Bring Out Your Dead

I've been keeping a line on the various cultural landmarks that have come crashing down since I landed in the Big Onion. The list is growing unfavorably long.

As everyone knows, CBGB bit the dust last autumn.

Coliseum Books shut down, reopened in a new location, and shut down once again.

The building which once housed McGurk's Suicide Hall was torn down to make way for a condominium.

Cedar Tavern has been closed for renovation for many months. Some are skeptical they'll ever reopen.

Onetime speakeasy Chumley's is closed indefinitely after a chimney collapsed. It has been speculated that the building will have to be razed.

Tower Records is gone, but I'm not particularly concerned about that. What'd they ever do for me?

Former Beat Generation haunt West End Café was rechristened Havana Central. I haven't been there since the reopening, so I don't know if they've retained the literary memorabilia on the walls.

Not sure what's going on over at the legendary Gotham Book Mart. The last two occasions I passed by, its gates were locked, windows dark, and a foreboding sign on the door stated simply "on vacation." The whole scene feels uneasily like the aftermath of a mob hit.

And now Tonic, one of my favorite venues for adventurous music, couldn't handle the increase in rent and was forced to take a powder. Marc Ribot, Beat Circus, Elysian Fields, and others will have to find a new home.

Unsettling trend. Who's next, I wonder.