EAST VILLAGE — When Iestyn Polson stepped into the reopened Holiday Cocktail Lounge Monday night, it wasn’t quite as he remembered.
Holiday’s new owners kept the familiar red awning and the bar’s horseshoe-shaped bar, but the gritty neighborhood dive had been scrubbed down, the seats had been replaced and the jukebox was nowhere to be seen, said patrons like Polson who frequented the Holiday in the '80s and '90s.
“It’s very different,” the 42-year-old said, adding that he wasn’t sure what to make of the changes.
Other former regulars said they liked the updates made to the 75 St. Marks Place bar, which closed in 2012 after decades in business.
“I think it’s great,” said Eric Holland, 40, who frequented the bar in the '90s. The relaunched watering hole was “a little more dressed up,” he said, but he was happy to see the space hadn’t been turned into a chain store.
“It has the same feel,” Holland explained. “It’s a dive, so you didn’t have pretentious people in [Holiday]…People were there to drink, people were there to socialize, and I’ve found that coming back.”
Former East Village resident Andrew Randack disagreed. Although the 42-year-old Park Slope resident liked the changes overall — he called them "amazing" — the bar’s atmosphere had changed, he said.
“It’s impossible [for the bar] to feel the same," Randack said. "You can’t recreate what it was, because it took gunk and grime and sweat and tears and god knows what other bodily fluids were all over the place here. It was a pretty unique place back then."
Chuck Ludinsky, 46, who has lived in the neighborhood since 1991, said he was willing to give the bar a chance, but doubted it would ever be as “divey” as it once was.
“I mean, the whole neighborhood’s changed completely in the last 10 years. There’s so much turnover, so many places are gone,” he said.
But even if the bar had remained completely the same, Ludinsky added, he wasn’t sure it would hold the same appeal it did when he was younger.
“I’m not the same person I was before," he said, "so it wouldn’t be the same experience for me, either.”
