By Adam Nichols
DNAinfo News Editor
LOWER EAST SIDE — The Lower East Side is losing its edge.
Rising rents and gentrification are forcing out the last of the dive bars central to the grungy, punk rock image that the neighborhood is famous for, and with them is going to area's image.
As DNAinfo reported last week, Ludlow Street pioneer bar Max Fish and its adjoining restaurant Pink Pony are set to shutter at the end of January.
The venues were favorite hangouts for downtown celebrities who thrived on the neighborhood's image, including Johnny Depp, Courtney Love and film director Jim Jarmusch.
But the area's now being taken over by up-scale residents including a Steve Madden shoe store and the posh Rivington Hotel, according to bar neighbors.
"The Lower East Side felt like it was over a while ago, but (Max Fish) is a very symbolic closing," author Richard Price, who set his bestseller "Lush Life" in the area, told the New York Post.
"There are no neighborhoods in Manhattan anymore. South of Harlem, it feels like a bunch of districts where rich people can crash."
The nearby Mars Bar, on First Street and Second Avenue in the East Village and equally famous as a dive bar that epitomized the area's punk roots, announced earlier this month it would also close.
Max Fish owner Ulli Rimkus told the Post she was leaving because her rent was being jacked up to $20,000 a month. She didn't say what she was paying now.
"I'm in no way able to pay that kind of money," she said.
"I'm devastated. I don't really see us anywhere else. This is where we started."
Pink Pony leases its space from Rimkus and will also need to move.
"Every young artist in New York has had a few drinks (in Max Fish)," artist Aaron Rose told the Post.
"It's the death of a certain era of Manhattan."
