How to Be Alone in McSorley's Ale House

How do you get the perpetually packed McSorley's Old Ale House all to yourself? Go between 11 AM and noon on Monday.

I walked in yesterday for a quick early lunch and a couple mugs of ale to find that I friggin' owned the joint! There was a bartender, a waiter, and me. No tourists, no frat boys, no NYU-ers, no locals, no drunks, no regular nice folk—just me. It stayed that way for a full half hour. I don't think, in 20 years of going to this place, I have ever seen it empty. It was nice, my view of everything on the walls and behind the bar unimpaired, the sawdust on the floor undisturbed by any shoes but my own. And I was free to have a friendly chat with the bartender and waiter without shouting or worrying I was slowing them down.

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Comment of the Day

From Mike of Tin Pan Alley, about McSorley's:

"In the 1970's I was there on the first day they let women inside to drink alcoholic beverages.

"The occasion was sort of a big deal with some of the regulars moaning about Feminism.

"A few reporters were present, one lady had a glass of beer thrown at her by a male potbelly which was sad, even sadder for the potbelly is that lady was a reporter for the New York Times (I think) and wrote about this cruelty.

"I often wonder if McSorley's was the last public bar to serve females in NYC under the equal rights law."

Two Dark at McSorley's

Morning at McSorley's

Fresh sawdust on the floor of McSorley's tavern, early one day before too many people had tromped on it. Somehow the smell of stale ale is stronger at noon than it is later in the evening. Perhaps because the smell of fresh ale dominates during the crowded night trade.