Quantcast

The DNAinfo archives brought to you by WNYC.
Read the press release here.

The Stoned Crow is Latest Dive Bar Casualty

By DNAinfo Staff on December 20, 2010 3:25pm  | Updated on December 21, 2010 6:02am

By Olivia Scheck

DNAinfo Reporter/Producer

MANHATTAN — Another of downtown's treasured dive bars — The Stoned Crow — will be shuttered after New Year's Eve, according to an announcement on the establishment's website.

Word of its closing followed news that popular Ludlow Street dive bar Max Fish would be holding its last call at the end of January, priced out by its current landlord.

Mars Bar, another landmark watering hole on the Lower East Side, will also be relinquishing its famously grungy exterior to make way for a new affordable housing development. The bar will have the option of reopening when construction is completed in a couple of years, but the Second Avenue pub would be thoroughly revamped.

Critics and customers have praised The Stoned Crow for its casual atmosphere, superior cheeseburgers and eccentric décor (walls lined with movie posters and stuffed birds perched above the pool table). New York Magazine lists the pub among its "critics' picks," saying it's "as comfortably ramshackle and unpretentious as your best friend’s basement."

Last Friday, blogger Clay Williams paid homage to The Stoned Crow on his website Ultraclay.com, and invited revelers to attend the New Year's Eve goodbye party.

As lines formed around the block for nearby Corner Bistro, Williams said The Stoned Crow managed to fly under the radar, attracting a crowd of "longtime barflies and burger lovers."

But "Go inside and you'll be rewarded with a laid-back atmosphere, a beer selection that includes some craft beers but doesn't obsess over it and a pretty amazing burger," Williams wrote.

The Greenwich Village watering hole is located less than a block from Washington Square Park, in the basement of 85 Washington Place.