Smirk

For nearly 40 years that enigmatic countenance, that sphinxlike kisser, has gazed out from the plywood shutter on the Southard Street facade of The Green Parrot. Facing the barroom when the Parrot is open and facing the street when we are closed, Smirk, has, as we say, “Seen it All”.

In the then-owners’ effort to dress the place up, Smirk leapt from the palette of artist and former Green Parrot bartender Saul Paul Stewart in 1975 when amazingly, the only other things resembling art that adorned the Parrot’s walls was a rather grisly knock-off of the famous Karsh Hemingway portrait, also by Stewart, and screwed to the opposite wall, an equally disturbing snow shovel with several bullet holes in it.