As dive bar expert and hip-hop scholar Ben Westhoff put it in his interview with Complex, "[dive enthusiasts] want a place with a real sense of history and real people. Whatever the word 'real' means." Well, in four to six weeks, Mars Bar (25 East 1st Street), a dive bar gone the way of a crust punk Disneyland is slated to shut down.
If you've been following the Mars Bar saga, you probably don't believe me. That's fine; I'm not sure I believe it either. Announcements like this have been frequent in the past six months, the proverbial boy-crying-wolf situation.
Mars Bar, located in the East Village, is the sort of dive whose reputation is beginning to swallow itself. NYU kids hankering for a bit of cultural tourism make up the majority of the customers on weekend nights. The punks that gave the bar its divey reputation are often outnumbered. Always outnumbered, but never outpierced.
[via Gothamist]
