Most Creepy and Disgusting Dive Bar

[Wilfrid]

Time for some beverages. Dirty, dangerous, low life dive stories requested please. Someone want to start the class off?

Okay, just a teaser; probably the worst smelling bar I have come across (and I mean the bar area, not the restrooms) - Coyote Ugly, NYC. I walked past one morning, when they had opened the doors to sweep garbage in off the street, and the stench was staggering.

[Lady T]

Good night, Wilfrid! If they were sweeping garbage IN off the street -- to clean the place up!? -- then that's dirtier than any place I've ever visited at home here in Chicago. But on 56th Street off Seventh Avenue in NYC, there may still be a relatively foul place called La Fondue. I went there in December 2000 hoping, by the name of the place, to have a bite and a half decent glass of wine that wouldn't quite cost my left arm before a concert at Carnegie Hall a block away.

I didn't get far past the front door, however. The place was dim. It was smelly rather than aromatic. I could see mold of the wrong kinds blooming rampantly on three out of five cheeses in the display window. The rats in the alley a few doors down looked more welcoming, cordial and professional than did the host, and the only way I could tell my fellow diners from the roaches, in that murky light, was to squint and count the number of feet touching the floor per body.

I went straight on to Carnegie, and ordered room service back at the hotel afther the concert; paid through the nose, but at least I could vouch (more or less) for safety and sanitation.

How do these places -- in NYC, Chicago, ANYWHERE -- keep their licenses (apart from the time-honored custom of bribing the inspectors and their supervisory politicians, of course)??

[Wilfrid]

Hmmm, I wonder if that's still there.

Here's a couple of Manhattan nominations:

The Holland Bar, especially before it's recent "facelift". A hole in the wall off Ninth Avenue, with toothless bartenders and steaming regulars swapping stories about who died last. A lot of shaking hands, and I don't mean being polite. The refurb included taking down the wall decorations - hundreds of used Bud beer mats - and employing people with teeth.

Marz Bar, on 2nd in the East Village. Not finally as dirty as the Holland Bar or as smelly as Coyote Ugly. But I found the clientele to be menacingly drunk. And it is pretty dirty.

[tommy]

the holland. wilfrid, you're the only person that i know who has a degree in advanced "learning" that goes there. even *i* don't go there.

however, we are clearly on the same page, as i was just about to start a thread of "your favorite NYC bartenders." which, i shall do...at some point.

[Wilfrid]

I am all set for that, Thomas. I have a top ten ready to go.

Some dives have proved too much even for a man of my robust sensibility. I walked into some kind of refectory off a back street in Barcelona's Barri Xines one day, and a lot of very old, very poor and very DT-ridden faces turned to look at me. I ordered a vino tinto, and some kind of black paintstripper was pulled from a huge barrel into a cloudy tumbler. It cost about 2 cents. I drank that up quick and left.

I can list some bars I refused to go into, but hey - someone else must have some tales?

[tommy]

i think the negative connotation associated with "dive bar" may be misleading. personally, i love a good dive bar, more than a "yuppie" bar that is serving 8 dollar Buds. the bellevue in NYC on 9th ave comes to mind, which is a fav of tony bourdain if i recall. it's dark, dank, and i'm not sure how clean the mugs are. but it has a great crowd usually, and some of the most interesting folks in the world. much interesting than the people you'd meet at Heartland Brewery for example. would i take my mom there? probably not. i suppose that's a good barometer of sorts: if i like it a lot, but i wouldn't take my mom there, it's probably considered a "dive." otherwise, you'd be hard-pressed to find a bar so seedy that i'd feel uncomfortable enough to leave. hell, look at the way i dress.

[Wilfrid]

otherwise, you'd be hard-pressed to find a bar so seedy that i'd feel uncomfortable enough to leave.  hell, look at the way i dress.

Oh, I have some. In San Francisco's "tenderloin", where I could see from the doorway that most patrons were unable to stand. And a bar in Harlem, the name of which was written on a piece of torn corrugated cardboard taped to the window. Funnily enough, the name hasn't stuck in my memory.

I too am profoundly fond of dives, tommy, which is why I hoped someone else would show up on the thread and tell me about some I don't know.

[tommy]

which is why I hoped someone else would show up on the thread and tell me about some I don't know.

hence my idea of "your favorite bartender." i figure if someone, say, "mr. z", mentions a place and their favorite barman "johnny", i'll simply go to that bar and say "hey, i'm good friends with mr. z, how are you johnny." and i'll get decent service.

[Wilfrid]

None of my favorite bartenders are called Johnny.

[g.johnson]

I was always partial to the original Village Idiot on First, and, a couple of doors away, Downtown Beirut although the skinheads in the former could sometimes be a little intimidating.

[tommy]

although the skinheads in the former could sometimes be a little intimidating.

that's pretty much the only time i don't feel "right" in a bar...when i think that someone (or everyone for that matter) wants to kick my ass. if that's the case, it's probably not a very good place to begin with. and the skinheads these days, they don't want to listen to me when i tell them that i was a "punk" before their mommy had her first piercing. they just don't want to hear that at all.

[Priscilla]

Is this only NYC? If so I shall diminish to the West.

Yes, I think dive need defining. I mean, dirt alone don't make a dive. Drunk patrons, ditto, do not make a dive. Noisomness, yuckers, but, does noisomeness a dive make?

I like dives; but then, I'm thinking of what I'M thinking of is a dive. Don't like to drink with skinheads, though. I find them boring conversationalists.

[Wilfrid]

No, this is for global divedom, so no diminishing, please, Priscilla.

What does make up a dive? I agree, they aren't necessarily dirty, let alone dangerous. I think they have to be reasonably dark and dingy. Also, I think what's important is a kind of sense of that time has stopped passing, and people have stopped bothering - maybe what used to be meant by "beat" (in the literary sense).

A dive is where they don't take down the Xmas decorations in January, because they'll be good to go next December. It's where they don't redecorate. It's where they never change the draft beers, or offer interesting new menu options (dives usually have no food, or just really hopeless stuff like pretzels or pickled eggs). I think dives do have to cater for very drunk patrons - not necessarily rolling drunk - quietly, chronically pickled imbibers will do.

What's that place near Bloomingdale's? The Subway Inn, I think. Painted by Ed Hopper. That's a dive. And let's not forget the old Siberia, a sort of dark, concrete cavern, with broken furniture, just off the steps down to a midtown subway station. That was a mess.

Sorry, those were New York. London? The King's Head, Chinatown. Upstairs or downstairs.

[tommy]

A dive is where they don't take down the Xmas decorations in January, because they'll be good to go next December.

eff me, i've got neighbors like that. those freakin "icicles" that became popular about 4 years ago seemed to give even the most reasonable people and businesses carte blanche regarding leaving holiday decorations up all year. what gives?

[Priscilla]

There was a bar in Hollywood, the Firefly, gone now, that was good for a long time and was sorta ruined, as things get, by success, as it became a place for scensters.

But it was authentic, and I think authenticness is important.

It was never particularly dirty inside, but tiny, and had interesting habitual patrons, um, "interesting" like my Mother would use it. Old-fashionedly LAish, studio employees, nobody higher up than the guy who stacks the film canisters in the warehouse, like, and some melancholy well-dressed gay men, and what passes for regular folks in Los Angeles, a category which would not encompass regular folks elsewhere.

Pleasant and cooperative bartend, VERY important, because at that time cooperative meant "will serve girls under 21." And stocked those little Coors bullet bottles, Coors being a beer I didn't then and don't now like, but they were cheap, and cute, and fitting.

An accidentally great jukebox, predating hipster-overrunning. My sister, who later lived nearby, used to tell me she'd go in and punch up "Radar Love," just for me.

[tommy]

Pleasant and cooperative bartend, VERY important, because at that time cooperative meant "will serve girls under 21."  And stocked those little Coors bullet bottles, Coors being a beer I didn't then and don't now like, but they were cheap, and cute, and fitting.

sounds like my kind of place.

and "radar love," of course, is one of my favorite air guitar 2 am at the pub songs.

[Wilfrid]

Ah bin drivin' all night, my hands wet on the whee-el

[Priscilla]

Maybe a corollary over in Off-Topic, Can a Jukebox Be Really Good If It Does NOT Include "Radar Love", I'm thinkin'.

[snowangel]

Stand-Up Frank's in North Minneapolis. If you go, don't go with a Yuppie who will insult the regulars. Close second was the now-defunct New Wonder (defunct because they were also a purveyor of sawn-off shotguns.

[researchgal]

There seem to be som staple items that separate the dives from the non-dives...

-Jar of pickled eggs on counter

-Slim jims by the register

-A grill in the "kitchen" from which you wouldn't dare eat anything

-No '90s songs on the juke

-Patrons that have no qualms about being seen in the establishment during broad daylight hours

-Juice glasses that they serve the wine (that you would never order because you only drink beer in dives) in...

[Wilfrid]

Stand Up Frank's is a good name for a dive.

And yes, researchgal, there should be people in there who have been drinking since morning - possibly several days ago.

Most of the famous "dives" in New Orleans seemed to have got cleaned up, but Bourdain spoke very highly of one while picking at his chopped liver at Sammy's - can't remember the name now.

[MsRamsey]

In Seattle, one of the best is the Blue Moon Tavern. Open since 1934, it's been the hangout for many barfly University of Washington profs and famous writers. The building was sold in 1989, with plans to tear it down and build condos. There was public protest over this and attempts to designate the Blue Moon a historical landmark. These efforts didn't work, but the developers decided to leave the Blue Moon alone. Its lease apparently has another 30 years to go.

But it is truly dirty, smoky and stinky. They serve bad beer, there's one day where they only play Grateful Dead, and a lot of scary characters hang out there. I love the place, so much so that I'm really glad it's not in my neighborhood. Way too tempting.

A Seattle historian, Walt Crowley, actually wrote a book about the place.

[Wilfrid]

Where is it? Is it in the neighborhood around the old city square - as I vaguely remember it?

[MsRamsey]

I think the area you're referring to is Pioneer Square.

Blue Moon is in the University District ("U-District") on 45th, which is the main east-west drag through that area.

[snowangel]

And yes, researchgal, there should be people in there who have been drinking since morning - possibly several days ago.

This reminds me of a song by Webb Pierce (Pearce?) -- There Stands the Glass. Probably the most misserable drinking song ever written, about the most miserable soul in the most miserable dive. Check it out.