Each of the planks of red spruce in Levent’s Vice Box is sure to have been witness to years of the crazy antics that happened in the dive bar frequented by the Rock and Roll set. Mars Bar represented the epitome of the rough-and-tumble Bowery of years past, and was a sister bar to the also defunct punk rock haven, CBGBs, which was just a few blocks away. The destruction of Mars Bar is considered by some to be the last stand of the bohemian spirit of the East Village.
To pay tribute to the bar’s mythic character of grit and excitement, Levent immediately decided to create a bar cabinet. Playing up on the rough wood surface of the planks, she fused the well-worn textures with smooth, milled areas, creating a combination that meshed her own design character with the history of wood. Her classic patterns of circles of varying sizes were milled using an exacting CNC machine, playing up the natural grooves of the rough wood.
The resulting reclaimed wood piece is the Mars Bar all grown up, an exquisite home-bar for storing and displaying spirits, while still being a little rough around the edges.
+ Fiyel Levent
Read more: Fiyel Levent Transforms Wood from Historic NYC Bar into a Bespoke Liquor Cabinet | Inhabitat New York City