Make mine Manhattan

By ADRIAN SCHOFIELD

New York City has an incredibly colourful past, but you won't see much sign of it in the sombre halls of its great museums.

To find a real window into Manhattan's soul you need to visit the historic bars and saloons the city grew up around and rub shoulders with the ghosts of their famous patrons.

Cities like London boast much more venerable pubs, but the miraculous thing about New York's old bars is that they have survived for so long in a city that is constantly tearing itself down and rebuilding.

In 19th-century Manhattan there was nothing much taller than the four-or-five-storey brick buildings that house these bars but now they're dwarfed by the concrete-and-steel behemoths that make up New York's skyline.

The night I chose for a foray into bar history with a couple of friends co-incided with the worst snowstorm of the year - but it takes more than that to stop dedicated researchers.

I had carefully mapped our route, selecting six well-known old bars in lower Manhattan and the best subway lines to get to them.

There's only one place to start a tour like this - McSorley's Old Ale House in the East Village, in the neighbourhood known as Little Ukraine and a few blocks from the old hippy enclave of St Mark's Place.

McSorley's has been there since 1854 and was one of thousands of saloons established for the Irish immigrants who settled in the area before making way for the next wave of newcomers. From humble origins, this became the bar-of-choice for everyone from Abraham Lincoln and Joseph Kennedy to Woody Guthrie and John Lennon.

The bar really looks its age, too. It has sawdust on the floor, an ancient wood stove in the middle of the room, and buckled tables with decades of graffiti names carved into them.

Yellowed newspaper cuttings and photos on the wall give a good impression of what the main topics of bar conversation have been over the past 150 years. I've heard this bar described as a museum that serves beer.

As shabby as it looks, McSorley's has become something of a tourist attraction. The bar has its own brand of dark ale on tap and it's only served two-at-a-time in half pints. The best way to accompany the ale is with a plate of sharp cheddar cheese, salt crackers, and sliced raw onion.

Even on the wild, snowy night, the bar was packed. We walked out of the storm into a room full of Santa Clauses - apparently our path had crossed with a Santa-theme pub crawl. At least they were well-dressed for the weather.

There were also women in the bar, which is something you wouldn't have seen during much of McSorley's history. It was one of the last bars in the city to lift its ban on women patrons. Also notable is the bar's cat, which stalks around hoping for a quiet place to curl up.

Next stop was across town at Pete's Tavern near Gramercy Park. Pete's has been around since 1864, and in the first years of the 20th century the short-story writer O. Henry wrote his well-known Christmas tale Gift of the Magi in one of the cosy booths that line one side of the narrow bar.

This bar is a lot fancier than McSorley's, reflecting a classier neighbourhood. No sawdust here - the decor runs more to polished dark wood and intricate patterned tiling. It still looks antique but in a much more genteel way. The ceiling has the pressed-tin lining that is common in many old bars in the United States.

Pete's was one of the many bars that didn't close their doors during the prohibition era, disguising itself as a flower shop. It claims to be the longest continuously operating bar in the city, and a framed newspaper article on the wall argues that McSorley's is about a decade younger than advertised.

By this point in the evening it was getting much harder to coax my companions out of the warm bar into the snowy night. The streets were just about deserted but the bars certainly weren't. It takes a lot to separate New Yorkers from their drinks.

We next made a quick stop at the White Horse Tavern in the trendy West Village. This bar was built in the 1880s, but its real moment in the spotlight came one night in 1953 when Welsh poet Dylan Thomas virtually drank himself to death.

Finding the famous Chumley's a few blocks away was difficult, but that was what its creators intended. It was established as a speakeasy, another of New York's network of covert prohibition-era bars.

You have to know exactly where you are going to find Chumley's, because there are still no signs on a door that looks like any other on the street. We walked around the block twice before we spotted some patrons coming out.

Despite its camouflaged location, Chumley's was packed. Its windowless walls are covered with framed book covers, a reminder that this was another haunt of artists, poets and writers - including Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner - when Greenwich Village was the centre of the American literary world.

The Ear Inn is two blocks from the Hudson River in West SoHo, but when it was built in 1817 it was right on the waterfront. Although it was the oldest building we saw on our tour, it didn't become a bar until much later in the 19th century.

The building certainly has a rich history. It was built by James Brown, who had been a slave and fought in the American Civil War. Eventually it became a notorious watering hole for sailors and wharf workers and is said to be haunted by the ghost of a sailor.

It's a fairly quiet bar with rickety tables and chairs on an uneven wood floor.

In a nod to its past, the Ear has retained a nautical theme and its shelves are crowded with seafaring knick-knacks, and artefacts such as whisky jugs that have been dug up from the cellar.

When we finally made it to the last stop on our list, Fanelli's, we found a bar that perfectly captured the bizarre contrast between Manhattan's historic bars and its modern facade. This tiny and slightly decrepit pub has been here since 1847 but now finds itself sandwiched between SoHo high-end fashion storefronts.

Although Fanelli's is completely out of place, nobody would think of tearing it down. Lose the old bars, and you lose a rich piece of the city's character - and enough pressed-tin ceiling panels to build a B-52 bomber.

Finding New York's historic bars:

The blocks in this part of the city are short, so walking distances are brief.

1. McSorley's Old Ale House (15 East 7th St): Take subway to Astor Place-8th St station, walk a few blocks east and one south.

2. McSorley's to Pete's Tavern (129 East 18th St): Go back to Astor Place subway station, ride the green line north one stop to 14th St-Union Square, walk north three blocks on Park Ave to 18th St.

3. Pete's to White Horse Tavern (567 Hudson St): You can take two subway trains to 14th St-8th Ave station and walk four blocks south down Eighth, then one down Hudson, but the best thing to do is to take a short cab ride across town.

4. White Horse to Chumley's (86 Bedford St): Walk south down Hudson about five blocks. Turn left on Grove, then right on Bedford. Chumley's is about mid-block.

5. Chumley's to Ear Inn (326 Spring St): Go Back to Hudson and walk south eight blocks to Spring. Go west on Spring about two blocks.

6. Ear Inn to Fanelli's (94 Prince St): Walk east on Spring for seven blocks, go north on Mercer one block, then right on Prince.

Getting there:

Unless you're flying direct to New York on United or Air New Zealand, you can find good US domestic fares at www.orbitz.com or www.sidestep.com. From the Los Angeles gateway airport, you can often find even cheaper fares to New York by checking out JetBlue and America West.

When you arrive:

From Kennedy airport it costs at least US$45 ($70), without tip, for a taxi to midtown Manhattan, so take the AirTrain to the Howard Beach or Jamaica subway stations. The total trip costs about US$7. Airport express buses cost US$15. From LaGuardia a cab to midtown costs about US$30 and express buses are US$12. From Newark airport, take the AirTrain from the terminal to the airport train station, then catch a New Jersey Transit train into the city for US$11.50.

Where to stay:

New York isn't cheap, but if you book ahead using www.hotels.com, www.expedia.com or www.priceline.com
you can usually find a nice hotel in the city for about US$100 to US$130 a night. The touristy Hotel Pennsylvania is one of the largest and cheapest. Don't be tempted by the cheaper hotels near LaGuardia airport - it's a hassle getting into town.