Bar Matchless used to serve as a much-beloved neighborhood beacon for live music, brunch, and cheap beer, but you’d never be able to tell from the current scene at 577 Manhattan Avenue, its former home.
The scrappy, 15-year-old bar was closed in early 2018 after being evicted by a building sale. Since then, we’ve been tracking the state of the building, which still stood (and became an instant hotbed for graffiti) all the way up until two weeks ago.
Now all that remains is a vacant lot and, apparently, land ripe for condos, which is exactly what it will become according to a 2018 permit filed by developer Bi Hang Cheng, the buyer of the building roughly 10 months prior to its closure. According to PropertyShark, the old Bar Matchless building was built in 1931. Goodnight, sweet prince.
First of all, the address is 557 Manhattan Avenue/310 Driggs Avenue, not 577. Interesting fact: there never was a building at that location going back to when that portion of Manhattan Avenue was named Orchard Street.
Using Property Shark to date a building is inaccurate because it parrots information from NYC DOB which uses “1931” as a generic building date for structures built pre- 1920. The building was constructed between 1861-1867 because it is shown in Higginson’s insurance maps of the city of Brooklyn L. I. (1868) as a 3 story brick building with a store on the ground floor at 33 Orchard Street.
For those who probably don’t know, prior to the bar, 557 Manhattan Ave. was the location of J.L. Fries Auto Parts, in business starting in 1920, from 1932 until its closing in 2003-6.