The Wonder City Web Comic: The Great Whale of Coney Island, Chapter 5-Installment #1

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We begin chapter five this week and two months have gone by since Lizzie’s death. Velma hasn’t heard from Owen and with the Light Keepers telling her to focus on her work and not on Owen, she’s a mess. Enter Velma’s good friend Dottie Cento. She’s a tough-talking Italian female lawyer (yes they did exist in the 40’s) and she’s going to talk Velma into going rogue.

The first panel of this week’s installment is an exterior of a bar which Courtney modeled after one of our favorite Manhattan spots, the Ear Inn at 326 Spring Street in SoHo. Established in 1817, it is considered to be the oldest bar in New York to keep selling alcohol even through the prohibition. The building itself was built in 1770 for an African American aid to George Washington by the name of James Brown.

Because of shifting coastlines, the property at the time was considered waterfront and well situated on the road up from New York to Greenwich Village. The Ear got its name when the current owners took over the bar in the 70’s. They found that the neon sign over their door which was supposed to read “BAR” actually looked like the word “EAR” because the rounded parts of the B had burned out. Rather than deal with the complicated process of changing the signage on a landmarked building, they kept the name.