TUTIE’S, Ozone Park

by Kevin Walsh

Two for the price of one on Liberty Avenue at 88-17, with ads for a former local tavern, Tutie’s, and Garcia Grande Cigars.

Forgotten Fan James Burke remembers Tutie’s. He writes:

Tutie’s was a bar in Queens, on Liberty Ave. I think. It was unique in that every piece of memorabilia you could think of was in the bar.  Hanging from the ceiling, on the walls on the floor, unbelievable.  You could bring something in and they would hang it up.  For a price, you were allowed to hack out a piece of the bar, don’t know how they allowed that & kept the bar standing but they did.  Bells & whistles all over the place, especially in the ladies room!

What a place!

and…

As the years rolled by just about everything you could imagine ended up somewhere in the bar at 88-19 Liberty Ave. There was even a toilet seat hanging from the ceiling. If you could name something that wasn’t there, you’d get a free drink.

The famous slogan of the bar’s owner, Tutie Sommese, was “If you’re sick of living and don’t know how to die come on down and give Tutie’s a try.” The Sommese family was one of the oldest in Ozone Park. John Sommese was an embalmer who lived on 94th Street with his wife, Concetta. Other Sommese family members were grocery workers and countermen.

After World War II, Tutie’s was very popular with returning servicemen. A generation later their sons returning from Vietnam loved the place just as much when they returned home. The wild atmosphere fed by the tchotchkes really took you away from the world and your problems. [Queens Chronicle]

The Tutie’s painted ad is still visible on the side of the building at 88-17 Liberty. It’s set far back from the street and must have been originally positioned to be seen from the el. Graffitists have now obscured the Garcia Grande cigar ad.

“Comment…as you see fit.”

4/25/17

22 comments

Steve Smith April 25, 2017 - 2:48 pm

Garcia Grande was a local company headed by Mr. Julius Klorfein. An August 1922 item in The Retail Tobacconist (a Long Island City publication) says he was a pioneer in the method of combining Havana filler with Connecticut binder and a Shade-Grown wrapper, which I think is still the standard process today? Previously all Havanas were ‘clear wrapped’ and 100% Cuban tobacco. His company grew from a small handrolled enterprise with five cigarmakers in 1913 to five factories in NY, NJ, & PA producing 50,000,000 cigars a year by 1922 with nationwide adrvertising; …and a fancy suite of offices on Fifth Avenue.

https://books.google.com/books?id=0QxLAQAAMAAJ&pg=PT661&lpg=PT661&dq=garcia+grande+cigars+manufacturer&source=bl&ots=KxrLxXVO5r&sig=py0U0D6N0m97X9Ml5SCwob40pHs&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi2of6yocDTAhVH7oMKHdDYC9YQ6AEIIDAD#v=onepage&q&f=false

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Anonymous April 25, 2017 - 10:18 pm

It’s a mosque now.

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Mary V. May 1, 2017 - 9:37 am

I remember at 4:00 am when it became an after hours place and everybody went downstairs. At that time the only thing you could purchase was Pabst Blue Ribbon. I also remember a nickel that was somehow nailed to the bar upstairs. Everyone used to try to remove it but no one was ever successful. That was many, many years ago. Thanks for the trip down memory lane.

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Anonymous November 6, 2017 - 8:15 pm

I remember the after hours downstairs. Tutie always cooked on Friday night. I used to hang out with Buddy (tuties son) when he was on the police force.

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Richard Longpre June 16, 2018 - 9:21 am

In 72/73 my wife and I rented the 2nd floor, left side, apartment in the Tuttie’s building. If you look at the building picture above, the window to the right of the “At” in the Tuttie’s sign was our kitchen. The window to the right f that was a dinning room. Our bedroom was at the front. We could wave to people on the El from our bedroom window. My wife and I helped out in the bar on Friday and Saturday nights. My wife often bartended on Wednesdays when Gus, the day bartender, had the day off. I also bartended at the after hour club downstairs. I was Friends with both Jimmy and Buddy but hung around with Buddy more. Buddy had talked about becoming a cop but worked at the bar at this point. We had a lot of good friends at Tuttie’s. On Sunday afternoons Tuttie would get busy in the little kitchen in the back of the bar and whip up something to eat, usually Italian and always good. Tuttie’s antics behind the bar were legendary. Sometimes he would pull a microphone down from the clutter hanging from ceiling and marry a couple of customers but only for the night. We had a good time but after a year or so we decided this was not where we wanted to raise out two daughters and we moved to the mountains in New Jersey. My wife is gone now and my two daughters barely remember it but I have some good memory’s. I’m now retired and live on a lake just north of Houston Texas.

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Richard Longpre June 17, 2018 - 7:41 am

Correction. We lived on the 3rd frool. Tuttie’s, the bar, was the entire first floor,

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Anonymous February 13, 2023 - 8:53 pm

Buddy’s police career was short lived.

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Mike crean May 7, 2018 - 8:47 pm

I remember you used to go to the bar when everything else was closed .
Lol
It was always open
I remember the pasta also ..
Don’t think we had to pay .
But it was a dump ..

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Claudia Peers May 15, 2018 - 9:47 pm

Is that the Mike Crean from 102 st?

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Eddie O’Toole October 16, 2018 - 2:53 pm

Tutie’s bar was an absolute classic place. I played senior division Lynvet football with Buddy when he started on the NYPD and I started working on Wall St. I was from Cypress Hills in East New York and the Lynvets and all the good guys from Ozone Park, like Buddy, helped me turn my life around from the neighborhood I came from. A lot of the guys I played football with were from John Adams HS that we always played on Election Day when I was playing for St. John’s Prep when it was in Bed-Sty.

Great memories great times, wouldn’t trade them for anything.

Eddie O’Toole Bradley Beach NJ (Jersey Shore)

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Anonymous January 3, 2019 - 12:07 pm

When did tutties close?

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OZ Girl November 7, 2021 - 12:26 pm

Rubies closed in or about 2010

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Barbara Notaro April 11, 2019 - 1:33 pm

My parents met at Tuties, he was a bartender there. Tutie was my brothers Godfather. My parents took us there when we were in Richmond Hill. Looked like a fun place in it’s day! Years later I made a friend out here & my parents had a picture with his Mom in it, when they were all single!

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Joseph McGrory April 23, 2020 - 1:17 am

My mother told me of times she would go up to Tuties to get her father my grandfather during prohibition when it was a speak easy, then latter she and my dad hung out there. Tuties son was the best man at my aunt and uncles wedding in the 40s

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Ray G...Retired aircraft electrician U.S.N.R. August 9, 2020 - 7:17 am

Retired Navy

In the fifties as a 17 year old sailor going to school at N.A.S. Floyd Bennett field.
I was able to visit Tuties.
It was one of the most memorable places I have ever been.
And being a service man in uniform, no question was ever ask if you were old enough to drink.
It was a crazy place.
I can still remember being jam packed. 3 or 4 deep at the bar.
And don’t dare keep any money on the bar because the bartender would mix your money up with other customers money.
I remember them having a mike in the ladies room and turning it on the P.A. so the customers could hear what was being said.
The walls and ceiling were full of every thing you could imagine.
If you asked for a souvenir the bartender would use an ax to chop a piece of the bar to give you.
You would never go there wearing a tie. If you did the half of would be cut off and pined to the wall .
On occasion, the bartender would set up bowling pins at one of the bar and then standing on the other end would roll a bowling ball down the bar.

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Ray G. August 9, 2020 - 1:32 pm

As a young sailor attending aviation school at N.A.S. Floyd Bennett Field
in the early fifties, I had the pleasure of visiting Tuties.
It was one of the most fun places I have ever been.
The place had every imaginable thing hanging from the ceiling or nailed on every wall.
Being a service man in uniform, no one questioned if I was old enough to drink.
The place was crazy.
There were always 3 to 4 people deep at the bar.
No one would think of wearing a tie because half of it would be cut off and pined on the wall.
We would not dare place our money on the bar because the bartender would go quickly from one end of the bar to the other mixing everyone’s money together.
Ask for a souvenir and a piece of the bar would be chopped of with an ax and handed to you.
There was a secret microphone planted in the ladies bathroom. Without ladies using the room knowing, they would turn it on so the customers could listen in on bathroom conversations.
On occasion, they would set up bowling pins at one end of the bar. and at the other end the bartender would stand on the bar and roll a bowling ball knocking the pin down.
I will never forget how much New Yorkers love and cherish services men.

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Walter Kern July 10, 2021 - 4:27 pm

I remember Tudies, after getting out of the Navy. I was an aviation electrician attached to VF 121 squadron aboard the USSRanger aircraft carrier. When home on leave ( in the mid 60’s) I went to Tudies with some friends, always had a great time. I knew Tudies son Jimmy and Tommy (the school bus driver) Tommtlived right up the block from me. All of my squadron patches and one of my white hats were donated to the bar. When I got married and moved to Long Island, I remember going into Queens during the power outage from hurricane Gloria in 1986 with my big coolers to get ice from Tudies bar, and have a few beers with the man himself, talking over old times. He still had the parking meter my friends and I rescued from Liberty Avenue after some women knocked it down trying to parallel park. All and all I have very fond memories of Tudies . Stayed a few times after hours and saw the sunrise too , good times, and good friends too. RIP Tudie .

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Chip Russo August 2, 2021 - 6:32 am

I particularly enjoyed the hidden microphone in the ladies room. LOL

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bernie dimaio August 3, 2021 - 9:37 am

tuties was casa loco everynite …went there many times while living in …tudor village in the 50 ies walked by it many times after buying ..crumb buns at frues bakery,

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Matthew Moltane November 22, 2021 - 10:11 pm

I grew up hearing stories, crazy stories, from my dad about Tuties. Chopping pieces of the bar off. Tutie jumping up with a Native American headdress on yelling duck before drawing a bow and arrow and literally shooting it over people into the wall. My grandpa went there in 40’s and my dad went there in the early 60’s. Both were in the Navy. Tutie and my dad had a special relationship. We even named our family dog after him. They’d talk every year at Christmas until he passed. My dad took me to meet him in the early 80’s. We walked up and I saw this man sweeping out front of the bar. Went inside and the first thing Mr. Tutie asked me was “you gotta chick?” Too funny!! All those stories were true! Told me that someone tried opening a bar out west with the same flavor but it never worked. I’m sure due to Mr. Tutie not running the place.

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Marisa Hoke December 6, 2021 - 3:40 pm

I remember I remember being taken to Tutie’s Bar in the mid 1960’s by my Uncle John, who was a returned World War II veteran, and whose mother my great grandmother, Rose DiGiacmo, lived in Ozone Park, on 102nd Street. I have lots of memories of life with my wonderful Italian family in Ozone Park, where Nanny’s house was where our extended family gathered on Sundays.

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Nydia May 13, 2022 - 12:33 pm

I remember as a little girl going to Tuties bar to see Tutie and Buddy because Buddy is my brother Bill father my brother was Buddy’s only child he ever had..may they all R.I.P.

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