Blue Moon Tavern   

Though it lacks official recognition from the city's government, the Blue Moon stands as a historical and cultural landmark like no other in the city. Dressed in tagged wooden booths, a stained cement floor and Tuesday's (peanut night) empty shells, the fact that this dive still exists amid the development of the surrounding areas is in itself a phenomena. After opening in 1934, the Moon gained notoriety in the '50s when the beats took over and poets like Alan Ginsberg, Stanley Kunitz and Richard Hugo made it one of their regular haunts, along with rumors of the king Jack Kerouac himself. From that point on, the tavern has continued to embrace its counter- culture patrons, which today comprises largely of young and old hippies, dead heads and assorted leftist thinkers. Along with conversation, Blue Moon entertainment consists of Monday's opera night, Wednesday's open mike and Sundays Grateful Dead bootleg extravaganza. Of recent addition are the portraits of the 2000 Presidential Election candidates, painted on the men's bathroom wall during the Florida ballot recount. A scaled-down version of Seattle Art Museum's Hammering man pounds beer outside on the sidewalk; the window sign says "Sorry, We're Open" -- the walls inside tell much, much more.