"Great Bars of New York City"

[Wilfrid]

Oddly,  I can't see a date on this book, but it just showed up in the library so I guess it's new. The work of photographers James and Karla Murray, text by Dan Q. Dao. Not the first such book I've looked at, but it can be a pleasure to see which bars got chosen and what is said about them.

The photographs here are absolutely gorgeous. The text is an ocean of stupidity.

First up, reasonably enough, McSorley's. Dan?

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Today you can pull up a seat at the bar to enjoy its two styles of house beer [...] It's recommended that you bring at least one friend, since the bar has a tradition of serving beer in a pair of small mugs called schooners, as opposed to a single pint.

You cannot pull up a seat to the bar. There is no bar seating in McSorley's. Never has been. I guess you could pull up one of the chairs from the tables around the room which would put the bar around your eye level. And "small" mugs, small, why would you need a friend?

Reads like he has never been there. His bio says he's been in the city twelve years and has even bar-tended. But this is just junk.

But wait, surely he can pull history from a reference book. Only very gingerly:

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McSorley's is most frequently said to have been opened in 1854, by Irish immigrant John McSorley.

Emphasis added. I'd love to see some of the less frequent alternative narratives. 

[Wilfrid]

More fun under Pete's Tavern. The only bar in the city "legally permitted" to remain open during Prohibition. From the bar's own website:

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During Prohibition, ‘Pete’s Tavern’ was disguised as a florist, adorned with fresh flowers. Signs outside invited passers-by in. Enticed to purchase orchids, roses, violets and gardenias from this fake store. Patrons entering through the side door, in what is now the first dining room, who were in the know, would signal and give the password, and then be escorted through a dummy refrigerator door (whose hinges are still intact).

Never mind. We can agree that O. Henry is said to have written "The Gift of the Magi" here. But then...

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(T)he bar's atmosphere may have inspired the setting of the story...

WTF. I have read that story perhaps thirty times. There is no bar, there is no drinking, there is no bar-like atmosphere. It's like saying a bar's atmosphere might have inspired the setting of Bambi or The Wizard of Oz.