Blue & Cream on Mars

Tonight, the upscale Bowery (via the Hamptons) boutique Blue & Cream will be hosting a "Tribute to Mars Bar" photo exhibit. Says the press release:

"Photographer and native New Yorker, Debby Hymowitz, has captured the essence of this gritty and martyred establishment through her brilliant photos that will help carry on the Mars Bar essence, just as it should be remembered. After all, this is Blue & Cream’s neighborhood."


photo: Debby Hymowitz, Blue & Cream site

Back in 2010, when the bar was still standing, Blue & Cream's back to the Bowery lookbook described how the photographer "envisioned how a girl who has everything one could want in her wardrobe would dress when confined to this local dive bar."

The writing was already on the wall--authentrification at its height.


photo: Debby Hymowitz, Blue & Cream site

Of course, we have a thorough understanding of how the forces that birthed Blue & Cream on the Bowery--the forces that turned CBGB into a John Varvatos boutique and disgorged the Avalons complete with Whole Foods--also led to the recent death of Mars Bar.

From the Marc Jacobsian front on Bleecker to the Great Wall of Highline to the bloody Battle of the Bowery, we're in a culture war and our side is not winning.


photo: Debby Hymowitz, Blue & Cream site

The news of this event, buzzing across the blogosphere this week from Gothamist to Racked, has made more than one observer express the wish that the real Mars Bar regulars would show up at tonight's opening--to do what they do best.

But I have to wonder: Wouldn't the presence of Mars Bar regulars only feed the authenticity hunger of the New Bowery? It reminds me of Derelicte, the too-true satire from the movie Zoolander.



We see this all over the New Bowery, where flophouses become trendy boutique hotels, complete with homeless men included. Where tenement laundry lines become selling points for luxury hotel views. Where "Bowery" has become a luxury brand. Somehow, alcoholism, marginalization, and poverty have become hip to exploit.

As Mugatu says in Zoolander, it's "the future of fashion."


Everettsville: Looking east along 1st St. in 2002


Same view today: Chase and Blue & Cream

Also read:
About "authentrification" and the Bowery
The Loss of Mars
Bowery Tsunami
Varvatos Reimagined

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