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.”