On several occaisions, in the past couple of years, I’ve made the declaration that St. Marks Place is dead, … or dead to me, at least. I’ve made similar assertions about SoHo. These observations are invariably due to the closing of various businesses that once lined the byways in question, and the ensuing changes in character that the absences of those businesses provoke.
While most of the places I once held dear on or around St. Marks Place --- Dojo, St. Marks Books, Freebeing Records, Venus Records, Sounds, Smash CD’s (later Rockit Scientist), Coney Island High, Trash & Vaudeville, the Continental as a live music venue, Norman’s Sound + Vision -– are all already long, long gone, there are still a couple of spots that still resonate with me. No, I’m not talking about Search & Destroy. I mean, I have nothing against the place, but it’s not exactly cheap, considering the state of the duds they’re hawking. It’s just not from “my era,” so to speak.
I’m glad St. Marks Comics is still there, and I’m glad the historic Gem Spa is still hanging on. But I spied a post on EV Grieve’s blog this week that really put the hook in me.
As detailed here, evidently the Grassroots Tavern -– open since 1975 and captured above by me circa 2012 -- is poised to get new owner, and an owner more inclined towards bespoke bullshit and a more monied clientele.
I believe I first started darkening the doors of the endearingly grotty Grassroots Tavern in about 1989. Freshly sprung from college, but without a meaningful job of any substantial description, apart from a pointedly unpaid internship at SPIN Magazine (where, as detailed here, I made sure to compensate for my lack of a salary by liberally availing myself to stacks of promo albums and a healthy supply of SPIN t-shirts), I discovered the myriad joys of drinking on the (relatively) cheap in the dim, low tin-ceilinged splendor of the Grassroots with my gaggle of similarly empoverished friends. But a drunken bottle’s toss from many of the since-vanished spots cited above (the Grassroots is directly underneath what used to be Sounds), it was the perfect location wherein to review one’s spoils from any number of record shops over a few beers, or a decent place to start one’s evening before repairing to various (since-shuttered) rock clubs of the area.
No, the bowls of popcorn are never necessarily that fresh, and the jukebox is never loud enough, for my taste, but I dearly love the Grassroots Tavern. It’s not fancy. It’s not exclusive. Hell, it’s not even especially nice, but -– to my mind -- it’s perfect just the way it is.
Don’t fuck with it.
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