Manray
Behind a soothing screen of live bamboo and a gate made up of white, lonzenge-shaped panels awaits the block’s most architecturally interesting feature: the Manray Bar.
Although it was built in 1999, walking inside Manray is a “back to the future” experience of 1970s sci-fi. People have compared the setting to Miami Vice and the Korova Milkbar in “A Clockwork Orange,” but bartender and managing partner Tommy Hedrick likes to think of it as “the Jetson’s kitchen.”
Founded by Mark Spaulding and Patrick Winslade, Manray’s unique interior was created by a Seattle design firm named SMASH. Above a polished floor of arctic blue, the white-lozenge theme continues in wall and ceiling panels that are backlit in colors that change from orange to green to blue. Batteries of video monitors display sci-fi images as techno music pulses.
There are no works by avante-garde artist Man Ray on display here. Apparently the bar’s name was chosen because it sounds cool and contains the word “man” (this is a gay bar).
Hedrick (left), who along with other employees bought Manray from its original Chicago owners, sees no future for the bar after the block is demolished. He is looking for investors to help start a new, more lounge-like bar somewhere else, possibly salvaging some of Manray’s fixtures, such as its Mothership-like central bar structure.
