A Reminder of Something Not Worth Remembering

There aren't many New Yorkers who harbor warm memories of The Coliseum, the ugly, hulking convention center that Robert Moses built in 1956 on Columbus Circle as a monument to himself. Nobody shed a tear when it was torn down in 2000. The Time Warner Center may not be an enormous improvement, charm-wise, but at least it's got some good restaurants in it, and affords inhabitants a thrilling view of the Circle and Central Park.

One person remembers The Coliseum daily, however. The owner of the Coliseum Bar & Restaurant, which sits on E. 58th Street, directly opposite when its namesake used to sit. It has operated under that name since 1978, when The Coliseum must have seemed as permanent a part of Manhattan as the Empire State. It's part of a group of pubs, all owned by the same people; they include The Molly Wee Pub, The Emerald and O'Reilly's and four others. These are all in midtown and—aside from the Molly Wee, fairly free of character. But if all you want is a pint, and the game, they'll do.

The Coliseum Bar space has been a bar since 1949, when it was a hangout for The Westies gang.