A sign at McSorley's Old Ale House announces with some confidence, "We were here before you were born." To prove them wrong you have to be old, really old. Their taps have been running continuously for 150 years. The Bowery legend celebrates its sesquicentennial this week. That's pretty good for a bar whose selections include McSorley's light and McSorley's dark. Truth be known, the dark is actually light with syrup added. I don't know what the syrup actually does, but I always order the dark. Why not? They cost the same.
If you want to drink beer, I mean really drink beer, then McSorley's is the place for you. They've changed the very definition of beer. In most bars when you order a beer, you get a beer. At McSorley's Old Ale House when you order a beer, they bring you two. Proper etiquette holds that when the bar man brings the first round, you immediately order the second.
The front room is filled with large wooden tables, pock-marked with names carved by generations of drunks. You can date them by the era in which they were vogue. Tables are round and condusive to conversation. Etiquette holds that you sit at an empty table only after the others are full. At McSorley's I've met people from all corners of the globe. I've informed Brits that the French know how to treat a monarch. "You've got to whop the head off that big-eared bastard Charles!" I shouted. They knodded but when I last checked, the big-eared bastard still had his head.
In 150 years you can collect a lot of stuff. Mementos of several lifetimes are plastered to the walls of McSorley's Old Ale House; they have Houdini's handcuffs and a wanted poster for John Wilkes Booth. But the most curious items dangle above the far end of the bar. "What are those?" I was told they were chicken bones.
Wishbones straddle a frame that supports an overhead lamp. A mound of dust, perhaps a half inch thick, teeters atop each chicken bone and renders it hard to identify. In 1918, before they shipped off to France, a group of doughboys met at McSorley's for food and ale. In one of those moments where beer dictates action, they placed their wishbones on the lamp. It was agreed that those who returned would remove their bone and drink to those who did not. Perhaps a dozen bones remain on the lamp to this day.
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Making your way in the world today
Takes everything you've got;
Taking a break from all your worries
Sure would help a lot.
Wouldn't you like to get away?
All those night when you've got no lights,
The check is in the mail;
And your little angel
Hung the cat up by it's tail;
And your third fiance didn't show;
Sometimes you want to go
Where everybody knows your name,
And they're always glad you came;
You want to be where you can see,
Our troubles are all the same;
You want to be where everybody knows
Your name.
Roll out of bed, Mr. Coffee's dead;
The morning's looking bright;
And your shrink ran off to Europe,
And didn't even write;
And your husband wants to be a girl;
Be glad there's one place in the world
Where everybody knows your name,
And they're always glad you came;
You want to go where people know,
People are all the same;
You want to go where everybody knows
Your name.
Where everybody knows your name,
And they're always glad you came;
Where everybody knows your name,
And they're always glad you came...
