This is the slogan at McSorley's, and no matter who you are, if you're walking through the door, it's true. McSorley's Old Ale House is an Irish bar in downtown New York that has the distinct honor of being the oldest bar in the city (that is, the one that's been operating uninterrupted for the longest stretch). It first opened its doors in 1854, and I have to imagine it didn't look all that different then. Women weren't allowed to drink there until the 1970's, but Irish bartenders, straight from the emerald shores of Erin by the sounds of their accents, still sling mugs of home-brewed beer at patrons who rub shoulders over sawdust-strewn floors. I didn't have to wrangle with the decision-making process when ordering here; there are only two choices, light beer or dark beer, or one of each if you like. The mugs aren't very big, so to make up for it they come two at a time and cost $4.50 for both. Quite a deal. Visitors to the bar can put it away pretty handily, and so the bartenders and waitstaff have massive forearms from hoisting so many glasses at once - the glasses have handles, and our bartender told us he can lift approximately ten with each hand. Yowzah. If you feel like you want something a bit more solid, there are sandwiches, fries and that sort of thing available, although my friend Shama and I spent about 20 minutes scrutinizing the area behind the bar trying to determine just where these dishes would come from. We didn't figure it out. I never saw anyone order anything other than a sort of combination platter consisting of huge chunks of cheddar cheese, crackers, slabs of raw onion, and pots of mustard. Tasty.
The most interesting feature hung above the bar, luckily not the part where my group stood. A light fixture was adorned with shapeless fuzzy gray forms. Someone commented on the perilous state of the mugs resting on the bar below this fixture, and a member of our group explained that he'd been to McSorley's before, and that the gray forms were actually wishbones. It seems that when the United States first began to send troops to fight in World War I, local boys preparing to be shipped off would meet in McSorley's for a few final mugs of beer. They hung wishbones on the fixture, vowing to remove them once they returned from the war. As the dust-covered remaining wishbones attest, not all of them managed to keep this promise.
We arrived around 10 P.M. and the place was packed. In fact, we had to wait in line outside for about ten minutes. Once inside, we had to stand for the first hour or so until some of our more resourceful group members managed to snag some seats at a long table in the crowded back room. The waiter made sure that each person had at least two glasses, which were in the process of being emptied, in front of him/her at all times to ensure that we weren't taking up valuable real estate without shelling out money for it. People at other tables kept popping up and challenging anyone who'd accept their offer to chugging contests. It was unfathomably loud and festive. Perhaps it was the beer, but I felt a strange sense of camaraderie with the other drinkers squeezed into the bar on all sides of me.
My group had assembled in honor of my friend Jeff's birthday. While in line, I made friends with a girl named Shama, who is in the clinical psychology program with Jeff. We hit it off, and I ended up at her birthday party not too long after, which will be the topic of my next post.
Cheers!
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