Page Six recently reported on a new wave of speakeasies that have popped up across the city. And we suppose this is the new pirate cove of corona-era boozing.
The Honorable William Wall — the bar atop the floating headquarters of the Manhattan Yacht Club which sits, not quite in international waters, but just off Ellis Island in New York Harbor — defiantly tells Page Six it will reopen on June 6 even if it’s illegal to do so.
On Friday, just hours after New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced that the lockdown has been extended until Jun. 13, the bar sent out an email offering tickets for the boat that ferries drinkers from Lower Manhattan to the bar, and even offered to host parties at the venue, affectionately known as the Willy Wall.
Reached for comment, Michael Fortenbaugh, the commodore of the MYC told us, “We are not trying to be aggressive, we just want to survive. I do not know if it is legal to open. But I do know that if we do not open, our business will die. I don’t think it should be illegal to try and save our business.”
He added that as a business that only opens for the summer, it has “four and a half months to make ends meet.” “If we don’t open soon, we are finished,” said Fortenbaugh.
“I don’t see why elected officials should pick and choose which companies survive and which go bankrupt. It does not appear to be based solely on safety,” he said, “Why is Home Depot allowed to open? People are not buying things that are essential.”
Fortenbaugh said that he thinks that compared to riding the subway, flying in an airplane or grocery shopping “which are all indoors with thousands of people breathing the same air, the Honorable William Wall is very, very low risk.”
“The current policies are killing small businesses,” he said, “At some point, the Mayor has to recognize this and help us survive rather than shut us down.”