I’m not sure if you know this, but I’m not an Erie native. I grew up in Western New York and arrived here during the summer of 2004, spending my early Gem City years on upper Peach Street as an assistant hotel manager. I didn’t become “bar aware” so to speak until I took a job downtown a few years later. Even then I didn’t frequent the cool places for a while because I was… uh, boring.
But don’t worry! I figured it out and dialed in my travels to the more well-known watering holes since then. And speaking of watering holes, we’re going to take a ghost bar tour of sorts this month, traversing city streets in search of bars long gone as part of the Erie Reader’s 15th anniversary (congrats guys!).
First and foremost snag your beer and let’s start out our monthly celebration of Erie’s lack of open container policy at 508 State St. This was the former entrance to Sherlock’s, a longtime music venue once titled as “Erie’s home for rock ‘n roll.” It featured a raised balcony overlooking State Street making it a perfect venue for parade and people watching during CelebrateErie and connected to the Park Place side through brick arches on the interior. This was the afterparty spot for the once popular RockErie Music Awards, a proper celebration of local musicians. I attended the last show here back in 2018 right before their closure and I have to say, it was a great, great spot. Cheers to you, Sherlock’s and Park Place!…