Neely's Bar

Neely's Bar is an accessible building on the corner of Neely and Sanders Streets in Silent Hill 2. It is located in the South Vale area of Silent Hill, Maine. A message in the motor home on Saul Street reads "I'll wait at 'BAR Neely's'", which directs the player to Neely's Bar; however, it is not a requirement to visit the motor home first.

At Neely's Bar, the player will discover an important clue to obtaining the apartment gate key scrawled on a map. There is also a strange message written on the window which reads: "There was a HOLE here. It's gone now." A second message can be found here later in the game.

Symbolism
Art director Masahiro Ito recalls the origin of the "hole" message coming from either environment artist Takeshi Miura or scenario writer Hiroyuki Owaku. He speculated that the message could symbolize that James Sunderland no longer has anywhere to hide from himself. After killing his wife Mary, James had fallen into a state of denial and was drawn to the town under the belief that she might still be alive in Silent Hill, waiting for him. When he arrives, his guilt is manifested into twisted monsters and scenarios, including ones such as Pyramid Head that try to force him to remember his crime against his will.

The second and third time a bar appears in the game is in Heaven's Night and the Lakeview Hotel. When James examines the bar in Heaven's Night, he remarks:

"Liquor bottles. I don't need that right now. It’s not that I don't drink. In fact, I drink a fair bit. To get away from the pain and the loneliness... But the drinking never changes anything... Anyway, I don't need it now. There's something I have to do."

When James examines the bar in the Lakeview Hotel, he reminiscences:

"Mary and I shared some nice drinks together at this bar."

The "hole" in Neely's Bar could refer to James turning to alcohol during Mary's terminal illness to wash away the void that his pain and loneliness had left. If James returns to Neely's Bar in the Otherworld, a second message appears reading:

"If you ReaLly wAnt to sEE Mary, you shOUld just DiE. But You mIght be hEadiNg to A diffErent place than MARY, James."

It appears to be a manifestation of James' guilt, suggesting that even when he dies, he will not be reunited with Mary in the afterlife because he is damned to Hell. Finding this message increases the player's chances of receiving the "In Water" ending, in which James commits suicide. Other actions such as examining Angela's Knife and reading the diary on the Brookhaven Hospital roof also contribute to the chances of getting the ending.

The motif of holes plays a role later in the game, when James begins to descend from the Silent Hill Historical Society to Toluca Prison to the Labyrinth by falling through literal holes in the ground. James jumps down each of these holes as if he is being lured into doing so. They symbolize the abyss in his heart, and by jumping through them, he dives further into his subconscious into Nowhere and comes closer to remembering what he did to Mary.

The hole message might also be a subtle nod to the hole in Green Lion Antiques from Silent Hill. The hole is present when Harry Mason first visits the antique shop but disappears when he revisits the shop in Alessa Gillespie's Nowhere. The word "BAR" can also be seen on a cupboard near the far wall of the shop.

Trivia

 * Given Team Silent's well-known propensity for referencing horror authors, it could be a reference to Neely's Prismatic Library, the publisher which first printed The King in Yellow in the late 1800s, a seminal book highly inspirational for writers like H. P. Lovecraft.
 * Alex Shepherd in Silent Hill: Homecoming references the hole message in the Shepherd House.
 * The "hole" could be a reference to the future sequel Silent Hill 4: The Room, where Henry Townshend must enter mysterious holes to travel between Walter Sullivan's Otherworlds in his apartment.
 * "Watering hole" is common Western slang for bar.