Everyone remembers the big lizard that used to hold court atop the Lone Star Café. Don’t bother looking for it now, of course. Not only is the lizard long gone (now in Texas), but the building that acted as his perch -- first a Schraft’s ice cream parlor, then the Lone Star Café, then a nightclub called Mr. Fuji’s Tropicana, then a weird deli and finally a derelict and empty shell -- has been razed to accommodate the luxury condo that stands in its footprint. That big green lizard (who also logged a little time on a TriBeCa pier during the 90’s) was a local icon. But,… there was another.
Prior to its incarnation as, in its proprietor Trigger’s own words, a "classy dive bar," Continental on Third Avenue at St. Marks Place was, of course, a rollicking live music venue, catering largely to the high-volume predilections of the neighborhood’s punk legacy. I wrote about that incarnation here and here. Prior to that, however, circa the dawn of the 90’s, the venue as actually called The Continental Divide. I remember going once or twice during that incarnation (then to see a band I may have mentioned here before called The Niagaras). It had a very different vibe compared to the venue it would later become.
In any case, while Continental prides itself today on being dark and gritty, back then it was a slightly goofier affair, capped off by the fact that on the roof of the place, there was a goddamn brontosaurus. I promise I’m not making that up, but I cannot seem to find any documentation (beyond Trigger’s vague allusion to the place being “a kitschy dinosaur-themed” venture). Hard to believe, but I promise you it's true.
Does anyone else remember or -– better still -– have photographic evidence to share?
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