The Friendly Lounge has long been a secret of sorts among dive-bar connoisseurs in South Philadelphia. It’s the kind of dimly lit joint where you stop in for a bottle of domestic beer, a cigarette at the bar and “friendly” conversation with your bar-stool companions. Within its wood-paneled walls, the TV set blares traditional fare like Channel 6’s Action News, more than one reviewer has pointed out -- in other words, this place is as Philly as Philly gets, or better, as Philly as a slice of Philly once was. This bar better be ready for its closeup, because it’s featured in Martin Scorcese’s instant mob classic “The Irishman.” The bar’s amazing sign appears in the movie, but not where I saw it on Saturday, on this South Eighth Street corner, its home probably since the 1950s, but on a Ridgewood, Queens street that in early 2018 was turned into the Italian market neighborhood of Philly for the big Scorcese project. (I heard about the Queens shoot much too late, alas, and never photographed it.) The bar’s long-ago owner, Felix “Skinny Razor" DiTullio, is played by Bobby Cannavale in the movie, which finally hits Netflix on Wednesday after a limited run in theaters. You know I’ll be one of those watching later this week, and I’ll be looking out for the Friendly Lounge and all the other re-creations of old-school streets and storefronts. (Check my Instagram story later this week!) The Friendly Lounge, however, is no re-creation -- it’s the real deal, a “neighborhood bar for a South Philadelphia that's long gone,” Samantha Melamed poetically writes in the Inquirer. I had a fun afternoon on Saturday looking for -- and finding -- some of those traces of this lost Philadelphia. I’ll have more soon! #retrologist #theirishman #philadelphiaphotographer #philly_igers (at Friendly Lounge) https://www.instagram.com/p/B5TsXPhFgSg/?igshid=sm3smj57bofc
