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Pricey East Village Clothing Store to Remember Mars Bar in Photo Show

Mars Bar will be remembered by photography exhibition at clothing store Blue & Cream.
Mars Bar will be remembered by photography exhibition at clothing store Blue & Cream.
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DNAinfo/Patrick Hedlund

EAST VILLAGE  — Flashy East Village clothing store Blue & Cream will pay tribute to Mars Bar, its notoriously not flashy and recently demolished neighbor, according to Gothamist.

Blue & Cream, located across the road from the bar's former spot on Second Avenue and East First Street, will be hosting a photo exhibition dedicated to the watering hole that was a refuge for the neighborhood’s shady past. The city’s Department of Health shut Mars Bar down in July 2011, a few months before a demolition team razed the derelict building.

The exhibition will showcase images of the bar by photographer and native New Yorker Debby Hymowitz and can be viewed in store from April 11.

Blue & Cream, where T-shirts can cost hundreds of dollars, said it is attempting to "preserve and pay homage" to a landmark that was home to "Bowery bums, punks and junkies alike," according to Gothamist.

The DOH said last year as it closed the notoriously grungy saloon that inspectors has found hundreds of fruit flies in various parts of the bar and conditions conducive to infestation, including standing water on the floor and waterlogged wooden flooring.

Now the building is down and there are plans for condos to rise in its place.

Another exhibition mourning the loss of Mars Bar is due to open next month. An event called 12 x 12 is scheduled for May 2012 and will include furniture made from lumber salvaged from the old building along with materials from 11 other demolished New York City structures.