Video: 'Last Days at the Mars Bar'

East Village-based filmmaker Jenny Woodward has released an entertaining new video short titled "Last Days of the Mars Bar," featuring interviews with owner Hank Penza in the days leading up to the bar's closure in July 2011.

Penza shares some colorful anecdotes (and perhaps tall tales), such as how the bar got its name and how the first art appeared on the bar's walls on Second Avenue at East First Street.

And Penza doesn't seem all that broken up about the end of days here.

"Fuck the bar. What am I, crazy? There's a beginning and an end. You hear? The Mars Bar will live forever and I'll die... I feel like there's a beginning and an end, and this is the end to another chapter in my life."

Penza died last Oct. 29. He was 82.

Last Days at The Mars Bar from jenny woodward on Vimeo.

The corner storefronts where Mars Bar stood were eventually demolished in late 2011/early 2012 to make way for the 12-story residential building Jupiter 21. The corner space now houses a TD Bank and The Alchemist's Kitchen, a cafe and shop that sells botanical medicines, herbal remedies and whole plant beauty products.

H/T Goggla