Since learning the Mars Bar will likely close, I've been trolling for Mars Bar photos ... here's a rather sad one on Flickr via.
Meanwhile, The Wall Street Journal checks in with a story today titled Beloved Bars Take Dive. Nothing really new in the piece ... Here's the lead-in, which nicely sums it up:
Even the regulars at Mars Bar were surprised that their beloved hangout — a graffiti-encased dive of an East Village bar that had survived the recent arrivals of a Whole Foods market, luxury condo buildings and trendy restaurants from the likes of Keith McNally and Daniel Boulud — had managed to hang on.
"It's the last place left and now they're taking it away," said Joel Magee, who managed a rotating schedule of artists hired to paint the scrappy bar's murals. "It was inevitable, really. We're all thinking about where we're gonna go, what we're going to do. There is talk about it coming back, but nobody really thinks it can."