Grab yourself a couple mugs of dark ale and learn about the history of one of New York City’s oldest bars, serving everyone from Abraham Lincoln to John Lennon — and eventually even women!
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McSorley’s through the ages. Here’s one from 1937:
The outside from 1945
1969:
1998:
And McSorley’s today
The backroom:
Two of John Sloan’s most famous works, with McSorley’s as its subject:
Woody Guthrie hams it up by the coal burning stove.
Women win the right to vote: dark ale or light ale!
3 replies on “PODCAST: McSorley’s Old Ale House”
Whoa, imagine my surprise and excitement when I saw the topic I’d suggested pop up! I have a bunch of old stuff — including the Life magazine profile from ’41 — if you’re interested in positing it. Looks like you have plenty already, though. Thanks.
I am the gal in the very bottom picture. It was August 10, 1970 at about 11 p.m. I was on actually on a date with my boyfriend at the time, and he is toasting my glass in the picture. Jamal was a drama student at NYU and had called me that day to tell me at last I could have a beer with him at his favorite pub. While we drank our beer a man with a pot belly, suspenders, ruddy complexion, bald head and horn- rimmed glasses said he was a photographer from UPI and could he take a “pitcher”. We agreed and he posed us. He directed me to raise my chin higher and higher and cheer. He also arranged the other fellows around me. They said they went to Yale. The photo with my name appeared across 3 columns above the fold of the front page of my home town newspaper, The Pittsburgh Press. My 78 year-old Italian grandmother called me the next day to tell me and said, “At least if you had been elected President of the United States . . ” The photo made the Women’s Liberation section of that year’s bound annual supplement of a popular encyclopedia. I was pleased about that.
I love that story 😊