McSorley’s Old Ale House

In 1854, just three years after he landed in New York, Irishman John McSorley opened a blue-collar saloon that served ale along with cheese and crackers. He probably never foresaw the legends who would walk through the swinging front doors, or that his saloon would become a landmark associated with literature, art, music, and even civil rights. In the more than 150-year history of McSorley’s Old Ale House, its sawdust-strewn floors were tread on by figures such as Abraham Lincoln, John Lennon, and Woody Guthrie. e.e. cummings visited and wrote the poem “i was sitting in mcsorley’s”, and artist John French Sloan created several paintings depicting the saloon. Even a play inspired by McSorley’s ran on Broadway for more than 100 performances. Two attorneys led a suit to allow women into the ale house, taking the case all the way to the Supreme Court. And amid this flurry of activity, the saloon survived multiple changes to the brewer of its McSorley’s Cream Stock Ale, including during Prohibition when Bill McSorley had to set up a brewery in the basement. Though ownership has changed three times, each owner has honored the original spirit of McSorley’s. This remains true today as the Maher family continues to run the place as a true ale house. Behind the bar still looms the words of John McSorley embossed on a hardwood cabinet: “Be good or be gone.”