Uptown Local (Manhattan, NY, Bar)

The woman, Teresa Logan, accused Mr. Stringer of sexual harassment and making unwanted advances while she was working for him at a bar and restaurant he co-owned in 1992.Five weeks after an allegation of unwanted sexual advances upended Scott M. Stringer’s New York City mayoral campaign, a second woman is accusing him of sexual harassment and making unwanted advances when she said she worked for Mr. Stringer nearly three decades ago.The woman, Teresa Logan, said that she was a waitress and tended bar at Uptown Local, an establishment on the Upper West Side that was co-founded and run in part by Mr. Stringer. In an interview, she accused Mr. Stringer of once groping her as she carried trays, making unwanted sexual advances, including kissing and groping, outside the workplace at least twice and treating her in a manner that often made her uncomfortable.The first interactions, she said, took place in the spring of 1992, when Mr. Stringer was 32 and she was 18.Teresa Logan in 1992. In a statement, Mr. Stringer, 61 and now the city comptroller, said he had “no memory” of Ms. Logan, now 47.“If, in fact, I met Ms. Logan, and ever did anything to make her uncomfortable, I am sorry,” he said. In response to Ms. Logan’s description of an unprofessional work environment, he said: “Uptown Local was a long-ago chapter in my life from the early 1990s and it was all a bit of a mess.”He did not otherwise respond to the details of her account or her description of the workplace.Three people who knew Ms. Logan at the time confirmed in interviews that she had worked at Uptown Local, including her sister, a man her sister dated at the time, and a friend.There are no known witnesses to Ms. Logan’s claims of unwanted sexual advances, but her sister, Yohanna Logan, who was her roommate that summer, recalled that her sister told her of some of the alleged interactions. Yohanna Logan said that her sister came home deeply shaken at least twice and had described the unwanted advances.A friend who has known Ms. Logan for decades and requested anonymity for fear of professional repercussions said she visited Ms. Logan at Uptown Local on one or two occasions that summer. She recalled Ms. Logan saying sometime that year that Mr. Stringer had made at least one unwanted advance.Ms. Logan’s accusations follow similar allegations made by Jean Kim, an unpaid worker on Mr. Stringer’s 2001 campaign for public advocate. Ms. Kim has accused Mr. Stringer of making unwanted sexual advances during that race, charges that he vehemently denied, but that led key left-wing endorsers to withdraw their support for him in the Democratic primary for mayor.Until now, no other women had come forward with similar claims, and a number of women who have worked with or known Mr. Stringer for decades have vouched for his reputation.Ms. Logan was connected with The New York Times through Ms. Kim’s lawyer, Patricia Pastor, who set up the initial interview; several follow-up conversations occurred without Ms. Pastor’s involvement or presence. In a statement, Mr. Stringer and his team cited inaccuracies in Ms. Pastor’s past remarks concerning Ms. Kim’s allegations.“With one week to go before voting starts, Ms. Pastor is back with more allegations, this time from 30 years ago,” he said. The mayoral primary is on June 22 and early voting begins June 12.Rebecca Katz, a spokeswoman for the campaign, added that the allegations “predated decades of service and management by Scott Stringer in the public eye and should be considered in that context.”Ms. Logan, who lives in Manhattan and now works in the fashion industry, said she called Ms. Pastor after seeing her publicly associated with Ms. Kim.“I don’t have a lawyer, I don’t need the lawyer, I don’t want to press charges,” she said. “I just wanted to really just tell my story.” She is a registered Democrat and does not appear to have made donations in the mayor’s race.Ms. Logan said she had been thinking of making her claims public for at least a year, but only decided to move forward after hearing of Ms. Kim’s accusations.“It was like this trigger,” she said. “There’s like a visceral feeling hearing her on the news, and him, and hearing her and knowing she was right. I was like, I know I have to do this.”Jean Kim was the first woman to accuse Mr. Stringer of sexual misconduct. He has denied the allegation.Sarah Blesener for The New York TimesMs. Logan said she began working at Uptown Local in late May or early June 1992, around the time the bar and restaurant had filed for bankruptcy. Patrons recalled it as a dimly lit institution with middling food, started by several New York Democrats, including Mr. Stringer, who hoped it would be a premier political haunt. He was not an elected official at the time of the allegations, though he pursued political office later that year.His co-owners did not respond to interview requests or were not reachable.Ms. Logan said that Mr. Stringer sometimes stood uncomfortably close to her and would remark on her appearance.Within weeks of starting her new job came an unsettling interaction, Ms. Logan said. As she carried trays up a flight of stairs, Mr. Stringer was walking down it.“He just, like, totally pats me on the butt, and like, squeezes it,” she said. “I had no way of reacting. My hands weren’t free to even protect myself.”The situation, she recalled, “freaked me out.” But Ms. Logan, who acknowledges that attitudes around sexual harassment in the workplace were different decades ago, tried to move past it.“I sort of glossed it over for myself saying, ‘But I’m getting paid in cash, free drinks, my friends and I are getting free drinks every night,’” she said. “This dude’s a creep, so are a lot of guys at bars probably.”.css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-w739ur{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-w739ur{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-9s9ecg{margin-bottom:15px;}.css-uf1ume{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-box-pack:justify;-webkit-justify-content:space-between;-ms-flex-pack:justify;justify-content:space-between;}.css-wxi1cx{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:column;-ms-flex-direction:column;flex-direction:column;-webkit-align-self:flex-end;-ms-flex-item-align:end;align-self:flex-end;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}She stayed on and continued to socialize with Mr. Stringer, she said, celebrating her 19th birthday at Uptown Local.Ms. Logan said that on another occasion, Mr. Stringer suggested that they go out to another bar. She expected that they would go somewhere within walking distance, but instead, he hailed a cab.“I just have a memory of him in the car, putting his hand on my inner thigh,” she said, adding that he “definitely kissed me, like, made out with me.”She added: “And I was like, ‘No, no, no,’ and then when I was so strong about the ‘no’ in that situation, it stopped and he kind of laughed it off, like, ‘Oh, I’m drunk, I’m sorry.’”Yohanna Logan, who was 17 that summer, says her sister described the incident to her on the night that it happened.“I do remember her coming home and being like, more scared than I’ve ever seen her, and just telling me, like, she was really, really shaken up,” she said. “I remember her saying that she was in a cab with him and that he, like, touched her, tried to, like, kiss her and she was trying to get out of it.”Ms. Logan said she felt uncomfortable around Mr. Stringer after the cab ride, but that she hoped that was the end of any unwanted advances.One night, she said she and Mr. Stringer were drinking after work, when he suggested going to another bar.She recalled that their walk took them, eventually, to the outside of an apartment building. Mr. Stringer invited her up, she said.At first, the overture was playful, she recalled, and she responded in kind, proposing that they share a cigarette and talk but saying that there was “no way” she would join him upstairs.Then Mr. Stringer began to kiss and grope her, she said.“It was almost like this out-of-body experience, where I’m like, ‘What do I do, like this is my boss,’” she said. “Meanwhile he’s like, his hand going up my skirt, and my chest.”Ms. Logan said she knew clearly that she wanted him to stop.“I was like ‘No, no, no, I’m going home,’” she said. “And I like, turned my back, walked away. Got a cab.”She said that she told her sister about what happened that night.“She did tell me that he tried to kiss her,” Yohanna Logan said, adding that she recalled learning that Mr. Stringer had “felt her up.” She described her sister as seeking to appear “tough” — “just being like, ‘I’m OK, but it’s really creepy.’”Ms. Logan’s friend recalled Ms. Logan telling her that Mr. Stringer had sought to get her to go upstairs with him and that Ms. Logan did not go. The friend did not recall exactly when that conversation occurred.Ms. Logan left the bar by late summer for another job, and said that she never saw Mr. Stringer again. She said the experience had changed her approach to dealing with men in the workplace.“It was my first job ever in New York, and it affected the way I felt about working with men really throughout my career,” she said. “There’s like a lot of great men in my industry that I could feel more comfortable with, that I don’t.”Susan C. Beachy contributed research. More