Pilar Montero (2 December 1921 – 14 January 2012),
was the owner of
Montero’s Bar and Grill in Brooklyn, where she worked into her 80s.
Life
She moved to Brooklyn from Manhattan when she was very young, and she and her husband Joseph opened the bar in 1945; Joseph died in 1999.
Joseph Montero's sister Emma and her husband Buddy, according to Pilar Montero, bought a grocery store on State Street from Pilar and her godson's father, who each sold them half for $800.
However, in 1951 the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway came along and cut the grocery store off, so Emma and Buddy closed it.
They later rented the space to artists and artisans, and in 2003 their granddaughter Marissa Alperin opened it as a jewelry store; she sold jewelry to Pilar.
As of 2006, there was still a rift between Pilar and Emma due to the grocery store closing.
Pilar's obituary was included in ''The Socialite who Killed a Nazi with Her Bare Hands: And 144 Other Fascinating People who Died this Year'', a collection of New York Times obituaries published in 2012.
Montero's Bar and Grill
Montero's Bar and Grill has been used as a backdrop by fashion photographers, as a location to shoot scenes for the 1989 film ''
Last Exit to Brooklyn
''Last Exit to Brooklyn'' is a 1964 novel by American author Hubert Selby Jr. The novel takes a harsh, uncompromising look at lower class Brooklyn in the 1950s written in a brusque, everyman style of prose.
Critics and fellow writers praised ...
'', and as a place where the model
Twiggy
Dame Lesley Lawson (''née'' Hornby; born 19 September 1949) is an English model, actress, and singer, widely known by the nickname Twiggy. She was a British cultural icon and a prominent teenaged model during the swinging '60s in London.
...
posed.
Frank McCourt
Francis McCourt (August 19, 1930July 19, 2009) was an Irish-American teacher and writer. He won a Pulitzer Prize for his book ''Angela's Ashes'', a tragicomic memoir of the misery and squalor of his childhood.
Early life and education
Frank McC ...
, who lived in an apartment upstairs from the bar, wrote in his memoir ''
Teacher Man
''Teacher Man'' is a 2005 memoir written by Frank McCourt which describes and reflects on his development as a teacher in New York high schools and colleges. It is in continuation to his earlier two memoirs, ''Angela's Ashes'' and '' 'Tis''.
Pro ...
'' how the bar's neon sign was “turning my front room from scarlet to black to scarlet.”
Montero's is still open as of 2014.
Further reading
Interview with Pilar Montero by Lisa Leland
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Montero, Pilar
1921 births
2012 deaths
American drink industry businesspeople
Drinking establishment owners
People from Brooklyn
People from Manhattan