The Unlikely Friendship That Saved a Dive Bar The Unlikely Friendship That Saved a Dive Bar

When Lucy’s, a homey New York tavern, closed down and underwent a renovation, some longtime patrons feared the worst.

In the late 1970s, Ludwika Mickevicius left her native Poland for New York City in search of opportunity. She started tending bar in the East Village and became a beloved figure in the neighborhood.

It wasn’t always easy — all those 4 a.m. nights, seven days a week, slinging boilermaker after boilermaker — but she had been working hard since she was a girl. While growing up on a farm about 50 miles from Bialystok, she milked the cows, tended the geese and helped with the potato harvest. After that she worked in a textile factory.

In the East Village, she was an unlikely den mother to her regulars, who called her Lucy. That became the bar’s name after its previous owner sold the business to her in the 1980s. She ran the place for more than four decades.

“I never thought I’d one day have a bar and end up selling alcohol,” Ms. Mickevicius, 84, said. “But you can’t control life.”

As the East Village underwent a transformation from gritty hamlet to fashionable district, Lucy’s stayed exactly the same — a homey dive along Tompkins Square Park with two pool tables, a jukebox, a graffiti-covered bathroom and the occasional vodka shot on the house.

Ms. Mickevicius operated the bar for years on a casual, month-to-month lease. But after the building was sold over a year ago for $19 million, the new landlord more than doubled the rent. Lucy’s sat dark and empty behind an iron gate.