#136

#136, Atlantic Avenue, Brooklyn

Last Exit to Brooklyn, a novel by Hubert Selby, is a transgressive tale of the underbelly of Brooklyn, where hoodlums, punks, factory workers, hookers, and sailors drink, fight, and live out their seedy lives. Last Exit in Brooklyn is a transgressive bar in the underbelly of Brooklyn where hoodlums, punks, factory workers, hookers, and sailors drink, fight, and live out their seedy lives. Oh, all right. It's not really that bad. I've never actually seen a sailor there.

I ain't hating on the Exit, I actually really dig this bar, though I confess that my loyalties have been elsewhere these past few years. But I've had a couple of enjoyable nights and spent a few birthdays drinking in this red-lit, friendly, well-music-ed watering hole. Now that Magnetic Field, a little farther down the block, is gone -- R.I.P. -- Last Exit is one of the last remaining Atlantic Avenue outposts where one can gather and chat with a mixed, laid back crowd, and admire artwork that looks like it came from the brush or paint-strewn fingers of H.P. Lovecraft's and J.R. Geiger's love child. Hot pink Cthulhus: you may not like them, but they really know how to get the party started.

The bar is definitely worth dropping in for, as is the excellent exterior. That red and yellow sign and Last Exit lettering is as iconic to me as a Dairy Queen sign. Open later, too.