Farrell's!

No, not the ice cream place. Much, MUCH better.

My brother is moving to Brooklyn and I’m completely jealous. A couple years ago I spent a hilarious girls’ weekend in Cobble Hill and ever since then the borough has been a beacon of happy memories. Add to that the fact that it just doesn’t get more down-to-earth than Brooklyn. “How youse doin’?” the proprietor of the local bar-and-grill bade us hello. “Nah don’t sit back dere. Sit up heah, near the windows. Dees seats are much better. Can I getchas a beeh?” Brooklyn is my happy place. Brooklyn, as I have told many, is my boyfriend.

So imagine my elation when I find out that not only is Buddy’s place a block from the park, it’s a block from one of the most notorious cop bars in the Five Boroughs: Farrell’s. I have been searching high and low for a good cop bar for months now, and here is the paragon of paragons, dropped right in my lap. Brooklyn + cop bar: it just doesn’t get any better than this.

Buddy shouldn’t have told me about the place, because I all day Saturday I was obsessed with checking it out. “Farrell’s? Can we go to Farrell’s? How about we stop by for a beer. Whaddya say? Farrell’s?” Eager to shut me up, we rambled over before lunch to have a look. And God bless it, it’s exactly what I pictured: old, crappy, stinking of smoke, Yankees & Mets memorabilia everywhere, NYPD and NYFD medallions at every turn, and off-duty police and firemen lined up (standing) at the bar, with nary an open inch between them, knocking back Styrofoam cups full of Budweiser. Even transit cops were in there. This is some serious shit, yo.

But the best part had to be the fireman who had his two-year-old in there with him, running amok between the bar and backtables, now and then emerging from the cloud of omnipresent cigarette smoke that blanketed the place. Little Mikey. “C’mere, Mikey…don’t get in the way of the nice lady,” his father cautioned him, referring to me. Nice lady, ha. Only lady is more like it. Reminded me of back in the day when my own father would take my brother and I to the local tappy for a couple hours when my mom was off at grad school. Ahhh…the memory warms my heart.

Was only in there about 30 seconds before I had to leave (it was lunchtime and I could see my brother was starting to turn into Mr. Hyde from the hunger). I bade the bartender farewell and headed off to the grill around the corner.

I’m bewitched, but Farrell’s definitely warrants a little further investigation. Stay tuned.