James Monaghan, Quarter bar owner

One of my old watering holes. The writer doesn't mention the coffin above the bar, draped with a British flag, lol.

Reprinted from The Times-Picayune, Dec. 15, 2001

By Mark Schleifstein Staff writer

James Leonard Monaghan, whose Molly's at the Market bar on Decatur Street played host to local and national media greats, politicians and a cross-section of French Quarter characters, died Thursday of a cerebral hemorrhage at Tulane University Hospital. He was 63.

"It's the end of an era," said Andrei Codrescu, author and journalist who often joined Monaghan in the front window of Molly's on weekends, watching the crowd go by. "He was a gruffly generous man of incomparable wit." A native of Zanesville, Ohio, Monaghan moved to New Orleans from Chicago in 1969.

"He was on vacation here and walking through Jackson Square, and a lady went by on a skateboard trailing a duck on a string," said Joe Walker, a longtime friend. "It was Ruthie the Duck Girl. Jim turned to his wife and said, 'This is the kind of place where I'd like to live.' "

During the past 30 years, Monaghan owned 30 different bars, said his son, James, including as many as eight at one time. But it was Molly's at the Market that Monaghan made into a watering hole for journalists and politicians. Media night began at 10 p.m. on Thursdays in the narrow bar, where the walls are lined with mementos from past guest bartenders and parades that Monaghan sponsored.

Monaghan held court near the window fronting on Decatur Street, peppering his conversation with outspoken opinions.

"He never worried about whether what he was saying was politic," Walker said. "He didn't care who he offended."

Reporters were drawn to the weekly events to mine for story ideas. Politicians were drawn there both in self-defense and as a way of gathering intelligence on opponents.

"We always wanted to know on Friday what people were talking about at Molly's on Thursday night," said Mayor Marc Morial, who was a guest bartender in the early 1990s.

Former Gov. Edwin Edwards remembered that Monaghan granted him and his defense attorneys equal time in 1985, after U.S. Attorney John Volz and his staff served as guest bartenders during Edwards' federal fraud trial involving hospital construction permits.

While Edwards tended bar to a packed house, nephew Charles David Isbell played piano and brother Marion Edwards mugged for photographers. Monaghan also invited politicians running for federal, state and local office to bartend each year. In 1990, Monaghan entered the fray himself, becoming one of 18 candidates for a District C City Council seat. He placed fourth.

Walker said other businessmen thought Monaghan was crazy to buy the bar in the 1100 block of Decatur at a time when that part of the Quarter was run-down. But Monaghan used his business acumen to help lead a rebirth of the lower Decatur area, Walker said. In addition to the Thursday night media crowd, Monaghan created the Decatur Street Irish Club Parade, sponsored the Bastille Day Parade for many years, and, about five years ago, began an annual Halloween Parade.

Monaghan, along with Walker and lawyer Clancy Dubos, also created an annual lunch party in Washington, D.C., that became so successful that it had to be canceled because people complained it was so big they could no longer get in.

Before moving to New Orleans, Monaghan served for eight years in the Air Force in Korea and Vietnam, and he sold bridge parts for companies in Chicago.

Monaghan is survived by his wife, Elizabeth Scott Monaghan; two sons, James Monaghan Jr. and Jon Jason of Kansas City, Mo.; a daughter, Kelly Elizabeth Bittner of Kansas City, Mo.; and four grandchildren. The Stompers and the Olympia Brass Band will accompany a horse-drawn hearse and lead mourners in a procession beginning at Molly's at the Market, 1107 Decatur St., on Tuesday at 5:30 p.m., traveling along Decatur, Iberville and Bourbon streets and Esplanade Avenue, ending back at Molly's with a ceremony placing an urn holding Monaghan's ashes on a shelf above the cash register behind the bar.

-- Anonymous, November 10, 2002

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