McSorley’s Old Ale House, NYC’s Oldest Continuously Operated Bar

On my recent trip to NYC, I stopped back at McSorley’s Old Ale House, which opened in 1854 and is New York’s oldest continuously operated saloon. I hadn’t been there in over a decade, but it still looked exactly the same, sawdust on the floors, wishbones hanging above the bar and small mugs of the only two kinds of beer that they serve, light and dark. How often do you get to drink in a 150 year old bar were both Abraham Lincoln and John Lennon had beers? Here are a few photos of our visit.

Here’s the McSorely’s timeline, which indicates that women were not allowed in the bar until 1970. See the Wikipedia article on McSorley’s for more on this historic bar.

photos by Scott Beale