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.

The following article is from http://newyork.grubstreet.com/2011/06/first_of_two_bronx-made_beers.html, written by Hugh Merwin.

Steve Nallen is a Woodlawn native and a history buff. Three years ago, he says, he was thinking about the old-school roots of Astoria’s Bohemian Hall & Beer Garden and trying to figure out how to revive the beer-garden tradition in the Bronx, when he stumbled across the story of Swedish settler Jonas Bronck, the borough’s namesake and OG home brewer. “When I delved into the history of the family,” says Nallen, “there was a clear brewing history.” Bronck died in 1643, and found among his personal library and textile collection was a hodgepodge of rudimentary brewing equipment, maybe a satchel or two of wild yeast and some flasks. The beer may have even been a family recipe: In 1663, Bronck’s relative Pieter traveled north and opened a farm to table gastropub in upstate New York. After reading into this, Nallen started Facebook and Twitter accounts for Jonas Bronck and continued to chase the long-vanished trail of hops. He home-brewed using different formulas for a year and began turning out brews under the name Jonas Bronck’s Beer Company: first a crisp wheat beer made with German yeast called Woodlawn Weiss, followed up with the “smooth” Pelham Bay IPA.

After tweaking the flavors, 30-year-old Nallen has now assembled a basic sales team and found a distributor for his beer, which will be available on tap this weekend. He has turned over recipe formulation to a partner brewer and brewery located upstate, though he says he’d eventually like to bottle in the Bronx and is looking at spaces there. Perhaps the Manhattan-facing edge of the South Bronx, home to the Bruckner Bar & Grill and its new neighbor, the second, similarly named Bronx Brewery, will become the borough’s first new craft-beer corridor in a hundred years.

A rep from Union Beer, the company that will distribute the beer, says that the initial production order of just 37 Woodlawn Weiss kegs will be on their trucks tomorrow and will likely be tapped by Saturday. Woodlawn Weiss will roll out in fifteen locations, including Bierkraft in Park Slope and the Astoria Brewhouse in Queens; in Manhattan at P.J. Clarke’s, Good Beer, Rattle & Hum, and the Long Room. And, happily, the beer will also be found at Rambling House, Yankee Tavern, and the Bronx Ale House, all located in its namesake borough.

My comments:

Pubcrawlbrooklyn.com is looking forward to tasting these two new beers.  A Bronx craft beer corridor would make for a great NYC pub crawl.  Let’s all get out this weekend and try Woodlawn Weiss and soon, the Pelham Bay IPA.

How do you feel about this addition to the NYC craft beer scene?  Please share your thoughts here.

A slightly different take on your typical NYC pub crawl.  Now that the weather has finally warmed up, it’s worth checking out.  Runs every Saturday in the summer from 6pm until 10pm.

Spritzenhaus at 33 Nassau Ave.

I am very excited about the announcement of Spritzenhaus!  Yet another Beer Garden for the North Williamsburg/Greenpoint area.  This would make the fourth beer garden for Williamsburg (the others are Loreley, Radegast and Berry Park).  So, there is definitely a Williamsburg Beer Garden bar crawl in the works here.  Even though these four places are not quite the size of the two beer gardens in Astoria (Studio Square and Bohemian Hall), the Williamsburg four promise to be fun spots for the Spring/Summer and beyond!  Please check this space soon for a review of Spritzenhaus.