McSorley's Is One of New York City's Oldest and Most Famous Bars

Table Of Content

• Established in 1854, the pub boasts the slogan "We were here before you were born."
• McSorley’s Old Ale House, NYC’s oldest Irish pub, is steeped in history
• Within seconds, your drinks are slammed down on the table.
• Clowning for Novices: History and Practice With Rose Carver
• The Piece of Cheese Cottage
• Get the most out of BeerMenus
• Search The Thousand Best The expert guide to New York’s best restaurants and bars.

To a steady McSorley customer, most other New York saloons seem feminine and fit only for college boys and women; the atmosphere in them is so tense and disquieting that he has to drink himself into a coma in order to stand it. In McSorley’s, the customers are self-sufficient; they never try to impress each other. In other saloons if a man tells a story, good or bad, the man next to him laughs perfunctorily and immediately tries to tell a better one. For one thing, it is dark and gloomy, and repose comes easy in a gloomy place. Also, there is a thick, musty smell that acts as a balm to jerky nerves; it is really a rich compound of the smells of pine sawdust, tap drippings, pipe tobacco, coal smoke, and onions.

The Urban Lens: Inside McSorley's Old Ale House, NYC's oldest bar - 6Sqft

The Urban Lens: Inside McSorley's Old Ale House, NYC's oldest bar.

Posted: Fri, 10 Mar 2017 08:00:00 GMT [source]

Established in 1854, the pub boasts the slogan "We were here before you were born."

The two-glass policy evolved so father and son could tend to their hobbies in between pours. The lawsuit compelled New York City Mayor John V. Lindsay to sign an executive order prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sex in bars and other public accommodations. At 3pm the next day, McSorley’s opened its doors to women for the first time. Kirwan was not present, explaining that she did not wish to break the bar’s tradition.

McSorley’s Old Ale House, NYC’s oldest Irish pub, is steeped in history

Drunks reel over from the Bowery and go to sleep in doorways, and the kids give them hotfoots with kitchen matches. In McSorley’s the free-lunch platters are kept at the end of the bar nearer the street door, and several times every afternoon kids sidle in, snatch handfuls of cheese and slices of onion, and dash out, slamming the door. It’s also easy to imagine who hasn’t visited McSorley’s over the years. The pub, whose motto was “Good Ale, Raw Onions, and No Ladies,” was not yet ready to get with the times.

Within seconds, your drinks are slammed down on the table.

There are no TVs at McSorley’s and no ambient music—the only noises you’ll hear are the clinking of glasses and the muted hum of people’s conversations. But on a Tuesday afternoon, it’s easy enough to grab a couple of beers, settle into a worn wooden table, and imagine the people who have passed through its double doors in need of “a cold beer to warm up”—a phrase Buggy uses frequently. At the very least, McSorley’s can claim the title of “oldest Irish pub” in the city. It’s no surprise that McSorley’s—with its green, shamrock-emblazoned storefront—is a popular destination on St. Patrick’s Day. McSorley’s is not the oldest bar in New York City—that distinction goes to Fraunces Tavern, open since 1762—although Shane Buggy, a bartender at McSorley’s, disputes this fact.

Fraunces Tavern has been rebuilt several times, but McSorley’s has remained virtually unchanged—and has served ale continuously, even during Prohibition—for 165 years. According to legend, bartenders would step on a special pedal to fill the mugs with the real deal to longtime customers. McSorley’s managed to avoid legal trouble because many of Tammany Hall politicians drank there throughout Prohibition.

In 1939, when then-owner Daniel O’Connell died and left the bar to his daughter, Dorothy O’Connell Kirwan, she honored the no-women policy and appointed her husband as manager. When the bar celebrated its centennial, Kirwan had her celebratory drink outside on the sidewalk. After women were finally admitted, Kirwan declined to be the first woman served, a decision that makes more sense if you know that the first women’s restroom wasn’t added until 16 years later. The legendary backroom (where the ale flowed during prohibition), is adorned with the infamous, and very risque (for its time), portrait of a nude with her parrot. The old fireplace is also in the backroom-that’s where the original owner-John McSorley held court (as witnessed in a well-known John Sloan sketch nearby). Above the fireplace is the McSorley’s motto “Be Good or Be Gone”, as well as a portrait of Peter Cooper, founder of Cooper Union.

History of New York City

Though its wooden walls and doors may be etched and notched by wear, its beauty and nostalgia endure in the smooth ale poured and the patrons who were there—lending truth to its motto, we have been here before you were born. It rode the fervor of Abraham Lincoln’s historic Cooper Union Address delivered in New York City. They served the 16th president their signature brew, only to later lament the fateful news of his assassination in April of 1865. Strangely, Lincoln shares this similarity to JFK, who was also rumored to have tasted McSorley’s toasted lager. They hang from an iron chandelier above the bar forbidden to be touched.

He bought a fire-alarm gong similar to those used in schools and factories and screwed it to the seven-foot-tall icebox behind the bar. If someone started a song, or if the old men sitting around the stove began to yell at each other, he would shuffle over to the gong and give the rope a series of savage jerks. The gong is there yet and is customarily sounded at a quarter to midnight as a warning that closing time is imminent; the customers grab their ears when it goes off.

Search The Thousand Best The expert guide to New York’s best restaurants and bars.

I asked him what he’d been drinking and he said, ‘Near beer in McSorley’s.’ ” The prohibition ale cost fifteen cents, or two mugs for a quarter. McSorley’s Old Ale House reveals a lot about New York history as its walls capture many of the greatest moments in American history. As the walls are covered with newspaper articles, photographs, records, and more, a visit to McSorley’s is an educational experience. To this day, McSorley’s is the only New York City bar that still throws saw dust on the floor. It is another lasting tradition that McSorley’s has kept since its founding. The tradition started back when many customers were chewing tobacco and spit would go flying everywhere.

It has also attracted many political guests including Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant and Theodore Roosevelt. The memories of ex-presidents, popular society figures, entertainers and athletes mingle with the working class, as the poets and artists mix in to enjoy the same old ale as those before them. Every visit to McSorley’s reveals new history which may have been missed on a prior visit. Once again, a story can be told by what you won’t find at McSorley’s. The only other drink available, in addition to the two ales, is soda,  and a limited, reasonably-priced food menu is posted daily on two chalkboards.

I actually enjoyed the lack of choice, which made ordering fast and simple. When Business Insider's Sarah Jacobs visited in 2017, the beer cost $5.50. She noted that the beer cost only a dime per mug in 1940, and in 1966, two of the half-pints cost 35 cents.

There are no bad seats (providing you can get one) and no bad views. From every wall, to each nook-and-cranny — history pours as freely as ale from the taps. The 1940’s brought with it a world war and a new brewer of McSorley’s Ale.