Please do not urinate on the former Grassroots Tavern on St. Mark's Place

20 St. Mark's Place remains on the rental market — now in its sixth year! (So many brokers.) And apparently, people have been using the space between Second Avenue and Third Avenue as a toilet.

As the Post reported the other day, ownership here had a megaphone installed alongside a monitored-24/7 surveillance camera "to ward off a growing number of vagrants and drunks attempting to relieve themselves on the vacant building."

Apparently, this setup has been in place for a year. We never really noticed (or heard) it. Then again, we've never urinated on the building — however tempting! 

Anyway, per the Post: 

Whenever a loiterer even steps foot on the stoop of the three-story landmarked building, a booming voice explodes out of the sound system, admonishing the violator to "stop!" or "move on!" 

The "jarring, obnoxious" clarion call can be heard up and down the block at all hours, according to residents. 

The Brooklyn-based security company Live Lion is behind the system.

As noted, No. 20, known as the Daniel LeRoy House, was built in 1832. Per the Wikipedia: "LeRoy was an in-law of Peter Stuyvesant, and a South Street merchant, who lived in the house with his wife Elizabeth Fish, of the eminent Fish family."

No 20. received landmark status in 1971 and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.

Past lives of this subterranean space — info via Daytonian in Manhattan — include a theater-saloon called Paul Falk's Tivoli Garden in the 1870s... in the 1930s, the Hungarian Cafe and Restaurant resided here before becoming a temperance saloon called the Growler.

The Grassroots Tavern closed here on New Year's Eve 2017 after 42 years (upstairs tenant Sounds shuttered in 2015)

Speaking of the Grassroots, the other day, EVG contributor Steven went to pee on the building noticed the front door open, and looked at the white-box status of the former great bar...
 

Updated! 

Since this video came up in the comments... An instant request! From 1986, here is Billy Joel's "A Matter of Trust" filmed on St. Mark's Place between Second Avenue and Third Avenue ...