RePatExPat's Stumbling Guide to New York

This is a slightly modified version of something that appeared in a book by Richard Laermer called The Native's Guide to New York. Richard ("The Native Guy") published a thread of my emails about a cyber pub-crawl through Manhattan and called it a chapter of his book. While this was a delight for me--and, hell, it's still a good crawl (see below)--it did need some work, most of all in the sense that the original hadn't really been prepared as a piece. So, when The Irish Side contacted me about revising it for online publication, I leapt. Luckily, the stool I was on wasn't a tall one.

First, let's get the good Downtown bars out of the way; this being the Irish Side, let's talk about those that let me exercise and exorcise my various Celtic heritages:

• Moran's (250 Vesey St. at the World Financial Center, 212-945-2255)
• Mac Menamin's (The Seaport, (212) 732-0007)
• Harbor Lights ( 89 South St # 17 New York, NY (212) 227-2800): This is where they taped part of Bringing It All Back Home
• North Star (93 South St, 212-509-6757) (has an English theme, but what makes it great is the Irish folks who run it)
• Rosie O'Grady's (800 7th Ave New York, NY (212) 582-2975): Belonging to Austin Delaney if anyone can remember who they were.

You're starting to think that most bars are Irish, like diners are Greek, and hockey players Canadian. That's not the case, of course. Only all the good bars are Irish. All right, I reluctantly admit, there are others that don't totally suck. Yuppie drinking holes. (Not bad, just not as interesting.)

A frontrunner in this field is Jeremy's Ale House (254 Front Street, 212-964-3537), where, if you get too drunk at lunchtime (heaven forbid!), your necktie will be snipped off by the staff (one of the attractive waitresses, if you're lucky) and nailed up on the wall with the neckwear of the rest of the Dipso reprobates. There is something of "equal time" for the fairer sex, too, although I have no firsthand knowledge of how bras make their way to the rafters alongside the ties.

Before we leave Downtown, we also like the two Harry's: Harry's at Hanover Square (1 Hanover Square, 212-425-3412), and Harry's at the Woolworth Building (233 Broadway, 212-513-0455). Okay, both are broker hangouts, but looser that most broker-type bars.

Moving north, before you get to the heart of the Village, is the Ear Inn (326 Spring Street, 212-226-9060). Great for the mad genius artists who hang there. The reason that the place is called the Ear is mildly interesting: Take a close look at the sign for the Ear, and you'll see that it once read "Bar," but the rounded bit of the neon "B" has been covered over. This was the owners' Plan B (Plan "E"?) upon finding out about the New York City ordinance prohibiting the use of their preferred name for the bar--to wit, "The Bar."

Chumley's (86 Bedford Street, 212-675-4449) is a bit old and too collegiate for my taste nowadays. I'm told that the likes of Papa Hemingway and Dylan Thomas had a drink or ten here, and there is also the literary urban legend that tells of F. Scott Fitzgerald having his way with some Zelda-esque maiden fair in one of Chumley's booths.

Further east in the Village is one of my favorite places in the whole world. I fell in love with Googie's (237 Sullivan Street, just off Third Street 212-673-0050) as an NYU undergrad, when I could walk into the place with a new friend and have the bartender wave me up to the bar and let me know that the next table was mine even if there was a line. This was at the end of the 54 snob appeal crap, something that both Googie's and I have thankfully grown out of. It has a bog-standard bar, with intimate tables all around the darkish (at night anyway) interior. But go to Googie's for the great jukebox and the pool table. The latter is only on-again, off-again; someday I'll ask why.

Due east is Acme (9 Great Jones St New York, NY (212) 420-1934), variously named "Smack-Me" and "Attack-Me," a great place for a bite to eat and drinks, but only if you are in good company. The décor is bright and very open brickish with stucco. But my favorite feature is the all round bar. There's a club downstairs, too, if you want something to listen to besides the voice in your head telling you to double up on the margaritas, happy hour's almost over.

Zigzag back across the Village to the Peculiar Pub (145 Bleeker Street, 212-353-1327) which is laid out like an open plan office, one where you probably would not mind burning a little midnight oil. It's got a great thing going for it, what the Germans call a Beer Museum--basically, a bar with an extensive menu of beers from around the world. So, if hanging in a beer theme park with a mock-Hofbrau atmosphere (and there is nothing wrong with that if you don't make it a habit, as me ma sez) then failte, Herr Reader!

Another of my old hangouts from NYU is Cedar Tavern (82 University Place, 212-741-9754). What I didn't know at the time was the fact that it used to be a hangout for some of the Abstract Expressionists in the 50's and 60's; stories I've heard about Jackson Pollack's antics in this place would make even Shane McGowan shake his head and recite the Serenity Prayer. It's also mentioned in Kurt Vonnegut's "Hocus Pocus".

One last zag across the Village: As a contributor to an Irish publication, however cutting edge and irreverent, I must confess to some feelings of disloyalty to say the McSorley's Old Ale House (15 E. 7th Street just off Bowery, 212-473-9148) has to be one of the biggest disappointments for any drinker worth his lost shaker of salt. When I was at NYU this was a good cheap place for students to go eat and drink. But in the 80's it became a stopover for downtown yuppies on their way to their uptown apartments. Do I hate them for it? Nah! Like Jessica Rabbit, they were only drawn that way; it's just that the place changed (not for the better), and stayed changed. At least the stopovers have stopped.

Once you are out of the Village moving uptown, the drinkin' spots get thin on the ground until you get to midtown. That's not to say that there isn't an occasional oasis in the desert. Of course there's the Old Town Bar (45 East 18th Street, 212-529-6732), made famous by the fact that it was included in one of the old series of credits of "Letterman". It so had that old-fashioned Irish look that it was used as a location for "The Devil's Own". Another quite old place near the Old Town is Pete's Tavern (128 east 18th Street). It makes the claim that it's the oldest pub in New York. Who knows?

Two places that I discovered when I was writing my original pub crawl are the Grand Saloon (158 East 23rd Street, 212-477-6161) and Fitzgerald's Pub (336 Third Avenue, 212-532-3453). I was in the Grand Saloon on St. Patrick's Day 1995 (the day Gerry Adams first made an appearance in the Parade) to hear the late great Four to the Bar perform their musical druidry. And they had us all up and dancing. The problem with this place was that there were one or two guys behind the bar that didn't know how to pull a proper pint of Guinness (a cardinal sin for an Irish pub). Deciding that this was a problem up with which I would not put, I took the bull by the horns and switched to whiskey.

Fitzgerald's opened a few years ago and it is a Mecca for the international sports enthusiast. When I was there, they were showing Five Nations Rugby from the week before. It's always good to see a place like this in New York. It validates the fact that it can be an international city--and before I get a deluge of email defending the fair city (remember, it's my hometown, too!), let me clarify. I mean "international" in the sense that that rest of the world means it, not the U.S. definition, which, for example, calls a competition in an American sport by American teams the "World Series."

There's a place on 56 West 31st Street just off Broadway called O'Reilly's Pub (212-684-4244; I think, except that it has changed its name a few times since press). It's not Paddy Reilly's. It's got a great restaurant and atmosphere.

Move a little up and to the right on the map of Manhattan, is one of my guilty pleasures. The Houlihan's in the Empire State Building (350 Fifth Avenue, 212-630-0339) is a great place to get a bite to eat or have a drink. But it one of those great places to meet people when you know that the people that you are meeting are chronically late (i.e., they're Irish). You can have a drink, read your paper, and watch the hustle and bustle go by in the dark streets outside. When a tardy date arrives, then there's Mexican food downstairs.

And a pause for a breath...

In the next ten blocks on your way uptown, there are a lot of places into which to pop for a quick one, but bite your lip and persevere as far as Patrick Conway's (43th Street, just off Vanderbilt 212-286-1873). During my initial, grueling research for this piece, Annie Moore's (50 East 43rd Street, 212-986-7826) had just opened up two doors down, and, as good as Conway's is, Annie's is more open and comfortable. Head-to-head, Annie's wins hands-down. And not just because the Irish waitresses have brogues just the way I like them.

In Grand Central, downstairs, there is the Oyster Bar and Restaurant. The inside bit of it (that is, the bit that doesn't look like a diner (I guess I mean the bar bit!)) is comfortable enough, but you'll probably want to fly out of the place on one wing: par for the course for train station bars. The Oyster Bar had a fire a couple of years ago and was rebuilt in record time. It's not the same anymore, but it is still there. And, since they closed down the public toilets in the station, the only place to replenish the rivers while you're waiting for your train is the Oyster Bar. As if you needed an excuse.

As you move up into the '50's, things start to pick up quite a bit. You'll find that most of the bars in the East 50's are Irish. It's really part of a demographic. Those bars have been there since before the turn of the century, though most have come into the hands of new Hibernians since then. In "Marty" (the Ernest Borgdnine movie or the Rod Steiger live TV broadcast, either will do; the writer was native New Yorker Paddy Chayevsky), the protagonist would ask his Bronx buddies, "Ware dyou wanna go dinight, hah?" and the answer would be, "I donno ware dyou wanna go dinight?" Dis is ware him and his buddies would end up--in the East-Side Irish bars and dance halls that comprised the city's mating rituals in the 1950's.

Finally, for the dipsomaniac movie buff, P.J. Clarke's (915 Third Avenue at 55th Street, 212-759-1650) hosted a scene in the 1940's cinematic morality tale "The Lost Weekend." What I like most about the place is that P.J. Clarke's is the way McSorley's pictures itself. It has those ancient urinals build to the spec of old phone booths. It has a nice, if expensive, restaurant in the back. I'm hard-pressed to remember if the floor gets a regular sawdusting, but that's what I remember, and that's probably what matters more than reality.

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