Costello's
Costello’s, also known as Tim’s, was a famous bar and restaurant in Midtown Manhattan from 1929 to 1992. It stood near East 44th Street and Third Avenue and moved a few times before settling at 225 East 44th Street. It began as a speakeasy during Prohibition, run by Irish brothers Tim and Joe Costello. Tim Costello was known as a witty, literate host who loved books and conversation.
The place became a beloved gathering spot for writers, journalists, and artists. Regulars over the years included Ernest Hemingway, James Thurber, John O’Hara, Brendan Behan, Maeve Brennan, and A. J. Liebling, along with New Yorker writers, Daily News reporters, and cartoonists. It was famous for the sense of egalitarian mixing—drivers, tradespeople, and office workers sat beside prominent authors and editors.
Costello’s is also remembered for its walls of drawings. The original Thurber wall, created around 1934–1935 when the bar was at 701 Third Avenue, featured a cartoon about the “Battle of the Sexes.” The wall was painted over by painters and later redrawn, but the original and its later versions moved with the bar as it changed locations. In 1972, cartoonists who had worked for Yank Magazine restored Thurber’s work, and the drawings eventually ended up at the final location, though they faded and disappeared in the 1990s.
In 1976, Tim Costello invited a group of cartoonists, including Bill Gallo, to create a new wall at the bar’s final spot. Gallo and about 40 contributors—Stan Lee, Mort Walker, Al Jaffee, Sergio Aragonés, Dik Browne, and others—painted a wall featuring characters like Beetle Bailey, Hägar the Horrible, and Spider-Man. In 2005, efforts by cartoonists helped preserve the imagery under glass, and some later illustrations were added.
Costello’s changed with the neighborhood and the times. By the 1970s, it attracted more businesspeople and Wall Street workers, though some Daily News journalists still visited. The bar was evicted in 1973 and reopened a year later at 225 East 44th Street. It finally closed in 1992, as the area’s economy and rents rose. The space became the Turtle Bay Café, and since 2004 it has housed a sports bar called the Overlook.
Costello’s is remembered not only for its drinks and meals but for the stories that grew there. John McNulty wrote a famous string of New Yorker pieces about “this place on Third Avenue,” and tales of Hemingway’s cane-breaking duel with John O’Hara became a lasting legend. The bar’s walls and its mix of writers, artists, and locals helped shape a distinctive New York legend that lingered long after its doors closed.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 13:47 (CET).