Coming home to McSorley's

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Walking into the dark and quite gloomy McSorley's in New York's East Village is almost like returning home. 

The old ale house lies just next to the beat-up (and VERY cheap!) hotel, where we - as young kids - used to stay a lot, when we began coming to NYC.

Now we're back and even though NYC is constantly changing (and our sleeping quarters  today are mightily improved!), McSorley's remains the same

The walls are still filled with old posters, photos, and mementos, most of them put up more than 170 years ago, and the floor is still covered with scattered sawdust to take care of the spills from the large quantities of cheap beer being handed along.

And more important.

In a world of baffling choices, inside McSorley's the choice is easy - light or dark? Here you don't have to confront the multiple lists of artisan beers you find in many modern brewpubs. McSorley's only serves their own two brews - a light ale and a dark ale

We sit at our usual table which soon gets filled with glasses (in McSorley the stack always looks quite impressive, as the beer is served in pairs of glasses!)


Next to us, a young lad, wearing an Irish flat cap and playing guitar, sits with some friends and belts out a ballad.

Everything is exactly as it used to be. It is like coming home.

Above the bar, on a lamp rail, hangs a line of old dust-covered wishbones. During the first world war, McSorley's had a tradition of serving a turkey and ale dinner to departing soldiers from the neighborhood. The soldiers placed the wishbones up there  for good fortune - and they took them down when they returned safely.

About two dozen wishbones are still hanging.

Those kids never came home.

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