Put down your phone and start a history night at a dive bar

We’ve all been there: you’re out at the bar chopping it up with friends, swapping stories, and that same old nagging thought returns — “What this hang could really use is a PowerPoint.” Ok maybe you haven’t ever thought that, but this week, we’re making the case that you should.

For a little over a year now, one of the most reliably enjoyable (and packed) recurring events on our calendar has been Greenpoint History Night, where armchair historians put together slide deks of neighborhood history ranging from pierogi restaurant in-fighting to still-lingering billboards for a children’s laxative brand of yore. Over $8 beer-and-shot deals, people regale each other with stories about late nights at the dearly departed Call Box Lounge, and shush anyone who’s talking too loudly over a rundown of the Greenpoint Playground’s forgotten history as a holding camp for Italian prisoners of war during WWII.

The brainchild of Friend of The Groove (and frequent contributor) Rick Paulas, History Night was first cooked up in part as a way to get people into Oak & Iron, where Paulas bartends two nights a week.

“I’d started working at the bar and had it in my head that I wanted to do some kind of event there, whether that was trivia, music, or something else,” Paulas told The Groove. “Especially on Wednesday nights there’s not too much going on usually, so there was a platform that was somewhat available.”

Paulas, who also runs a Greenpoint, Before & After Instagram account chronicling old photos of the neighborhood, eventually landed on the concept of a history night. “I’d be sitting there working the 4am shift Sunday night, staring across the street at the Astral building,” he said, and for the first installment of history night, a friend who lives in the building put together a presentation on it. (The other inaugural presentation was a look at the neighborhood through the lens of its 2012 representation on Girls.)

The idea of having other people put together presentations (rather than doing them all himself) was baked into the concept from the beginning.

“I know a little bit about history, but I don’t think I’ve been [in the neighborhood] long enough where I can tell the stories myself,” Paulas said. “I wanted to organize it and provide the platform for people to tell stories, rather than, ‘I’ve been here for five years and I know everything.’”

“Also, it’s less work for me, which is very important,” he added.

The format has largely stayed the same since the beginning, with a rotating series of neighborhood residents giving 10-to-20-minute slideshow presentations (often with music and sound effects) about various aspects of the neighborhood’s history. One notable standout weaved an entire dramatic history around concrete slabs (you had to be there), another focused on the time Pope John Paul II visited Greenpoint, with a distribution of eucharists at the end. Yet another featured a short film about a very-recent hot dog eating contest that had happened at (noted dunk tank locale) Mallard Drake.

“History can mean all sorts of things, it’s just anything that has happened in the past,” Paulas said.

The history in question can also be personal. “One that stuck out was when Arif Hossain, who runs Faruque’s Gift Shop on Manhattan Avenue with his dad, told a story about his dad coming to Greenpoint back in the ‘80s, starting the shop and starting an Islamic center nearby,” Paulas said. “That was maybe the most touching one, and a very personal story as opposed to ‘here’s a thing that happened.’”

In the spirit of Getting Off the Internet (and making the process less daunting to speakers), presentations generally aren’t posted online. “Sometimes people get a little intimidated by not being an expert or it not being their story, and I want to encourage people to tell their own perspectives or what made them drawn to a certain topic,” Paulas said. “It should be like an oral history project, more so than ‘this is the actual fact of exactly what happened.’”

Be the history night you wish to see

Also in the spirit of Getting Off the Internet: we wanted to highlight this cool individual event, sure, but we’re also hoping to inspire readers to get similar projects of their own off the ground. Paulas feels similarly.

“I would like it if other people did it in their own neighborhoods, and I’d be more than happy to share what I’ve learned in terms of what’s an effective way to curate it,” Paulas said. “I would like it if I could go to an Astoria History Night or a Bed-Stuy History Night at some local bar and not have to do any work on it.”

If you don’t happen to work at a bar or venue (or have a friend who does), that doesn’t mean you’re out of luck. (And if you have an idea that you want to try out beyond a history night, this advice is all still applicable.) 

“First of all, if you notice a bar that does not have people in it, you should consider it a potential place to do something, because they do want business,” Paulas said. “Talk to them, get to know them. There are open spaces that are available to use.” (Weeknights beyond the usual Thursday - Saturday rush are when bar owners are most likely to want to get some extra people in the door.)

Just as importantly, let go of the idea that whatever you’re putting together has to be a slam dunk right out of the gate. “I’m a big proponent of learning as you go along with things, it doesn’t have to be perfect the first few times you do it,” Paulas said. “Try something out that you’re interested in and see that other people are interested in, if it’s not perfect the first time, take some notes and tweak it for next time.”

“Whatever the thing is, just get the ball rolling and allow it to be inspired by other people,” he added. “Put it out there. Everything you do is a step towards the next thing you do.”

The next Greenpoint History Night takes place at 9pm on September 10 at Oak & Iron.