Sunny Balzano’s beautiful life, by George Fiala

This adventure started on a Tuesday. On the way to work, I stopped by the longshoreman’s union – catching up on waterfront news as well as enjoying coffee and donuts with my friends there. As I was was leaving the union office a little before 1 pm, I caught the tail end of a Leonard Lopate interview on the radio. Someone had just published a book about Sunny’s Bar in Red Hook.

This was big news to me! In fact, the author, Tim Sultan, was going to be reading and signing books that very evening at the Court Street Bookstore. I attended along with a Star-Revue reporter.

Sunny Balzano was sitting in the front row wearing an enormous hat and scarf, and made some remarks following the reading. On my way out, I left a stack of Star-Revues, in case anyone there might be further interested in our neighborhood.

The adventure could have ended right there; but a few days later, a package showed up at the office.

I finally opened it that evening, and lo and behold, it was that book, Sunny’s Nights, sent to me by Random House. I can only guess they picked up a paper and thought we might be interested to write about it. They were right.

I know that many of you reading this article will know much more about Red Hook and Sunny’s, as I only took a big interest in both in 2010, when I began publishing a community newspaper here.

However, I am not without my own Red Hook history. Back around 1987, at the end of my marriage, I was having an especially rough day at my Boerum Hill home and felt the need to flee to a place even more depressing than me.

I got into my car, armed with a Rolling Stones cassette, and headed to the very end of Van Brunt Street. What is now Fairway was then an old, abandoned warehouse surrounded by junk and debris. A decrepit cyclone fence separated the street from the water. I got out of the car to take a look. I was astonished to see the Statue of Liberty in plain view, a beacon amidst all the detritus.

I like to tell this story because now, all these years later, I come to that very spot every day as that’s where the Star-Revue office is now located.

I first heard of Sunny’s sometime after the millennium while traveling on a flight to Chicago. It was listed as one of America’s “best bars.” I was surprised that a best bar could be in Red Hook. That was still when I still thought of Red Hook as a place to avoid.

When I finally realized the gem of Red Hook, I ventured into the bar but never found it my scene. I gravitated instead to the VFW, the Ice House and Rocky Sullivan’s.

This was around the time that Sultan himself began parting ways with the bar (not though, with Sunny).

He discovered Sunny’s in 1995, when it was only open Friday nights. By 2011 it had begun changing a bit too much for his own taste. This is not to take anything away from the current bar, which is still one of America’s best bars, and Sunny is beloved, as is Tone, who now runs it in a somewhat more professional way.

While I have not become a Sunny’s regular, I have still been lucky enough to get to know Sunny. He has narrated to me some of the stories recounted in the book.

He was immediately kind and welcoming, making me feel at home in his place and in Red Hook as the local newspaper publisher.

Sultan’s book is equally welcoming. In fact, it might be the best book ever written about our neighborhood. It works on so many levels. One gets to know the author, who spent 16 years on both sides of the bar – first as a customer, then a bartender.

I know that many who read this paper love the occasional neighborhood histories that we sometimes publish. The book is full of those stories. Getting to know Sunny is an exceptional gift, and Sultan’s portrayals ring powerfully true. Sultan’s writing is as loving and friendly and warm as Sunny himself.

At a certain point reading the book I realized I was reading something very special – an exquisitely told tale bordering on greatness.

I chose English as my college major because I had fallen in love with F. Scott Fitzgerald. I loved his prose and his characters – Jay Gatsby, Daisy Buchanan, Dick Diver, Amory Blaine, Anthony Patch. Afterwards, I discovered Ring Lardner, Damon Runyon, Ken Kesey and Tom Wolfe – other great American writers.
Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby is considered a great American novel. It has been many a writer’s dream since to write the next great American novel. Sunny’s Night’s qualifies as a novel in much the same way as Jack Kerouac’s On the Road. Both are perceptively told, both are period pieces, and both are basically true stories about a slice of Americana that only someone who was part of the story could have written.

Of course, the book resonates Red Hook. From now on, whenever I walk down Coffey Street towards Dwight, I’ll flash on the night when Sunny was heading to a bar on that corner and met by two men running the other way, chased by gun shots.

When I catch one of those famous Red Hook sunsets, I’ll think of John McGettrick sitting with Sunny’s Uncle John in front of the bar, bathed in a golden flow, watching dust particles fluttering up and down.

This is an important book.
Sunny’s Nights is published by Random House and is available at BookCourt, 136 Court Street, and wherever good books are sold.