Rosie O’Grady’s saloon honors celeb customers from JFK Jr. to Bono in final toast
It’s last call for Rosie O’Grady’s, and the famed Midtown saloon is finally dishing on the boldfaced names who’ve drank — and even saved a stranger’s life — there.
The beloved watering hole will pour its last pint on July 1, ending its 41-year run in the heart of the Theater District.
“Celebrities knew they could come here and be left alone,” second-generation owner Michael Carty, 55, told The Post. “A lot of athletes, all sorts of dignitaries and presidents, and a lot of movie stars. It’s a long list.”
One of its most famous regulars, and it’s most tragic, was John F. Kennedy Jr., whose magazine “George” was headquartered near the West 52nd and 7th Ave bar.
“He was in Rosie O’Grady’s two days before he died,” recalled server Kathleen Carty, Michael’s cousin, who still remembers Kennedy’s first visit.
“He happened to sit at my table. He looked up at me and said, ‘What is your name?'” she recalled.
“I said, ‘I’m Kathleen.'”
“Oh, that’s a strange name for an Irish girl,” he teased.
He then proceeded to tell her about his own Aunt Kathleen and ordered a shepherd’s pie and a Heineken.
He wound up coming in three or four days a week until his death in 1999 in a plane crash.
O’Grady staffers traveled to his apartment in Tribeca to pay their respects.
“We all went down there with flowers … we left little candles and prayers,” Kathleen Carty said.
New York Knicks forward Charles Smith killed the team in the final seconds of Game 5 of the Eastern Conference finals in 1993, missing four straight layups against the Chicago Bulls — but he made a game-saving decision at O’Grady’s.
“Charles Smith saved the life of a very large man by giving him the Heimlich,” Michael Carty explained.
“It was scary, the guy couldn’t breathe. [Smith] came running across the room and lifted him in his chair, pumped a few times, and the next thing you know, it came loose whatever was lodged in there.
“It was after the missed layup. We thought, ‘Wow, this should be in the papers because it was redemption.’ I bumped into him on the street not too long ago and he still remembers.”
Political figures from both sides of the aisle have put aside their differences there.
“There was a day where we had George Bush Sr. and Hillary Clinton sitting on the other side of the room,” Michael Carty remembered.
“Governor Hochul’s been here quite a bit. Her father used to come in. Mayor Adams has been here probably three times already. Jesse Jackson, believe it or not, whenever he’s in town, Al Sharpton. Letitia James and Kirsten Gillibrand were down here recently.”
Comedians worked on material there.
“Jimmy Fallon used to come here all the time and film skits down here. There he’s dressed up as Rafael Nadal … he’d play tennis in here,” said Michael, pointing to a photo of “The Tonight Show” host behind the bar.
“I’ve never seen him drunk here ever. He can guzzle a Guinness, I will say that.
“Pretty much the whole entire cast of ‘Saturday Night Live’ would come when they were rehearsing for lunch. Will Ferrell would have an egg white omelet with his pants above his ankles.”
Funnyman Bill Murray was also a frequent guest — and once surprised fellow revelers with his generosity.
“He ordered two bottles of champagne and bought everybody in the bar a drink,” said head bartender Pat O’Connell, who has been serving at O’Grady’s for 30 years.
Musicians also brought down the house, except Bono, who wasn’t given the red-carpet treatment.
“Bono walked in one day and the guy at the door didn’t recognize him at all,” Michael said of the host, who still works there. “But he grew up in Bangladesh so he wouldn’t have known him.
“There’s a table at the front desk there that we really just save for the staff. It’s a terrible table. And he seated him there. And he was sitting there eating a burger. And our manager looks over and says, ‘Why is Bono sitting at the worst table?'”
Michael’s 81-year-old father Mike, an Irish immigrant who still reports to work every day to oversee daily operations, opened Rosie O’Grady’s with his late business partner Austin Delaney after their original location on Murray Street, which opened in 1971, shuttered in 1981.
During the pandemic, the Cartys struggled to pay their $3 million-a-year rent.
At the end of 2020, they signed a term sheet with their landlord, SL Green Realty Corp, stating they would pay a percentage of their gross sales instead of the entire rent, but then the company allegedly reneged on the deal.
“Shortly after that, they turned around and said, ‘Actually, we’ve changed our mind. We don’t believe this term sheet is binding,'” Michael Carty said.
Loyal patrons have suggested they ask some of their customers in high places for help in saving their favorite bar.
“People have said, ‘Why don’t you reach out to Governor Hochul?’ She loves us here. Why don’t we reach out to Kirsten Gillibrand,” he said.
“It’s not our way. We don’t go with our hat in our hands begging for help.”
