Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité

You knew Marie’s Crisis, 59 Grove Street, is a West Village institution; a groovy, ancient piano bar which rivals the venerable Julius’s for gay bar with the richest history.  But did you know the name comes from Thomas Paine’s pamphlet “The Crisis”, an expansion of themes he first addressed in “Common Sense”?  Paine died on this site in 1809.  The extant structure dates from about 1850, and there is a bronze plaque from 1923 commemorating Paine’s death.  This is a painting of the spartan array of bottles on the back bar and part of the remarkable mirrors.  Not sure this is completely done yet, but here it is anyway.