Pilar Montero
Pilar Montero (2 December 1921 – 14 January 2012),[1] was the owner of Montero’s Bar and Grill in Brooklyn, where she worked into her 80s.[2][1]
Pilar Montero | |
|---|---|
| Born | Maria Pilar Rivas December 2, 1921 Manhattan, New York |
| Died | January 14, 2012 (aged 90) Brooklyn, USA |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation | Bar owner |
| Known for | Owner of Montero’s Bar and Grill |
| Spouse(s) | Joseph Montero (m. 1943, died 1999) |
| Children | 3 sons, Ramon, Joseph and Frank (Joseph and Frank by Joseph Montero) and a daughter, Josephine |
| Parent(s) | Francisco and Rita Rivas |
Early life
She moved to Brooklyn from Manhattan when she was very young, and she and her husband Joseph opened the bar in 1945; Joseph died in 1999.[3][1]
Montero's Bar and Grill
Montero's Bar and Grill has been used as a backdrop by fashion photographers, as a location to shoot scenes for the 1989 film Last Exit to Brooklyn, and as a place where the model Twiggy posed.[1] Frank McCourt, who lived in an apartment upstairs from the bar, wrote in his memoir Teacher Man how the bar's neon sign was “turning my front room from scarlet to black to scarlet.”[1][4]
Family
Joseph Montero's sister Emma and her husband Buddy, according to Pilar Montero, bought a grocery store on State Street from Pilar and her godson's father, who each sold them half for $800.[3] However, in 1951 the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway came along and cut the grocery store off, so Emma and Buddy closed it.[3] They later rented the space to artists and artisans, and in 2003 their granddaughter Marissa Alperin opened it as a jewelry store; she sold jewelry to Pilar.[3] As of 2006 there was still a rift between Pilar and Emma due to the grocery store closing.[3]
Montero's is still open as of 2014.[5]
Tributes
Pilar's obituary was included in The Socialite who Killed a Nazi with Her Bare Hands: And 144 Other Fascinating People who Died this Year, a collection of New York Times obituaries published in 2012.[6]
Further reading
References
- Vitello, Paul (21 January 2012). "Pilar Montero, Bar Owner and Link to a Seafaring Past, Dies at 90". The New York Times. Retrieved 24 October 2014.
- Abruzzo, Shavana (18 January 2012). "Montero's matriarch Pilar dead at age 90". The Brooklyn Paper. Retrieved 8 October 2014.
- Jamieson, Wendell (5 March 2006). "The Quarrel". The New York Times. Retrieved 24 October 2014.
- McCourt, Frank (2006). Teacher man: a memoir. London: Harper Perennial. ISBN 9780007173990.
- "Montero's Bar & Grill". yelp.com. 3 August 2014. Retrieved 8 October 2014.
- McDonald, William (2012). The socialite who killed a Nazi with her bare hands: and 144 other fascinating people who died this year. New York: Workman Pub. ISBN 9780761170877.