Seven bars in this city will tell you they are the oldest. Fraunces Tavern has the oldest site and a 1907 rebuild; Neir's has the oldest claim, 1829, and the fewest people who can check it; McSorley's has the oldest room in Manhattan that has never stopped pouring. This list does not rank them by age. It ranks them by how good the bar is tonight, which is the only question a reader standing outside one can act on.
Eligibility is twenty years — a room that opened in 2006 or before — so PDT and Clover Club miss by a year and two and appear on the cocktail list instead. Jimmy's Corner is first because a cheap well drink two blocks off Times Square in a room papered with Ali is the best version of what it is trying to be. McSorley's is twentieth because two ales and a bachelor party is not. Both are institutions. Only one of them is a great bar on a Saturday.
All sixty-one bars we reviewed in New York, grouped by what you want tonight, are in the guide.
