story in the LA Times today was depressing. For me, born and bred in New York City; raised not too far from McSorley’s, I attended this saloon when it was the real McSorley’s. Now I love women, but, as you’ll read down in this piece, prior to 1970, no women allowed. There was something comforting about that. I was in the newspaper business at the time and when we’d drop into the McSorley’s we knew what to expect: pickled eggs, a glass of beer, no women and clearly no trendiness. This was a place that women didn’t want to attend back then. And with the stroke of some judge’s pen, it all changed, just as the Village did as the place I was born became filled with Wall Street yuppies and 8th Street turned into “shoe hell,” rather and a street of shops belonging to artists and artisans; the Women’s House of Detention became a park…and MacDougal Street no longer the place where I read poetry at the Gaslight following Paul Stookey doing a stand up comedy act and Hugh Romney reading his work.
If you want to know what the Village truly was, I recommend Republic of Dreams by Ross Wetzsteon, a wonderful history of “The American Bohemia from 1910-1960.”
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History lines the walls. Houdini’s handcuffs. Dusty wishbones hung by World War I doughboys wishing to return home safely. A plate commemorating Charles Lindbergh’s 1927 transatlantic flight.
Then there are the frames, holding yellowed newspaper clippings. A New York Herald story reports Lincoln’s assassination. (Lincoln was a customer, you know.)
Words are wallpaper here, so it’s easy to see why McSorley’s has inspired writer after writer to sing of the Bowery bar. Joseph Mitchell made one of the earlier stamps in a 1913 New York Times article, and later in a book, “McSorley’s Wonderful Saloon.” You can find this article in Mitchell’s book, Up In The Old Hotel.
Then came poetry, notably ee cummings’ 1923 poem “i was sitting in mcsorley’s.”
A sample: “tinking luscious jigs dint of ripe silver with warm-lyish wetflat splurging smells waltz the glush of squirting taps plus slush of foam.”
”The poetry is God-awful. You’ve got to be loaded to understand it,” said Jim Wilk, 41, a regular who works construction in Manhattan.
Perhaps. After four hours of drinking, he said, “All that poem is about is the constant flow of drinks and the constant flow of conversation.”
Bartholomew added his alehouse ode in 2001: “The McSorley Poems: Voices from New York City’s Oldest Pub.” There’s a worn copy behind the bar, where the 64-year-old with thick forearms and a mustache the color of a gray, rainy New York sky works.
He attended the City College of New York’s creative writing program in the ’70s and earned his master of arts in 1975. While there, he tutored under literary heavyweights Kurt Vonnegut and Anthony Burgess.
”Everybody can take a shot at what you want to do,” he said.
So he wrote. McSorley’s provided the money for the bills, and the environment to create the words.
”Mine, it isn’t going to be so flowery,” he said of his poetry.
”It’s a little dark,” added Teresa Maher de la Haba, McSorley’s first-ever female bartender and daughter of the owner, Matthew Maher. But if the poetry dwells on the dark, that’s understandable. After all, she said, McSorley’s is a bar.
Saloon, really. Sawdust covers the wood floor to keep patrons from slipping on spilled ale. No radio disturbs, no television distracts (except when one of the local teams is in the championship) — just glowing embers in the potbelly stove in winter, drink, and conversation to pass the time.
McSorley’s follows the city’s breakneck pace: a two-drink menu — the “light” (a crisp pale ale) and the “dark” (a porter, hints of chocolate) — two seconds to order and half that to get served. Cash only.
McSorley’s has a couple of mottoes: “Be good or be gone,” and the more infamous one, “Good ale, raw onions and no ladies,” harking back to the days when women weren’t allowed. When a judge ruled in 1970 that McSorley’s must allow women in, it was front-page news.
That’s enough to get the prose flowing. Throw in some of the bar’s characters and you might get published.
Use the silver-haired wise-guy server named Dick Buggy, who used to be an undercover cop, and would go into Central Park dressed as a woman to get mugged. Seriously.
Find him cajoling the ladies with terrible one-liners: “Drink up; you’re easier when you’re drunk.”
For balance, toss in endearing regulars — the lifeblood of any bar — such as Jim Wilk and his brother-in-law (they married sisters) Dan McGuire, an accountant from Maryland.
On the day after Christmas for the last eight years, they sit at the same table and talk about the year while gulping down ale from open to close. They even answer the pay phone that rings over their heads.
”I’ve taken down reservations for people in London,” Wilk said.
”I’ve given more directions to this place than directions to my own home,” added McGuire.
