It’s so much easier now to watch an out-of-town team than it used to be.  With the proliferation of sports television packages, numerous NYC bars now cater to fans of another city’s sports teams or a specific out-of-town professional or college team.  One site that I’ve used recently to find out-of-town friendly sports bars is http://barhappy.com/new-york-city, which gives you the ability to filter your bar search by specific sports teams.

With the NFL playoffs about to begin, I’m thinking about sports bars.  Over the next several weekends, sports bars in NYC and around the country will be packed with fans.  Of course, there are numerous sports bars all around the five boroughs and I won’t commence a top-10 list or any reviews today (though an NYC sports bar crawl could be interesting, maybe one for each borough).  Just a question/wonderment.  Prior to the television sports packages and satellite television, what was the sports bar experience like?  Was it just a place for locals to gather once or twice per week and watch the home team (aside from places with close proximity to sports venues)?  Surely, no bar prior to television sports packages and satellite television would have a dozen TVs in the establishment.  Three, maybe four TVs, at the most?  If you can provide any insight or thoughts on this, please do here.  I look forward to hearing from you!

Best wishes for 2012.  I look forward to more NYC pub crawls and bar visits in the new year.  And I will keep this space updated accordingly.

I’m back in NYC after a week of travel around the Northeastern United States.   Unfortunately, I did not partake in any “road trip” pub crawls.  I have, perhaps, one more NYC pub crawl remaining in 2011.  Then, it’s onward into 2012!  I look forward to doing many more NYC bar crawls in the New Year.

I learned Mé Bar closed earlier this year (per a recent article from DNAinfo.com).  Crushing news, it was probably my favorite rooftop bar in Manhattan.  Located atop the La Quinta Inn at 17 West 32^nd street, this rather small, cozy spot offered larger-than-life views of the Empire State Building.  According to the DNAinfo article, Me Bar lost its lease.  I am not aware if another bar will move into the space.  Mé Bar was a signature stop for any rooftop NYC bar crawl.  RIP, Mé Bar, you will be missed.

What are your memories of Mé Bar?  Do you know if another bar will move into the space?  Share your thoughts here.

On a recent Sunday afternoon, I was walking by the former location of Tribeca’s Pig ‘N’ Whistle at 363 Greenwich Street.  A sign in the window read, “Tribeca Tap House coming soon.” (Link to bar’s homepage is here.)  I’m happy to learn that a new bar will be taking over the space.  I don’t know much about Tribeca Tap House.  I hope it’s a quality craft-beer focused bar.  If you know more about it, please feel free to share here.  Once I learn more about the new place, I will blog about it.

A few words on Pig ‘N’ Whistle:  I had good memories of it.  Local neighborhood bar that served the after-work crowd from nearby office buildings and had decent pub grub.  Not quite the semi-upscale look and feel of the Midtown and Midtown East locations.  Likely became a casualty to the changes taking place in the neighborhood.  Not too many places like it remain in Tribeca.  If there were a Tribeca Neighborhood NYC pub crawl, Pig ‘N’ Whistle would have been on it!

The following article is from the New York Times City Room blog, written by James Barron:

It was the storied bar whose name everybody knew, even though it had no sign: Chumley’s, in Greenwich Village. A speakeasy during Prohibition and a destination for tourists seeking a snapshot or New Yorkers seeking a nightcap, Chumley’s has been closed since a wall collapsed in April 2007.

Chumley’s owners said they had hoped to reopen in a few weeks, then a few months. By 2008, they had removed the booths and tables — and the photographs that had lined the walls — and stored them for safekeeping. The building’s landlord, Margaret Streicker Porres, said in August 2008 that she hoped the work would be completed in midfall of that year.

Three years later, the construction barricades are still up. So when, really, will Chumley’s reopen?

“That’s the one question I need to work on,” said Jim Miller, a firefighter who started as a part-time bartender and ended up in charge. “There’s nobody more unhappy than I am about how long this has been going on. You have no idea how complicated this was.”

He said that earlier in the year, he had hoped to finish the construction work at the bar, at 86 Bedford Street, by now and bring back the furnishings and the photographs for an October reopening. “That timeline did not work out,” he said.

He took another look at the calendar and recalculated. “I was hoping to get in for the holidays,” he said. “That’s what I was pushing hard for.”

But that now seems unlikely, he said, and he has set his sights on 2012.

He said one of the biggest delays had involved the adjacent building at 56 Barrow Street. “It butted against the rear of our building,” he said. “Nothing could go forward until that was rectified, and it took a year and a half to work out.”

Ms. Streicker Porres agreed that the rebuilding had been unusually complicated — and that the end finally seemed to be in sight. “We are working through the last of what we expect to be the construction issues,” she said.

She said her team had been waiting for mechanical engineers who work for Mr. Miller “to give us some guidance” about where to install hookups for city services, “since you want to rebuild this building only once every 100 years.”

The building at 56 Barrow Street, near Bedford Street in the West Village, dates to 1827 and was given landmark status by the city last year. Ms. Streicker Porres said that the building was being “rebuilt as a townhouse with an apartment underneath.”

A second adjacent building, at 84 Bedford Street has been renovated as condominiums. Ms. Streicker Porres said the apartments were being marketed through Brown Harris Stevens. One, a two-bedroom duplex, is listed at $2.124 million. Another, a one bedroom unit, is priced at $1.015 million.

My thoughts:

I am ecstatic about about Chumley’s re-opening.  Frankly, I had given up hope as the months we waited for a re-opening turned into years.  I figured that we had lost another piece of Old New York forever.  Once open, Chumley’s will anchor the Speakeasy NYC pub crawl.

The following article is from

http://gothamist.com/2011/08/10/worlds_smallest_commercial_brewery.php, written by John Del Signore.

World’s Smallest Commercial Brewery Opens TONIGHT On Coney Island

Step right up and see the “world’s smallest ribbon” get cut tonight [8/10/11] to celebrate the debut of the world’s smallest commercial brewery, the Coney Island Brewing Company! The freakishly small micro-brewery is being opened by the San Francisco-based company Schmaltz, which produces HE’BREW beers, as well as the sideshow-inspired Coney Island Craft Lagers. At the new li’l brewery, beer will be produced in batches of one gallon, and sold at the brewery in collectible Coney Island Brewing Company packaging.

The recipes are inspired by “the local artistic and gastronomical landscape,” according to a press release, and recent batches include a Pumpernickel Bagel Porter; a Red, White, and Blueberry Hefeweizen; and a Caramel Apple Ale. The storefront will be open starting tonight through Halloween on Thursdays through Sundays, 12 p.m. – 6 p.m. Tonight’s fiesta, which starts at 5:30, will feature beer samples, sideshow freaks, live music, and, of course, Borough President Marty Markowitz, who said in a statement, “Not to get all ‘shmaltzy,’ but Brooklynites will be ‘crying in their beer’—in a good way!—over the Shmaltz Brewing Company opening the Coney Island Brewing Company.” (Don’t worry, the more you drink, the less you’ll care about the President’s egregious crimes against comedy.)

3008 West 12th Street, Brooklyn

My thoughts:

Yet another brewery for Brooklyn; this is great news!  I can’t wait to see it.  I shall have a full report and pictures to share in this space following my visit.

The following article comes from http://newyork.grubstreet.com/2011/06/the_latest_endangered_new_york.html, written by Jenny Miller.

Already this week we’ve brought you damning news about food trucks, cheese-cutting, and porn stores, and now it seems the latest endangered New York institution is the pub crawl.

DNA Info reports that one item on the docket at a Community Board 6 meeting last night was a proposed ban on such binge-drinking jaunts in the area, which covers 14th through 69th Streets on the east side.

Look, Grub Street doesn’t make a habit of hitting Murray Hill’s Irish pubs with our bros, but a ban? Well, it turns out CB 6 doesn’t have the authority to institute such a measure anyway! But here’s what it can do: “When bars apply for new or renewal liquor licenses, they are asked to sign a document that includes a clause not to participate in pub crawls (among other stipulations, such as closing at 2 a.m. instead of the legally sanctioned 4 a.m.).” Oh, so now it looks like 4 a.m. closings are in danger, too. Is it just us, or is this city turning into a nanny state?

Ban on Pub Crawls Brewing on the East Side

My comments:

Stay tuned.  The outcome of this issue could have ramifications for all NYC bar crawls, regardless of the neighborhood.

What are your thoughts on this proposed ban?  Share your take here.  I look forward to hearing from you!

The following article is from http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/harlem_hops_on_brewery_Df9109mOEyFHqIodP7QlRM, written by Sally Goldenberg.

An economic renaissance is brewing on Harlem’s 125th Street.

Mayor Bloomberg yesterday announced deals to redevelop two long-neglected sites on the commercial corridor, including a $100 million project that will include a new brewery, tap room and brewing museum.

The Harlem Brewing Company, which now brews its Sugar Hill Golden Ale upstate, will build a new brewery at the site of the old Taystee Cake bakery. And the company will turn its roof into a hops farm, where it will grow the essential ingredient for ale and beer.

In a separate project on 125th Street, city officials announced a deal yesterday to redevelop the landmarked Corn Exchange building at the corner of Park Avenue. Developers will restore the base of the building and build six additional stories for office space.

The two projects are expected to create 1,100 construction and permanent jobs.