I was sitting in mcsorley’s
E. E. Cummings 1923
I was sitting in mcsorley’s. outside it was New York and
beautifully snowing.
Inside snug and evil. the slobbering walls filthily push
witless creases of screaming warmth chuck pillows are noise
funnily swallows swallowing revolvingly pompous a the
swallowed mottle with smooth or a but of rapidly goes gobs
the and of flecks of and a chatter sobbings intersect with
which distinct disks of graceful oath, upsoarings the break
on ceiling-flatness
the Bar.tinking luscious jigs dint of ripe silver with warm-
lyish wetflat splurging smells waltz the glush of squirting
taps plus slush of foam knocked off and a faint piddle-
of-drops she says I ploc spittle what the lands thaz me kid
in no sir hopping sawdust you kiddo he’s a palping wreaths
of badly Yep cigars who jim him why gluey grins topple to-
gether eyes pout gestures stickily point made glints squint-
ing who’s a wink bum-nothing and money fuzzily mouths
take big wobbly foot-
steps every goggle cent of it get out ears dribbles soft
right old feller belch the chap hic summore eh chuckles
skulch. . . .
and I was sitting in the din thinking drinking the ale, which
never lets you grow old blinking at the low ceiling my be-
ing pleasantly was punctuated by the always retchings of a
worthless lamp.
when With a minute terrif iceffort one dirty squeal of soil-
ing light yanKing from bushy obscurity a bald greenish
foetal head established It suddenly upon the huge neck
around whose unwashed sonorous muscle the filth of a col-
lar hung gently.
(spattered)by this instant of semiluminous nausea A vast
wordless nondescript genie of trunk trickled firmly in to one
exactly-mutilated ghost of a chair,
a;domeshaped interval of complete plasticity, shoulders,
sprouted the extraordinary arms through an angle of ridicu-
lous velocity commenting upon an unclean table.and, whose
distended immense Both paws slowly loved a dinted mug
gone Darkness it was so near to me, i ask of shadow won’t
you have a drink?
(the eternal perpetual question)
Inside snugandevil. i was sitting in mcsorley’s
It, did not answer.
outside.(it was New York and beautifully, snowing. . . .
(Mostly)
From Wikipedia
McSorley's
Old Ale House, generally known as McSorley's, is the oldest "Irish"
saloon in New York City. Opened in the mid-19th century at 15 East 7th Street,
in today's East Village neighborhood of Manhattan, it was one of the last of
the "Men Only" pubs, admitting women only after legally being forced
to do so in 1970.
(
"The place had long been a men-only establishment until 1970, when Ms.
Shaum became the first female patron admitted under a new city ordinance
banning discrimination against women in public places ...")
The aged
artwork, newspaper articles covering the walls, sawdust floors, and the Irish
waiters and bartenders give McSorley's an atmosphere reminiscent of "Olde
New York". No piece of memorabilia has been removed from the walls since
1910, and there are many items of "historical" paraphernalia in the
bar, such as Houdini's handcuffs, which are connected to the bar rail. There
are also wishbones hanging above the bar; supposedly they were hung there by
boys going off to World War I, to be removed when they returned, so the
wishbones that are left are from those who never returned.
Two of
McSorley's mottos are "Be Good or Be Gone", and "We were here
before you were born". Prior to the 1970 ruling, the motto was "Good
Ale, Raw Onions and No Ladies"; the raw onions can still be had as part of
McSorley's cheese platter.
McSorley's
is considered to be one of the longest continuously operating ale houses in the
city due to the fact that during Prohibition it served a "near beer"
with too little alcohol to be illegal.
When it
opened, the saloon was originally called "The Old House at Home".
According
to a 1995 New York Times "Streetscapes" article by Christopher Gray, the
census taker who visited the Irish-born McSorley in 1880 recorded the year the
founder of the pub first arrived in the United States as 1855, but immigration
records show that he arrived on January 23, 1851, at the age of 18, accompanied
by Mary McSorley, who was 16.
Founding
owner John McSorley passed daily management to his son, William, around 1890,
and died in 1910 at the age of 87. In 1936 William sold the property to Daniel
O’Connell, a retired policeman and longtime customer. After O'Connell's death
three years later, his daughter Dorothy O’Connell Kirwan assumed ownership.
Upon her death in 1974 and that of her husband the following year, ownership
passed briefly to their son Danny before the most recent proprietor, Matthew
"Matty" Maher, who purchased the bar in 1977 and owned it until his
death in January 2020.
Women
were not allowed in McSorley's until August 10, 1970, after National
Organization for Women attorneys Faith Seidenberg and Karen DeCrow filed a
discrimination case against the bar in District Court and won. The two entered
McSorley's in 1969, and were refused service, which was the basis for their
lawsuit for discrimination. The case decision made the front page of The New
York Times on June 26, 1970. The suit, Seidenberg v. McSorleys' Old Ale House
(1970, United States District Court, S. D. New York) established that, as a
public place, the bar could not violate the Equal Protection Clause of the
United States Constitution. The bar was then forced to admit women, but it did
so "kicking and screaming". In 1970 Barbara Shaum became the bar's
first female patron. With the ruling allowing women to be served, the bathroom
became unisex. Sixteen years later, in 1986, a ladies room was installed.
Until
2011, McSorley's maintained a mouser cat within its premises until a law was
passed ending the practice.
In 2017,
McSorley's added Feltman's of Coney Island Hot Dogs to their menu, the first
time the menu was altered in over fifty years. Feltman's owner, Michael Quinn,
was a long time employee at McSorley's, and during the late 19th century,
Feltman's Restaurant at Coney Island was a popular destination for the McSorley
family
Notable
patrons
Abraham
Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, Teddy Roosevelt, and Boss Tweed. Cultural icons such
as Woody Guthrie, Hunter S. Thompson, Brendan Behan, Paul Blackburn, LeRoi
Jones, Christopher Morley, Gilbert Sorrentino, and George Jean Nathan,
frequented the tavern. Folk singer/guitarist Dave Van Ronk used photos of
himself outside the doors for album covers, and Wavy Gravy read poetry there. Dustin
Hoffman was a patron. In the early 1910s, anarchist Hippolyte Havel became a
regular. Mcsolrleys's most notable regular, however, was Cooper Union founder
Peter Cooper who would regularly hold court in the back room. John McSorley
instructed that his favorite chair be draped with a black cloth every April 4th
following Cooper's 1883 death.
After the
New York Rangers hockey team won the Stanley Cup in 1994, they took the cup to
McSorley's and drank out of it; the resulting dent caused the NHL to take the
trophy back for several days for repairs.