The Levee is one of the last true old (as in, from 10 years ago) bars left in Williamsburg, where you can still get piss drunk on cheap beer at 1pm on a Tuesday while sitting on a cigarette-covered picnic table as a guy with ratty metal hair digs around in a vat of communal cheese balls to provide you with a non-nutritious but free bar meal of cheese dust with a Twizzler chaser. You know, the good ol’ days of the recession before any of us had jobs.
Anyway, the bar we check on every week out of fear it’s finally being turned into an M&M Store/Lexus dealership mega complex is still holding strong, and is still at it with the great street art. The bar just unveiled a new mural yesterday (above) on its North 3rd Street-facing side created by Damien Mitchell. It shows a winking Vladimir Putin taking off his Trump mask, which is to date the worst cosplay to wear to a party. Not even in your most strung out nights in the old Kokie’s days would you imagine a world where this art would be necessary in 2017.
Williamsburg may be home to more Trump supporters than you think, but so far the Trump administration is doing a good job of reviving the fuck-the-system punk attitude of our once politically vibrant dive bars (and laundromats), so maybe that’s some good that will come out of this whole thing.
So feel free to stop by the Levee to enjoy the mural and have a Texas Two Step and some of those cheeseballs to help dull the pain of the news. Just probably not on a Friday or Saturday night because woah that’s when new Williamsburg comes to drink apparently.
The Levee is located at 212 Berry St. in Williamsburg.