we're here, we're Ruddys, get used to it

In Samuel Delaney's _Times Square Red, Times Square Blue_, the author describes a bar in Times Square called "Ruddy's." A jazz bar in its current incarnation, Ruddy's had, as of 1997, begun attracting a more "upscale" clientele.

Although Delany doesn't name Ruddy's as specifically a "gay" bar, I like to think that, like Ruddys themselves, it's an ally.

And I should mention here that the bar is probably named for the REAL Ruddys, i.e., those who are Irish, as opposed to the Russian Ruddys, who used to be Rudovskys, and of whom I am one.

Still, had I known of the existence of this bar, you better believe I would have been in there demanding my free drink.

There is, also, a part of me that wishes that Ruddy's WAS a gay bar, a fact that I could, if I were so inclined, leverage against my more conservative relatives for, like, eternity. And I would probably have enjoyed that free drink even more.