I felt this topic deserved its own thread. Jimmy's was a venerable watering hole even in the early sixties. I expect Robert Maynard Hutchins and William Rainey Harper occasionally drowned their sorrows there. Countless generations of students have most certainly done so. Though most undergrads are under drinking age, there was never any pretense of checking i.d.'s in former days. There seemed to be a notion in that period of sombre undergrad life that a frolicsome night out couldn't hurt anyone. Frolicsomeness is of course to be understood in the U. of C. style: there was an always intense chess game going near the bar, and existential angst flowed from table to table as copiously as the suds in their pitchers. The odd person (I was one of them) got turfed from the place for overexuberance, but that was a highly prized badge of honor.
No one mentioned this joint in a recent thread on campus eateries, and I don't suppose it would win any prizes on that front. But is there no respect on this board for tradition? I assert that this is a great Chicago neighborhood bar! And not just any bar but a bar with a difference - the I.Q.'s of its clientele! Well, one might legitimately question whether those allegedly high I.Q.'s are much in evidence on a Saturday night, but let that pass.
Does Jimmy's still flourish? I would be interested in the observations of the board on this important subject.
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