Strokey’s Bar, 1944

Strokey was born Isidore Sarachek, one of several brothers, three of whom were bootleggers, one an art & antiques dealer, and one a rabbi, born in New York City. The bar was successful after Prohibition was repealed, during which Strokey had been a bootlegger, because bums could come into the bar, drink, and sleep it off under the Third Avenue El, which, when it was demolished in 1950, heralded the bar’s demise. Strokey took care of all the beat policemen, so if a bum should get into some trouble after imbibing at the bar, the cops never bothered him about it. Nor did they bother him one day during his bootlegger days when his brother Moe’s wife Ida, who came from an affluent Philadelphia family, crossed paths with a cop when she was pushing a baby carriage carrying hidden bottles of hooch.

Strokey got his name from childhood when his mother would call him in from the street with the Yiddish nickname of “Strokala” or something similar. Reginald Marsh was an habitué of the bar; his studio was nearby on 14^th Street and he was given to hanging out at the bar with a sketchbook, depicting the various characters who stopped in. Strokey’s younger brother, Moses or “Moe” Sarachek was an executive in a bra/lingerie company located in Allentown, PA, and with his wife Ida would come to New York City to conduct business and visit family. According to Moe’s son, Strokey urged Moe to buy a painting from Marsh because he thought him very talented. Moe’s tastes leaned more toward European collector art like Cortes and 1800s academic figure paintings, but he agreed to buy a painting from Marsh depicting his brother’s bar, and the painting stayed in the family since its completion in 1940.