Red Hook Rallies To Save Sunny's Bar

RED HOOK, BROOKLYN — Tone Balzano Johansen sees Sunny's Bar, named for her husband Sunny who died last year, as more than just a place where people come to get a beer.

"I have a basic idea of, I know who you are, you know who I am, and we talk about stuff," she told Patch." This is not about selling alcohol or beer or wine to me. This is about people. The beer is just grease in the machinery. It’s not the machinery."

So it's not hard to see why her neighborhood is rallying around the bar, which was hit hard by Hurricane Sandy, as it stares down a possible sale. The bar is owned by 18 family members, 17 of whom want to sell it and be done with it.

That's not an option for Johansen. She's struck a deal to buy out the rest of the family. But she needs to make a $65,000 down payment by July 31. If she doesn't, the bar — which has been open for more than 100 years on the Red Hook waterfront — gets sold.

She says she can't let that happen.

"I feel like I'm a steward of New York and Brooklyn culture," Johansen said. "Somebody has to say, 'I’m tired of hearing about places like this closing.' Somebody has to say, 'Stop' and 'No,' and that’s what I’m doing. What is that culture? It is that you can go to a place where people know your name."

www.sunnysforever.com is tracking the fundraising, which ticked past the $15,000 mark on Thursday afternoon, leaving 50 grand left to raise. The website also has information about how to donate online or through an old fashioned check in the mail.

It also has a calendar of fundraising events, which includes an art auction on May 1. She told us a Kickstarter is launching Monday.

"Screw the real estate. This is not about real estate," Johansen said. "It is about something entirely different. It’s saying that you don’t go through the stuff that I've gone through for money or for real estate. Because it’s been painful as all hell.

"I went through Sandy, where I lost so much I can’t start to count. I didn’t get any loans. I had to fundraise to fix the friggin’ foundation. I had never done structural work at all. And then the family took us to court to keep us off the auction block. And then Sunny passes away. It’s mad. I’m a tiny blonde lady but you know what, I got muscle in other places."

The fundraising has drawn a lot of attention, too. When Patch called the bar Thursday, Johansen was generous enough to squeeze us in in between two other interviews, one with a national news outlet.

It's that sort of camaraderie that has emanated from behind the behind the Sunny's bar for more than a century — and hopefully for more years to come.

"It’s old fashioned psychology, where you are just like, 'Dude, talk about your life,'" she said. "But then also you connect with other people and you heal and you inspire and you build good energy. You can’t do that on your own. Life as a hermit doesn’t really work in the long run.

"I think it’s just really sad that so much of the way we live these days, it’s not really conducive to human nature. You can live in a big city in a little box in a house where nobody actually knows where you are. You’re surrounded by people but there’s no connection. This is all about that connection."

Image via Google Streetview