The other New Thing from my weekend in New York came when we visited the neighborhood where my friend Justin (he of the many music suggestions) works. We waited for him at a bar not too far away from where he works, as I understand it.

It's called "The Ear Inn" - and the story behind it is pretty great.

I wish I had known all of this when we stopped by Saturday - I treated it only as a place to pass some time - but there's quite a bit of history to The Ear Inn.

The building is a Landmark of the City of New York, and how it got its name is the one thing I was aware of this weekend: When part of the 'B' from the neon "BAR" sign went out, rather than wait through a lengthy review for a new sign by the Landmark Commission, the establishment just became the "EAR". I'm not sure how long the "R" has been completely out, but the Ear name seems pretty well-established at this point. (Apparently there was also an Ear Magazine, about music, printed upstairs.)

That all happened in 1977 - before that, the bar had no official name. It was known as 'The Green Door'.

There's a tremendous history of the building dating back to the 1700s - I read about it at the website for the bar, which you can click over to and read yourself. A couple of my big takeaways - apparently the location of the house (Spring Street) was originally just feet from the original coast of the Hudson River, and it's one of the few Federal-style houses left in the city.

This is all very exciting to me.

I'm in love with the colonial history of Boston. But I think I slight New York on some of its colonial history. I think one of my New Things this summer will be to further explore some of the history of New York in that downtown area.

Thanks to the Ear Inn for inspiring me to do that.