Freddy's Bar & Backroom

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485 Dean St. Brooklyn, NY 11215

718-622-7035

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Best neighborhood bar slated for destruction by Frank Gehry
Award Winner 2007

Hours: Sun 12pm-4am, Mon-Sat 11am-4am
Entertainment: Live Entertainment

Description

Eight or so years ago this Prohibition-era cop bar was charmingly reborn and redecorated by manager Donald O'Finn and friends with a mass of thrift-store tchotchkes, books stuck into built-in shelves, and televisions screening O'Finn's videos (reformatted old film and TV clips). In addition to sponsoring its own in-house literary magazine and providing a space for community activist groups like Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn, Freddy's hosts some of the city's most original readings and performances: Sing and Win a Ham, and the much praised Cringe Reading Night of teenage diary excerpts. The future of this neighborhood treasure is uncertain, as it lies, according to O'Finn, "in the footprint" of Bruce Ratner's megalomaniac Atlantic Yards development.

2007 | Best neighborhood bar slated for destruction by Frank Gehry

Once upon a time, architect Frank Gehry had some cred among progressives. The postmodernist's image probably began fading as his designs started repeating themselves, his style descending into cliché--all those buildings that look like they've already fallen down. But Gehry's pact with developer Bruce Ratner to design the megalithic Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn torpedoed whatever remained of his alterna-rep. The community issues involved with Atlantic Yards are larger than... More »
2005 | Best Spelling Bee for Adults

This isn't Broadway or grade school--you won't come away singing show tunes or with a plaque to show your mom--but the last Wednesday of every month you can be a spelling bee champion. With cheap beer and free cookies, the entry fee at FREDDY'S BAR & BACKROOM is one measly dollar and winner takes all--but be careful or you might just sound like another lush without spell-check. More »
2004 | Best endangered speakeasy

Not the least of the casualties of Ratner's bulldozers would be FREDDY'S, a delicately skanky dive bar with an ambience that dates to Prohibition, when its back room was a gin-u-wine covert operation. That space is now South Brooklyn's coziest venue for live music, with a whatever-ya-got mix of jazz, jug bands, and other jokers appearing nightly. More »

Freddy's Is Reopening in the South Slope

By Rebecca Marx | Fri, October 22, 2010

When Freddy's Bar & Backroom was unceremoniously evicted from its home almost half a year ago, manager Donald O'Finn promised that the bar would reopen on Fourth Avenue and Union Street. O'Finn stayed... More »