IT’S been a few years (April 2021) since I have been in one of my favorite joints, Millard Fillmore’s on 65th Avenue and 166th Street near Queens College. It’s a neighborhood bar/restaurant in a brick corner building with the date “1912” emblazoned at the roofline. The restaurant isn’t that old, but it looks like it was once a living space that was converted into a bar several decades ago. I have been in dozens of times and the “postgame show” for one or two Forgotten NY tours has been here. The light was just right for this shot on a quiet day in 2021. (Since COVID-19 was still gripping the world, it was quiet all over. Note the ‘sputum screens’ dividing the tables.)
New York State-born Millard Fillmore was the second president who wasn’t directly elected on a national ticket, taking over for Zachary Taylor after the latter’s death. His views on slavery were complicated (see Comments below)
Brooklyn has two streets purportedly named for him, the Landmarked Districted Fillmore Place in Williamsburg and Fillmore Avenue ,one of the few named streets in number and letter-dominated Marine Park (though I can’t vouch if that street was specifically named for the president). Fillmore Street in Morris Park, Bronx appears alongside streets named Garfield and Taylor, so that’s a good bet for a namesake street. In his portraits, Fillmore resembles Alec Baldwin, to me at least.
Staten Island checks in with Fillmore Avenue in Willowbrook, Fillmore Place in Rosebank, and Fillmore Street in New Brighton, a neighborhood that also has a Buchanan Street.
As for Fillmore’s of Fresh Meadows, get the blackened meatloaf. That’s what I always have. I used to be able to get Killian’s Red there, but I’m not sure anymore.
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4/23/24
8 comments
History has relegated Millard Fillmore to the bottom of the presidential rankings in large part because he signed into law the hated Fugitive Slave Act. It required the authorities in free states to return escaped slaves to their Southern owners. The truth was more complicated. Fillmore was opposed to slavery, but considered himself duty-bound to sign the Act as Congress had spent considerable time working it out. He considered the Compromise of 1850, which included the Act, as the last hope of keeping the nation from breaking apart.
Name I remember was back in the 70’s was Vinny’s Hillcrest. But known to many as Marie’s, his wife. Great place for lunch, served many a NYT, Con Ed and Post Office guys. Then it was a small bar, with a big room in back for eating. Oddity in a total residential area. Looked like the homes were built awhile after the bar. Note: the owner of Millard Fillmores also had a bar on Vligh Place named Zachary Taylors. Gone after a fire wihich totaled the entire block
Ah, yes……back in the early 1970’s, Millard Fillmore’s was one of our haunts. On the right side, opposite the bar, was a long shuffleboard table. If we weren’t hanging out there, we could probably be found at McElroy’s on Bell Boulevard in Bayside, where our standard fare was a pitcher of beer and a large platter of fries in the side room, which you entered from the bar, through a pair of swinging doors, like from a Western Saloon. If we wanted to be “fancy”, we would go to the Howard Johnson’s Restaurant on Woodhaven Boulevard, which had been built for the 39-40 Worlds Fair, where we drank “sophisticated” drinks, like Brandy Alexanders and Sloe Gin Fizz. Happy to know that Fillmore’s is still serving.
There was also a Zachary Taylor’s bar in Queens. No Rutherford Hayes’s as far as I know (R.B. Hayes’s wife was famously a Prohibitionist).
same owner
Often called “Lemonade Lucy”, she was the first First Lady to hold a college degree.
That would explain it. But I would like to see R.B. Hayes have a saloon named after him, just to spite Lemonade Lucy.
What?
No mention of Hummel’s on 46th Avenue right east of Auburndale Lane in…Auburndale.
Used to be a great drinking place, We’d bet on how many cockroaches you’d see strolling on the bar.