The Rum House Will Close on September 30

Marked for extinction.

In early June, word surfaced that the Rum House, the piano bar that has sat in the Edison Hotel on West 47th Street for more than three decades, would close by the end of the year. Last night its owner, Thai Dang, e-mailed us with some more sad news.

"As of today, 8/18/10, We were informed that we must leave by Sept 30," he wrote. "Were hoping to be here through the Christmas Season but it looks like that's not happening."

There's no word on what will replace the bar (Dang had previously told us that he'd heard the hotel would gut the space and "make it shiny"), but as many of its longtime patrons will attest, the Rum House is pretty much irreplaceable. So make haste over to 47th Street while you still can, and raise a glass to yet another rapidly disappearing vestige of a New York that's becoming harder and harder to find these days.

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