Milady's, a SoHo Stalwart, Shuts Its Doors Outside Milady's, an old blue-collar bar that some locals favored as a refuge from the SoHo crowds. Robert Simonson It was a safe bet that nobody at Milady's on Sunday night cared much about the Golden Globes or the newest installment of "Downton Abbey." Word had spread like wildfire over the previous 24 hours that Milady's, an old blue-collar bar at the southeast corner of Prince and Thompson Streets - by some accounts, since the mid-1940s - would be closing in the wee hours of Monday morning. The stalwarts came out to pay their respects. The capacity crowd included slim, sleek, young professionals in their mid-20s, and grizzled, casually attired locals who seemed as old as the tavern. Some hadn't been there for years. A few came for the first time, wanting to see the old girl before she was gone. Robert Orlando, 70, who grew up in the neighborhood, traveled down from Yonkers, as he has every Saturday night. "I was a regular as a kid," he said. At 16, I had my first beer here. My friends would ask, "Why do you come down there all the time?" It's just home. It's like coming home. Compared with Mr. Orlando, a regular who would identify himself only as Fred ranked as a newbie; he'd been a patron for 19 years. "I started working at Sixth Avenue," he said. That day I started, we came here for lunch. It also felt friendly. No matter how much I walk in, I can always start a conversation with anyone in the bar. Nearly all the people who favored Milady's as their local bar seemed to have chosen it for the same reason: It was a refuge from a SoHo that has been transformed into a high-priced outdoor shopping mall. You wouldn't find Milady's in any shopping mall. Why the old bar was closing was a subject of speculation among the crowd. The owner, Frank Genovese, was not on hand for the last night. He grew up a few blocks from the bar, and later worked there before buying it in the early 1980s. On Monday morning, reached by telephone, Mr. Genovese didn't want to talk about the fate of the bar too much. "It's a dive bar," he said. I serve burgers; a beer is 5 bucks. I can no longer sustain that formula. It doesn't work anymore. The egg that once cost me 5 cents now costs 50 cents. He would not confirm news accounts that the building had been sold or that the bar's lease had not been renewed, calling the latter a "personal matter." By 7 p.m. Sunday, it was three deep at the bar, and getting a drink was tough. The room glowed with the red of Solo cups, the bar having long since run out of pint glasses. The pool table was gone, converted half into seating, half into a large, rectangular, green-felt coaster. A handmade cardboard sign resting on the felt read, "It's so hard to say goodbye to Milady's." All the draft lines, save the Bass Ale, had been drained by 9 p.m. Six packs of Corona were brought in from the delis across the street and hastily put on ice. A man called for bourbon shots. "All I've got is Turkey!" the bartender called back. That proved acceptable. The kitchen somehow continued to get out food, bowls of chili and plates of fries that servers held aloft in the space between the customer's heads and four slow-moving ceiling fans. At one point, the several members of the wait and bar staff, all women, gathered behind the bar for a toast. One of the women ended it by saying, "Once a Milady's lady, always a Milady's lady!" The crowd cheered. Some patrons dropped in briefly to genuflect and then left. Others vowed to stay until closing time at 4 a.m. Where they would go afterward, or tomorrow, or next week, was anybody's guess. Fred said he didn't think there was a bar to match Milady's character in the area. He mentioned Nancy Whiskey Pub near Canal Street as a possible alternative. The SoHo pub Fanelli's, he said, is too touristy to function as an everyday watering hole. Inside, people enjoyed Milady's while they could. "Wow," said one barfly struggling toward the door. It's harder getting out of this place than it was getting in.