by Stephanie Keith
Hell Gate
April 10, 2026
Read Original Article
Hank’s Saloon was the mother of all Brooklyn dive bars. Occupying an unassuming, single-story building on Atlantic Avenue in Boerum Hill, the space had operated as a bar in one form or another since 1904.
The Hank’s we know and love opened in 2000, when its owner, Dave Sheeran, painted red flames on the outside and renamed it after a favorite country singer. In 2018, Hank’s was forced to close after a new owner made plans to raze the building and develop the lot—but what happened during the time in between is the making of legends.
On Wednesday night, Freddy’s Bar in South Park Slope brought back the magic of pre-gentrification Brooklyn dives, hosting a sold-out screening of a new documentary about Hank’s. Former bar regulars gathered as they would for an Irish wake, to get drunk and reminisce about the good times they all had together.
Jeannie Talierco, longtime Hank’s bartender and the star of “Hank’s Saloon,” slung drinks from behind the bar and, at 79 years old, still had a lot of spring in her step—she still bartends, at the American Legion Post on 9th Street in South Slope, on Sundays and some Fridays. Many of those in attendance came for the nostalgia of seeing Jeannie—a beloved figure at Hank’s—behind the bar once more, and to try to conjure the grit of a bygone Brooklyn.
After bartending for two hours, Jeannie joined a standing-room-only crowd in Freddy’s back room to view the documentary, which chronicles the history and last days of Hank’s. The location was appropriate; in 2010, the original Freddy’s building was demolished to build the Barclays Center. In essence, these were two great former dive bars recreating their community spirit together, and Hell Gate was there to capture the magic.
“The vibe at Hanks was totally a dive bar, kind of like semi-biker, but not. You feel like there was like a die-hard regular group there, always. I would go by there maybe once or twice a month, for at least 10 to 12 years. I was sad when it closed—all these places downtown have been disappearing over the years. That’s what happens when when you have, what do you call it, gentrification. Things change a lot. I thought they were gonna build something there, but they haven’t. It’s just been sitting there closed for who knows how long.”
“Hank’s, to me, was always a very mixed crowd, just a lot of different kinds of people in that place. You could have a lawyer on one side of you, a musician on the other, so you would often just end up having really spontaneous, fun conversations. People got a little wild, but I never had a bad experience there. The Sunday Honkytonk Brunch would just be people dancing their asses off by like 1 o’clock in the afternoon, to this crazy kind of country. It was fun, and it’s nostalgic to see Jeannie behind the bar. Jeannie now has bartending shifts at the Legion Hall on 9th Street, so she works Fridays sometimes and then Sundays. On a Sunday, you can walk into the Legion and be like, Oh my God, this is all people from Hank’s, which is kind of cute.”
“I had already made a couple smaller documentaries that were dedicated to what I called the ‘vanishing New York weirdo,’ and I mean that in the best possible way. People are getting priced out as the city is changing. A lot of the more eccentric and far-out artistic people I knew were starting to go away, so I decided I was interested in filming that.
[‘Hank’s Saloon’] came out of that, but I was also a huge fan of the bar, going back to 2000. I met some of my best friends there. I had a band that formed and played there; my now-wife gave me her phone number for the first time there, and we’ve been together 18 years. And I was friends with the owners, so when they found out that they were finally, for-sure closing, they very graciously contacted me and asked if I would just film it in the final months.It had been a neighborhood bar under different names since 1904, so there was a lot of history there. I think it was quickly becoming a symbol in a lot of people’s minds of something that was going away, which was the more eccentric dive bar, for lack of a better term. It definitely had a stink smell and a distinct feel—it was not a nice, upscale place—but it was what I would call a more old-school New York bar. There was really no judgment, so you ended up with a really interesting mix of people. You could literally have someone who maybe lives on the streets, or close to it, sitting next to someone who maybe has a million dollars.”
“Hank’s was 25 years of my life, and I miss it.”
“In those days, I worked in Bed-Stuy and after work I would start drinking—doing a bar crawl on Atlantic Avenue. Jeannie was such a character; I knew her since she’s been a teenager and she was blunt—very blunt, like you either love her or hate her. Like when you go to Hank’s and ask for a piña colada, she says, ‘We don’t serve piña coladas here, does it look like we serve piña coladas?'”
Leudo: “I just loved the look of the bar—the forever Christmas lights hanging in the bathroom with all the paintings and the graffiti on the walls. Then I met Jeannie, the bartender, and we just never stopped going—the moment you walk into a place and she knows your name, you feel special. She always made me feel special.”
Crockett: “Hank’s had a particular smell to it, like tobacco and liquor and just funky smell. I liked it. It was great. People came in after work and smoked—when you could smoke in bars. You drink your beer, you smoke, and you cuss. All the chairs were ripped. Everything was drunks hanging around and they were just bullshitting and I’m like, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah.’ The old style, this is the last of it. I can’t stand bars that have nothing but sports TVs, fancy things all over the place—I can’t stand it. I love this shit. I like this old-style stuff.”
“Hank’s was part of the big three of dive bars in Brooklyn at that time—the old Freddy’s, the old O’Connor’s, and then Hank’s, and Hank’s was the last surviving bar. When Freddy’s was gone, and then O’Connor’s was gone, I don’t know, it just happened so fast. When Hank’s went, it was just kind of the end of an era.”
“I was a bartender on and off from 2008 to 2018. I think Hank’s was a place where you could come in with an idea and find someone who would troubleshoot it, someone who would implement it, and somebody who would come see it—as an artist, you really could find support and partners in crime. I think we think we’re becoming a city that services the rich, and Hank’s Saloon was an extraordinarily egalitarian establishment. I’ve never thought Hank’s would last as long as it did, and yet somehow it was a deep shock when it finally closed. It was much more than a bar. It was the cornerstone of a community. It was a place where artists could get together and try things out. It was an incredible music hub. It was a livelihood and it was a lifeline for a lot of people.”
“My husband, Chuck Montgomery, and I had a band for 14 years and we played at Hank’s often. I’m in the movie—we had such a blast. First of all, it was right around the corner. It was in the neighborhood. You could have your neighborhood people and it was a great room to play in. When Hank’s closed, New York lost a place that could serve all manner of of artists and freaks and locals and drunks and everybody. It was indiscriminate in the best of ways. It was an open door—anything could happen at Hank’s, and it usually did.”
“Hank’s was best goddamn dive bar in the United States and I’ve been from New York to Texas, and California doesn’t count. So I love Hank’s—and thank God it happened before cell phones. I mean, the world ended once you could record all the hijinx—all the shenanigans disappeared. So thank you, Hank’s for all the shenanigans. I would get wasted every time I went and roll home and get home safe and do it again the next time.”
