Billymark’s

New York is a magical place. Sometimes literally. When three tuxedoed men walked into a bar at 3 am, it didn’t feel like magic, but like the start of a corny joke. Billymark’s was not a place for tuxedos. It was, however, a great place for High Life, which was always cold, and, despite my buddy’s and my best attempts that night, seemingly endless.

One of the men rifled through his pockets and pulled out a deck of cards. He started shuffling, before launching into twenty minutes of rapid fire card tricks and stage banter. They were magicians. Their showtime for Speakeasy Magick, an accompaniment to the famous Sleep No More, had finished for the night, and Billymark’s was close to the venue. These people clearly loved what they did, and never wanted to stop their act.

I was never able to get tickets to Sleep No More, or Speakeasy Magick, but I got a show that night. An out-of-the-blue show driven by passion, totally devoid of any financial incentives. That was Billymark’s in a nutshell. A bar fueled by passion. A bar owned by the two namesake brothers, who had bought up lots of primo Manhattan real estate in the 70s and 80s, which meant they didn’t need to be running a bar.

And still, they did. They alternated manning the bar, opening it up faithfully at 8am, every day of the week, for decades. Mark’s a (to me, lovable) asshole, Billy is way nicer. Neither of them needed to deal with the mix of drunks, tourists, MSG attendees, magicians, and partiers that they had on a daily basis, but they did.

Until this year. Billymark’s closed. Thankfully, the close was not due to the ever-common rent hikes, but to the brothers’ retirement. It may even come back. The for-rent sign comes and goes, and articles published months before closing give a little bit of hope.

For now, it’s gone. Cynically, it’s likely to stay gone. Even if it comes back, it can’t be the same. You can’t hand off the brother dynamic. You can’t hand off fifty years of manning the bar. You just wait, bemoaning the deaths of places you care about which all replaced the places that other people cared about. It’s the cycle of life. There were few better bars to think about your other favorite bars closing, your day going sideways, or the Knicks losing. Let’s hope, just like those magicians, Billymark’s has a few more tricks left up its sleeve.

(Photo from Lloyd Wise)