The claim
An East Village ale house of sawdust floors, pot-bellied stove and walls crowded with yellowed memorabilia, where you order light or dark house ale. It claims 1854, though records point to the early 1860s. Women were barred until a 1970 lawsuit. Houdini's handcuffs hang by the bar, and nothing has been taken down since 1910.
What the records show
Historians note the site was a vacant lot in 1860-61, the building dates from no earlier than 1858, and John McSorley first appears in city directories in 1862. It likely opened 1861-62, not 1854, though it has traded ever since, serving 'near beer' in Prohibition. The city's own record now says much the same. New York City's Landmarks Preservation Commission building database, read on 17 September 2026, gives 15 East 7th Street as a brick tenement of about 1865 built for John Wroughton Mitchell, altered since, standing in the East Village/Lower East Side Historic District, and its note records the 1854 founding date as what the house is thought to have rather than what is established, adding that the business was first called The Old House at Home. Two independent lines of dating therefore land within a few years of each other and a decade after the year over the door. The 1862 belongs to Christopher Gray, whose Streetscapes column in the New York Times of 19 November 1995 went looking for the city's oldest surviving bar and found John McSorley first appearing in the city directories that year, with the building no earlier than 1858 in the city's own records. The vacant lot of 1860-61 comes from the Landmarks Preservation Commission's East Village historic district report and from the AIA guide to New York City, so the two findings are separate pieces of work that land within a couple of years of each other.
| Year | What | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 1854 | Claimed founding | The pub |
| c.1858 | Present building | Building fabric |
| 1862 | First record of a drinking house here | Christopher Gray in the New York Times, 1995 |
What to look for inside
- Women admitted only from August 1970 after a lawsuit
- Houdini's handcuffs and WWI wishbones on display
- Cash only, no reservations
Visiting
McSorley's Old Ale House is in New York City, United States, at 15 East 7th Street, New York, NY 10003. We do not list opening times, because they change; the pub’s own site is the place to check before you set out.
Sources
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McSorley%27s_Old_Ale_House
- mcsorleysoldalehouse.nyc/
- data.ny.gov/resource/9s3h-dpkz.json
- data.cityofnewyork.us/resource/gpmc-yuvp.json?des_addres=15%20East%207th%20Street
Know something we don’t?Suggest a correctionLast checked Sept 2026
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