All of the Sullys Will Miss Sully's

From Dave "Sorta Irish" Brigham:

Another bar for reg'lar folks bites the dust. Well, actually it happened last June, but I just found out about it a few months ago. An acquaintance who lives in Quincy, Mass., asked me if I knew that the beautiful neon sign outside Sully's Bar & Lounge in the city's center was soon to be taken down. I've never heard of the place, I said, but I want to take a picture of it. So I managed to get there before it was too late.

Opened in 1934, Sully's was the longest-operating family-owned bar in Quincy, according to this Patriot Ledger article about the closing (make sure to watch the video embedded in the page). After 84 years, however, things had changed, demographically and economically, according to third-generation owner Billy Sullivan. "After that downturn with the economy, there, things just never came back, to tell you the truth," he says in the video.

Sullivan sold the building to Quincy Mutual Fire Insurance, according to the article. The insurance company, which has its offices around the corner from the shuttered bar, in 2015 joined Gate Residential in an agreement to build a development called East of Chestnut where the small strip of buildings that includes Sully’s is located. East of Chestnut is supposed to be, you guessed it, a mixed-use building of retail, housing and offices, per the article.

I've mentioned bars on the blog before, but just once have I covered the closure of a working-class joint: August 25, 2011, "Goodbye Reef, So Long Bill," in which I learn from the many comments below the post just what a great place this dive bar in Waltham, Mass., was.

As for that beautiful sign, maybe Dave Waller will buy it and restore it. Waller, who I interviewed several years ago, not for this blog, collects old neon signs and restores them (see March 22, 2010, "Gettin' My Kicks"). I also wrote about his display on Boston's Rose Kennedy Greenway (see August 9, 2018, "Backside, Out In the Open").

Here's your headline explainer...the relevant part starts at 2:45, but you should watch the whole thing.