The Death of The Dive Bar

It's all but over, the end of an era. Another New York City landmark is disappearing, but it's not any tower of cement and glass.

The New York smoking ban has been in effect for a year. The results say that most bars are doing the same or even better business since the ban went into effect. The only bars that are losing money are the small ones, the little dive bars. It's the beginning of the end of the dive bar.

So let's all raise our glasses in a final tribute to the gin-stained pool table and the Roadhouse Blues on the jukebox; the most disgusting bathroom in the world; the seventy-year-old man with a face like weathered cracked old shoes who stares ahead at nothing at 1:30 on a Tuesday afternoon, slumping on the last stool at the end of the bar with a glass of room-temperature Old Grand Dad, a front row seat to his past battles won and lost.

And let us raise our glass finally to the dirty ash tray, and the half-burned, totally forgotten Pall Mall nestled in it's groove, it's long ash hanging precariously over the crushed remains of the ones that came before it . . . Marlboro, Camel, Winston . . . it's burning end lazily pushing smoke into the hanging cloud that fills the dimly lit room from end to end . . .

Goodbye old friend. You'll be missed.