A history of The Ear as taken from NY Architecture website...

The house, built before 1817, is a designated landmark and the Ear Inn, a pub on the ground floor, is a favorite neighborhood destination. Recently, the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation joined with Hayman and Andy Coe — author of “Ear Inn Virons,” a book (as its punning title indicates) about the history of the property and neighborhood — in a guided tour of the building.

The three-story house, originally the home of an African-American Revolutionary War veteran who ran a tobacco shop on the ground floor, has uneven floors, stairs that slant at an odd angle and a unique ambiance.
“This is sand from the foundation of the building,” said Hayman, holding a beer stein full of grayish sand. The house, now a block and a half from the Hudson River, was right on the riverbank in the early decades of the 19th century. “There was a sand spit in the river at Canal St. at that time,” said Hayman. “We have to pump out the tide from the basement twice a day.”

Hayman first rented a room in the house in 1973 when he was a Columbia University student. He paid $100 a month rent to Harry Jacobs who ran the unnamed pub known to neighbors as “The Green Door.” In 1977, Hayman and friends bought the house and the pub.

“We were publishing ‘The Ear,’ a new music journal, at the time and we decided to name the pub after it,” said Hayman. The city landmarks commission didn’t allow new signage, so a coat of black paint covering the curved neon tubes of the “B” in the pub’s BAR sign was sufficient for EAR.

Although James Brown sold tobacco on the first floor, the shop has been a pub for at least 150 years, said Hayman, who has a collection of whiskey jugs found in the basement of the place. The records show there was a bar in the building in 1835 and it was likely there for some years before.

Hayman keeps a revolver, which he found several years ago tucked in the flue of the second floor fireplace. “It’s a five-shot revolver made around 1900,” he said. “I can imagine the circumstances when it was hidden.”

Scan from book published in 1904. FLIEGENDE BLATTER. This image is IN THE PUBLIC DOMAIN and you may use them as you like, though I'd love it if you left a comment when you do use them. ALSO: I do not speak German and have not translated this, so I have no idea what it says. If you feel like translating, please do! I'd love to know what this says.