New York City's Best Dive Bars. Ben Westhoff
around every corner. They imagine the regulars to be street-savvy gurus who, for what they lack in good looks and fancy clothes, make up for it in earnest, grizzled realness.
Both perceptions are hogwash. First off, plenty of dive bars make money—how else do you think they stay in business for fifty, sixty years? And their drunks aren’t any wiser than the kind who drink at home or in more upscale bars. As a matter of fact, dive bar regulars don’t usually consider their preferred pubs to be “dives,” and the spots given that description by the young and privileged are usually too fancy to merit it.
So what is a dive then? A place with cheap drinks? Certainly not always in Manhattan. A dusty, dingy hole? Well, some of the best dives are spotlessly clean. An aging relic? Often, although many newish hipster bars have done a great job at capturing the dive aesthetic.
Ultimately, I had to come up with my own working definition, something more substantial than “you know it when you see it.” (Although, you do. Look for Christmas lights.) A dive, I decided, has a stillness about it, an air that it is not driven by commerce, even if it ultimately is. It’s a place where nobody tries to “upsell” you, where temporary solutions—say, duct tape over broken urinals—become permanent. A dive embraces your inner degenerate, doesn’t judge, and doesn’t pretend that drinking isn’t the main task at hand.
Something else to keep in mind: Anyone who says that gentrified New York has no more dives is bonkers. Sure, we no longer have McGurk’s Suicide Hall, the Bowery haunt frequented by sailors and low-rent prostitutes that was thought to be the place to take one’s own life. But we’ve still got the historic rooms, the cultural diversity and the unquenchable thirst that makes New York a great dive bar town. In fact, there were too many great dives for this book, as New York City has literally thousands of dive bars. Unfortunately, I couldn’t go to all of them, so I focused on spots people buying this book would likely visit, mostly in lower Manhattan and the trendy Brooklyn neighborhoods. That said, the truly mind-boggling spots I’ve profiled tend to be above 100th Street or in the less glamorous boroughs. (If you’re ever on Staten Island head immediately to Beer Goggles.)
So, enjoy these watering holes, and don’t be afraid. While they aren’t filled with intoxicated sages, they’re not unwelcoming either. If a spot looks intimidating, just remember that your money is always welcome, and that liquor makes for strange barfellows.
Dive Bar Ratings
All bars are rated on a scale of one to five beer bottles, with five bottles denoting the diviest.
TELLTALE SIGNS YOU’RE IN A DIVE BAR
• It looks closed, but it’s open
• Christmas lights
• The women’s room has a sign that says, “Ladies Only!”
• Upright, chrome cash registers
• Witty signs like: “Free Beer! Tomorrow”
• Wood-grain linoleum
• Tonic and other mixers dispensed via individual bottles
• When you pay for a five buck drink with a ten, you’re given a five as a change instead of five ones. (This shows they’re not scheming for a tip.)
• Red lighting and red vinyl booths
• Poor drink selection
• You’re IDed not because you look young, but because you don’t belong
• Multiple TVs on different channels, each with the sound on
• People making (and taking) calls on pay phones
NYC’S TEN BEST DIVES
(in no particular order)
O’Connor’s Bar
Dublin House
Jimmy’s Corner
Nancy Whiskey Pub
Blarney Cove
Holland Bar
Holiday Cocktail Lounge
Tip Top Bar & Grill
Alibi
Sunny’s Bar
NEW YORK CITY’S BEST DIVE BARS
(IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER)
Freddy’s Bar, R.I.P.
119 Bar
119 E 15th Street (Irving Place & E Union Square) Transit: 4, 5, 6, L, N, Q, R, W to Union Square
(212) 995-5904
Tucker Max says he hopes they serve beer in hell. Well, they do. The only problem is that they serve it at Dave & Busters, which means that the suds are overpriced and you’re surrounded by screaming video games. Heaven, however, is full of dives. Though their patrons aren’t much to look at and the televisions aren’t high definition, nobody cares. They had their entire earthly lives to stare at screens and lust after people they’d never be able to sleep with, so they come to dives for someone to talk to.
119 Bar has taken that minimalist aesthetic to its logical conclusion. There’s virtually nothing to do here besides drink, play pool, talk and eat Zapp’s BBQ potato chips. The walls are barren save for a poster of Frank Sinatra’s mug shot, and the TV above the bar is left off, save for Mets and Giants games. “People get too distracted by television,” the bartender told me. “They tend to just stare at it.”
Though it is dark and the windows are obscured by thick curtains, 119 is a clean establishment: the tables are wiped, the floor swept. And while the seats and Chaise lounge may have foam showing, and the tables may feature graffiti on top of other graffiti, it’s still a very sanitary type of disorder.
As in heaven, 119 Bar treats you to random, arbitrary discounts. When I ordered a pair of Jack and ginger ales the bartender had a moment of contemplation. “It would normally be $12,” he said, “but we’ll just say 10.”
Dive Bar Rating
169 Bar
169 East Broadway (Rutgers Street) Transit: F to East Broadway
169barnyc.com (212) 473-8866
A woman sitting at the bar was ignoring the complimentary peanuts