Mars Bars, A Last Look

There's been a tidal wave of coverage about the recent closing of the East Village dive Mars Bar—more tears were shed over the beloved dump than were over Yankee and Shea stadiums combined. I hardly need to add to it. I actually paid my final respects to the place weeks ago. It was touch and go there for so many weeks; nobody knew exactly when it would shutter. So I just went in one night and pretended it was the last night.

Read more »

Dive Bar Death Watch

These are bad days for New York's dive bars. City Hall and developers do not see their charms. So they are on their way out. And in December, they've been falling like barflies. Let's count them down, shall we?

• The Rum House. One of the last surviving dives in Times Square, exited in late September.
• Ruby's Bar and Grill. Coney Island legend. Not quite out (it keeps stubbornly opening even though it's supposed to shutter), but definitely down, and probably a goner.
• Mars Bar. The East Village ur-dive. Due to close for two years in 2011 to make way for a highrise. The owner says it will reopen and be bigger than ever. Whether it will be better, or ever the same, is highly in doubt.
• Max Fish. LES mainstay. Victim of a rent hike. Owners says they will relocate. But where, at a reasonable rent, in today's pricey Lower East Side?
• The Stoned Crow. Beloved Village dump, calling it quits on New Year's Eve.
• Hickey's. The latest victim. Dead on 33rd Street after 40 years.

Station Cafe, Holland Bar, Holiday Cocktail Lounge, Subway Inn, Rudy's Bar and Grill and all the rest—watch your back.

After the Mars Bar, Then What?

A year or so back, the owners of the East Village dive bar Mars Bar painted on their front wall the message "After the Mars Bars, Then What?" This struck fear into the hearts of locals, who thought the joint was closing. It wasn't.

But the question is a fair one today. It was announced yesterday that "BFC Partners, builders of luxury condos like Noho's 48 Bond and Downtown Brooklyn's Toren, plans to renovate part of the row and add new market-rate housing. This will cause the temporary closure of Mars Bar and its neighboring businesses."

More: "The plan is to combine the structures and build a new addition, perhaps bringing the height all the way up to 12 stories.... Mars Bar owner Hank Penza says he'll wind up with a space three or four times the size of the current bar. Oh, he also said this: 'They won't choke me. I didn't get off the boat yesterday with a pound of spaghetti in my hand.'"

So Penza is fine with this. I'm not. He'll have a bigger bar. Great. But it won't be the same bar, any more then Upper West Side icon P&G Cafe is now the same bar it was. It won't be the Mars Bar. The Mars Bar is a beautifully crummy, even dangerous dive. Make it four times its size and it's suddenly luxurious, years of grime and character scrubbed away. Also, part of the bar's charm is it's being the anchor of an equally crummy, low-rise block. The Mars atmosphere will be utterly crushed by 12 stories of gleaming housing.