Marie's Crisis - Arthur's Tavern / Thomas Paine

These are the times that try men’s souls… and their knowledge of musical theater! Marie’s Crisis Café is a West Village sing-along piano bar where belting out show tunes is the order of the day. But, the “crisis” in question has nothing to do with show business. It has to do with the American Revolution.

Thomas Paine authored “Common Sense” (1776) and “The American Crisis” (1776-1783), two of the most influential pamphlets at the start of the American Revolution. He helped inspire the Patriots in 1776 to declare independence from Great Britain. We know you’re saying, “What?!” Marie’s takes its name from Thomas Paine’s pamphlet “The Crisis.” Why? Paine died here in 1809 after spending his last months at 59 Grove Street. The revolutionary history lives on in the bar’s spectacular etched glass WPA (Work Project Administration) Mural, which depicts scenes from the American and French Revolutions.

Ok, but how did this place go from Thomas Paine’s house to a house of tunes? Here’s what we know: The bar opened in the 1850s as a brothel, became a gay bar in the 1890s, and adopted its “Crisis” identity during Prohibition when in 1929, Marie DuMont re-opened the doors as a restaurant/speakeasy. Named partly after herself and partly after the man who died on the site in 1809, Marie’s Crisis Café has been a musical theater hot spot for about half a century!