They cleaned up its exterior, in more recent years, but Billymark’s West on 9th Avenue at West 29th Street was both a storied -- and deceptively intimidating -- dive bar and a veritable canvas for eye-catching street art, for many years. I can’t say I was in any credible way a regular, but I do remember stopping in for beers, a few times, throughout the `90s.
Prior to its more recent makeover, the interior of the bar exuded a pointedly frill-free aesthetic. The only demographic it really catered to seemed to be local, unabashed day-drinkers from the westerly Chelsea environs. It was by no means a place to see and be seen, so to speak. It always struck me as the type of dive that the Westies (i.e. the Irish mob that formerly reigned in neighboring Hell’s Kitchen) might have held court in.
Again, in later years, it got kind of a facelift and then they put in a bunch of flat-screen televisions to make it more of a sports bar, unwittingly diluting much of its former character, to my mind, but what do I know?
In any case, this morning, I was sad to note that my friend Robert posted the pic below. Billymark’s West is evidently no more.
Yet another storied NYC bar bites the dust.
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