives. Coats and ties were required and off-color jokes were frowned upon

The food per Toots was “nuttin fancy”, standard bar fare for the time, shrimp cocktail and steaks with baked potatoes were king.

If you were a friend down on his heels, Toots would be more than happy to “give you the pencil”, meaning you could sign for what you needed and pay him back when you were flush.

And at the center all of this was it’s namesake, an urchin from the streets of Philadelphia.

“There never was a gathering place like it and there never will be again”.