My grandmother tells me stories of when she was a child and her father would go there.As the story goes in my family, Mc Sorleys was the last bar in New York to allow women. She and her friends wanted to go but were not allowed in. At 83 my aunt finally went, and had her long coveted Mc Sorley's beer
Last time I was in the city I had to check this place out. It was awesome. For all the reasons mentioned previously. The attitude, the history, and the crowd- it was standing room only. We finally found a place to sit at one of the ancient tables with another group of people who gave us a beer, and had lots of laughs.

Fun place, cool scene.

The second-oldest bar in the country (behind Bell N Hand in Boston), the floor of this bar is covered in sawdust. There are pictures all over the wall of old President's (Abe Lincoln and JFK went there, to name 2) and the place probably looks very similar to the way it did a couple centuries ago. Old bar stools, old tables, and old Irish bartenders who will push you right out of the way with their beer glasses to get to a table. There are 2 beers - light and dark - and if you ask for anything different they will laugh at you. When you order a beer, you get 2 glasses (short mugs). The beer is actually pretty good - although I don't know how clean the glasses are considering the washing mechanism is to dip the glasses in soap water then cold water then fill them back up with beer. At any rate, McSorley's is not glamorous but definetely worth experiencing.

my late uncle harry kirwan ,used to own this bar .i myself visited there in 1975 ,and i really enjoyed my visit.leo

Everybody has got to go to McSorleys once. It is an old joint, and it's hard to get into during the tourist season! I first heard of McSorley's in the Joseph Mitchell 1940 book McSorley's Wonderful Saloon, and that is still worth a read!

ok, so here's the deal w/McSorley's. it's an old bar, supposedly the oldest bar in Gotham. Lincoln, Kennedy, John Lennon, Woody Guthrie, Kerouac, and everyone else drank there. you can get beer, two kinds of beer: light or dark. it is always 2 for $3.50. you get two 10oz drafts, mostly filled w/foam, for pretty cheap. the bartenders/waiters are surley. dont expect a buyback no matter how nice you are, you wont get it. my wife and my painter friend dropped $80 in there one sunday and got no buyback. i've also managed to fall on the floor in that place quite a few times. it's covered in saw dust. the one crap thing is sometimes there's a tourist line to get in. that means the joint is packed and not worth it. go around the block to the Grassroots and have a beer w/Skizero instead.