The Blarney Cove seems to be one of the only bars in the East Village that didn’t receive the memo that the 'hood is now about expensive drinks, NYU kids, and shrieking woo woo girls who truck in from the 'burbs for a night in the big city. Even those who visit divey shithole bars as hip anthropological experimentation tend to steer clear of the Blarney Cove's front door. I loved it because it was a place for professional drinkers to lose themselves without inhibition. It reminded me of the line in "It's A Wonderful Life":
Hey look, mister- we serve hard drinks in here for men who want to get drunk fast and we don't need any characters to give the joint "atmosphere".
It was always dark in there regardless of the time of day. The only light I can recall noticing was the faint illumination from the bar. It gave off a weird sort of glow that made everyone look like they were terminally ill. I would go there because I knew I didn't have to impress anyone. I certainly was not going to run the risk of running into future wife material and if I happened to rub shoulders with anyone I might've known from my outside life, it was safe to say that the person I saw was as much of a degenerate as I was.
No one cared if you slept at the bar, chewed the shit out a straw, or talked to yourself as long as you didn't bug anyone else. I've heard that people have been 86ed from the Blarney Cove. If you can't keep your shit together enough to remain welcome at the Blarney Cove, there's not much hope for you as a public drinker. The next stop is either drinking alone at home or while wandering the streets because there's few other places that will tolerate your sorry ass. It's a pretty low bar to make it as a Blarney Cove regular. Failure to meet that standard says a lot about a person's ability to co-exist with the rest of the human race.
I learned today that the bar is set to close at the end of the month. The surprising part is that they managed to stay open as long as they did. Per an article in the EV Grieve, the whole block is shutting down business-by-business. What does the future hold? Who knows? All I can say is that the march of change has claimed another uniquely New York artifact.
Photo courtesy of EV Grieve
