One of my favorite local bars to go to when I lived in Alphabet City was a bar called Korova Milk Bar on Avenue A. The space is great, all dark and weird and full of odd mannequins, chairs, and occasional porn on the tv screens. Even if you weren’t familiar with its namesake from A Clockwork Orange, it was a great place with crazy bartenders (Laurie, tell us where you go to work next, because I will follow you!) and a continuous crowd of varying genres that always seemed to mix well, whether they were looking to lounge or show off their latest self-done piercing.

Sadly (for us), it seems that they’ve decided to sell their space and close their doors. (Upon further research, it appears that they did this at least a month ago, which goes to show you how much I’ve been barhopping lately.) Apparently they’re looking for a new space outside of Manhattan, though, so hopefully they’ll pop up again in Brooklyn or something and I can go enjoy the awesome weirdness again. Until then, I’ll just have to find someplace else and lament the depunkification of Alphabet City with my roommate, who remembers drinking and fighting and punks vs. skins and all that and gets sad when he sees cafes where his old punk rock watering holes were… but that’s a story for another time.

Image from korovamilkbar.com