Riding Ferries and Drinking Rum in the Virgin Islands

The title is a little deceptive, because just about the only place in the Virgin Islands where you can’t drink rum or beer is on the ferries. When you see how these passenger boats pitch and roll on their fast run between islands, you can understand the “no eating or drinking, all passengers must be seated” policy.
But once on land, it’s anything goes. As a U.S. territory (residents are citizens, but can’t vote for president), the three U.S. Virgin Islands have all their own laws. Driving is on the left, British style. The drinking age is 18 and there are no open container laws -- you can drink a beer on the street, on the beach, on a hiking trail or anywhere you like. You can even take an open beer into and out of any of the many bars on the three islands. There are, of course, strict drinking and driving laws, but go on foot, and the laws are pretty much the same as when pirates ruled the land.

Welcome to the Virgin Islands
Located a thousand miles southeast of Miami, the three U.S. Virgin Islands (and 50 or so neighboring British Virgin Islands) are at the northwest tip of the Lesser Antilles…that circular band of islands that separates the Caribbean Sea from the Atlantic.
Compared to the larger islands of Jamaica, Puerto Rico and Cuba, the Virgins are just specks in the sea. St. John is the size of Manhattan, many of the islands are smaller and most are uninhabited. They look like lush green mountaintops sticking up out of a turquoise sea, many of them rising up to 1,700 feet in height and all of them visible from each other. And of course, they are ringed with some of the most gorgeous and famous white sand beaches on earth. The relatively safe waters with lots of pristine anchorages make it a top bare-boat sailing destination, and the marinas on Tortola, the sailing capital, are filled with sailboats available for weeklong charters.
It’s deep Caribbean – the dream everyone has of get-away-from-it-all islands, exotic but safe, easily negotiated, hassle free…and as a result, expensive and crowded. Most people see the Virgin Islands in one of three ways: chartering boats on expensive sailing vacations; staying at even more expensive, uber-upscale resorts or invading the islands with mobs of their fellow shipmates on frantic day trips from cruise ships.
But there is an alternative. Go to St. John in the off-season of May and June, before the hurricanes and after the mobs, and there are a number of reasonably priced small inns in the town of Cruz Bay that make an excellent base to go island hopping by ferry. We stayed at the St. John Inn (http://www.stjohninn.com/) for $130 a night. It’s a funky, ramshackled place, with a nice deck for breakfast (included) and free rum punches at sundown, but best of all, it’s a five-minute walk to the West Indies beach bars and shops of the hip little, backwater village of Cruz Bay.

Exploring St. John

The center of Cruz Bay is a small, palm-shaded plaza, surrounded by shops and restaurants in buildings painted peach, lime, rose and purple and covered with pink bougainvillea. A string of popular bars line a little beach and harbor filled with boats and in the distance, just three miles away, are the mountains of St. Thomas. It’s one of the top spots in the islands to watch a sunset.
From Cruz Bay, it’s an easy walk to dream-like beaches. Head to the National Park visitor center on the edge of town for a copy of the The Hiker’s Guide ($2.95) and from here it’s a 15-minute walk to idyllic Honeymoon Beach or snorkeling at Salomon Bay. Sixty percent of St. John is protected as the Virgin Islands National Park and the rest of the island is nearly as wild with only one other small town, two upscale resorts and some scattered private residences. In 1956, millionaire Laurence Rockefeller saw that development could destroy St. John, so he bought two-thirds of the island and gave it the U.S. government to become a national park. Today the park preserves 13,000 acres of land and underwater coral, 140 species of birds, 740 plants and 50 types of coral.
Only 3,500 people live on St. John and there are very few places to stay so by evening, the island population is small, giving Cruz Bay an “end-of-the-world” feel. There is no airport on St. John and the hourly ferry to Red Hook is the only connection to civilization.
Of course, St. John also has some of the most famous beaches in the world. Trunk Bay makes every top 10 beach list and island calendar and is even on a U.S. postage stamp. The beach is just the beginning. Lying just offshore of this too-good-to-be-true white sand lined with palm trees are two tiny islands and a coral reef offering superb snorkeling.
The national park has put in a 225-yard underwater snorkeling trail here. They’re very proud of the trail, which consists of signs sunk in 10 to 15 feet of water identifying fish and plant life. It’s okay, but in truth, the underwater signs are a bit hard to follow and distracting. With schools of kaleidoscopic fish, coral and plants in every direction, the last thing you need is to be reading an underwater brochure.
More impressive is that here, and in equally pretty next door Cinnamon Bay, the national park shop sells cans of El Presidente beer from the Dominican Republic for $2….and you’re more than welcome to drink beer on the beach or throughout the park. There are also fresh water showers, lockers and snorkel rentals.
You can get to the beaches from Cruz Bay by open air taxis ($6 to Trunk Bay each way) but to really explore the island, you need to rent a car ($50-60). The roads are crazy, incredibly steep, blind curves and of course, you’re driving British style on the left but with American cars made to drive on the right. No worries. No one goes over 20-30 mph, and usually much slower.
There are pull-offs and knock-dead views every half-mile, and the island is covered with hiking trails. Leinster Bay Trail follows an old Danish road around the sea to Watermelon Bay, one of the best snorkeling areas known for sting rays and sea turtles. The short trail to the Annaberg Sugar Mill ruins has gorgeous views of all the islands and is a good introduction to the strangely brutal history of this “paradise.”
Columbus was the first European to see the Virgin Islands in 1493. It was at St. Croix that the first bloody skirmish between the native peoples of the Americas and whites of Europe occurred when some Carib Indians attacked his ships.
Columbus didn’t report seeing anyone living on St. John or many of the islands. Archeological finds prove that there were native peoples here, but they were gone by the 15th Century.
For a 150 years after Columbus, the islands remained deserted, but then everything change drastically when the world discovered the simple pleasure of putting sugar into tea.
Between 1660 and 1725, the per capita consumption of sugar in England increased by eight times, unleashing a mad scramble by European powers to secure Caribbean islands for sugar plantations. The profits to be made from sugar were unimaginable; contemporaries likened it to a gold rush. Every European country sent ships to take and seize different islands. By 1650, there were 75,000 people involved with sugar living on Barbados, more than the entire population in the all the original 13 colonies at this time.
It was the Danish, of all people, who raised the flag on St. John in 1718. By 1733, there were 109 cane and cotton plantations on the island.

When Sugar was King

Growing sugar was wildly labor intensive and the only way to make it profitable was to use a small army of slave labor. Hundreds of thousands of African slaves were transported to the islands to live in miserable conditions, working backbreaking days stooped over in hot, sunny cane fields. Throughout the 18th Century and half of the 19th Century, the number of slaves brought to the New World outnumbered the number of Europeans immigrating there.
Because of its isolation, St. John became an especially harsh place, an island where difficult slaves were sent or where slaves fresh from Africa were sent to be broken. In 1733, a group of male slaves from Akwamu, a warlike nation in Guinea, were sent to St. John and put in the fields – a job they considered “women’s work.”
The strategy backfired. The former warriors smuggled cane bills, a type of short machete, into the fort on St. John and killed all but one of the soldiers. Then they fired a cannon, signaling an island-wide revolt and a general killing of whites. The slaves held the island for six months, but in the end, one out of every three people on St. John, black and white, was killed before a French force subdued the rebellion. This was just one of 75 little discussed slave revolts that occurred in the British West Indies before 1837.
The Annaberg plantation ruins date from 1780 and includes a former windmill that was used to crush the sugar cane.
At this time, for every two pounds of raw sugar produced, there was a byproduct of one pound of molasses. Until about 1650, molasses was a nuisance; no one knew what to do with it and tons of this “waste product” were dumped in the sea.
And then someone discovered that if you added water to molasses, let yeast attack it and then distill the results, you create a beverage that was first known as “kill-devil” and later was simply called “rum.” By 1655, Barbados alone was producing 900,000 gallons of rum a year.
Rum became staple of life in the colonies and to all seafaring men. Robert Louis Stevenson summed it up in “Treasure Island,” when he has pirate Billy Bones say, “I’ve lived on rum, I tell you. It’s been meat and drink, and man and wife to me.”
Today, one of the finest rums in the Caribbean, Cruzan, is still made on St. Croix. To try it, go to one of the many Cruz Bay bars. Along the waterfront, there’s The Balcony, Beach Bar or Hide Tide Bar & Grill (http://www.wharfsidevillage.com/) or in town the Quiet Mon Pub (http://www.quietmon.com/) and the crazy popular Woody’s. For dinner, the Banana Deck and the Fish Trap have great seafood. But remember, with an open container law, everywhere on St. John is a bar. We spent most of our time drinking a delicious Blackbeard Ale (or a lighter Carib for a change of pace) from the convenience store, walking and drinking beer on the beach and in town.

Tortola and the British Virgin Islands

From St. John it’s easy to visit the British Virgin Islands on day trips by ferry. Because you have to go through customs, there is a separate dock area with ferries going to Jost Van Dyke (famous for a handful of crazy bars); Virgin Gorda (famous for the Baths, rated one of the world’s best beaches) and Tortola, the capital and most developed and most mountainous of the BVI’s. The ferries leave on an erratic and maddening schedule, so if visiting the BVI’s is important to you, you need to plan your trip around their infrequent departures. Go to: www.virgin-islands-on-line.com/ferry.shtml
for ferry departures…and good luck. If you can’t see all the islands, don’t worry, because all the islands are good.
The most frequent ferries are to West End, Tortola, a magical, West Indies town filled with boats and bars, palm shaded balconies, pastel colored buildings with white shutters and a Pusser’s Rum outpost of civilization.
For more than 300 years, rum was a staple of the British Navy. Churchill supposedly said it was “buggery, rum and the lash” that made the British Navy, but while that oft-repeated quote is doubtful, the Royal Navy did serve rations (a “tot” as they called it) of up to five ounces of rum a day to all sailors until as late as 1970.
The five West Indies blended rum they served has since been revived to the original formula and is called “Pusser’s,” because it was the purser on the ship that dispensed it, and if you drank five ounces of rum a day, you’d also have trouble pronouncing purser.
Made in wooden pot stills, the same way it was at the time of Trafalgar, this single malt rum is the “father of grog” and every seaman’s choice, http://www.pussers.com/
There’s a Pusser’s store and pub in West End and also in the capital city of Road Town, and both are great visits for their naval ambiance and souvenirs, the best of which is a $10 enamel tin cup that features a sailor being hanged with the slogan, “Good to the last drop.”
You can pick up a rental car at West End (make arrangements through your hotel ahead of time, the rental cars are located outside of town and will have to meet you). You can easily explore the island in a day, with stops at spectacular Cane Garden Bay, the showpiece mile-long beach that often makes the world’s top 10 beach list. The beach bars here are a great place for lunch; a lobster salad sandwich on whole wheat bread was $8…the palms overhead and gentle surf lapping at your feet are free.
Along the way, stop for a beer at the Bomba Shack in Apple Bay. The bar is made out of driftwood boards that Bomba nailed together in a crazy maze of rooms decorated with panties, bras and hand-painted signs, the most memorable of which was “Give Bomba your panties and be blessed.” The bar was deserted when we stopped by, but hundreds of photos tacked to the walls (many of Bomba hugging topless blonds) attest to some wild nights, especially during their monthly full moon party.
Bomba’s nephew is opening his own mini-version of this craziness on Long Bay Beach called “Nature Boy’s Bar.” The government is giving him a hard time, so stop by for a beer and give him your support (look for the BVI flag at the end of the beach).
Road Town is a real city, by Caribbean standards, but also a bare-boating capital surrounded by mountains. Cruise ships have invaded here, so there’s plenty of shops for day-trippers, but it’s still small scale. The Pusser’s Pub is a dark, cool bit of England with prints of naval battles and Nelson.

St. Thomas Madness
Neighboring St. Thomas (just three sea-miles from St. John) has only 50,000 residents, 85% of them people of color. It can feel as remote and exotic, but an abundance of cruise ships can cause overnight population explosions. St. Thomas is one of the biggest cruise ship ports in the world, capable of holding four mega-cruisers at one time with up to18,000 passengers day-trippers (1.5 million visitors a year), who swarm ashore in a mini-D-Day invasion to embark on frenzied trips to the duty free shopping that lines the main street of the capitol town, Charlotte Amelia. Another perk of being a territory – all three islands offer duty free shopping at every single store -- and you can bring home six liters of liquor instead of the usual two.
Which means St. Thomas can be big-time tourism when the ships are in. The century-old stone warehouses that line the back streets of Charlotte Amelia, with their West Indies architecture, green and black shutters and big arched entrances, are now filled with upscale watch and jewelry shops, elegant liquor stores, and international clothing stores. Little side alleyways offer shade, bars and restaurants, antique shops and palm trees to help disperse the crowds.
It’s an odd town. The Greenhouse Restaurant (http://www.thegreenhouserestaurant.com/) is a great little pub with open views to the harbor, and is next to S.O.S. Antiques, a wonderful pirate shop filled with authentic canon, flintlocks, swords and even a blunderbuss for a mere $4,000. It’s also the official shop for Blackbeard Ale souvenirs – the only place on the island where you can get t-shirts, caps, and coasters from this great Virgin Island microbrewery http://www.blackbeardale.com/ But as nice as this enclave is, it’s a pistol shot from the St. Thomas Hooters, located in a hideous modern building.
All of this changes at 5 p.m., when deep whistles signal that the ships are departing, and St. Thomas reverts back to being a sleepy, edge-of-the-world backwater…that might even be a little dangerous. Everyone agrees – don’t venture too far from the shore and into town after dark.
You can stay in town at one of the guesthouses like Galleon House (http://www.galleonhouse.com/) for as low as $85 in off-season. They have a great deck overlooking the town and there’s a pleasant walk along the harbor to Frenchtown, a tiny neighborhood of residents from St. Barthelemy with a popular waterside pub, Hook, Line & Sinker. Also in town, Blackbeard’s Castle (he never was in it, but it is an authentic 17th Century fortification) is also interesting, but most people who stay on St. Thomas head to one of the beach resorts.
If you stay on St. Thomas, rent a car, try to get used to driving on the left on horrendously steep hills filled with blind curves and views (with no pull-offs) and visit the highlights. Drake’s Seat (where Sir Frances Drake is supposed to have sat, high on a mountaintop, looking for Spanish treasure fleets to attack) is worth a stop, particularly as it looks down on Magen’s Bay – consistently rated one of the top beaches in the world. It’s a knockout, if you can hit it on a day when there are no cruise ships in town. There’s a great walk in thigh-high water along the rocks to the north.
Coki Beach is where to go for snorkeling, and though everyone will tell you the coral in the Virgin Islands is dying, for walk-in, easy-access, off the beach snorkeling, it’s tough to beat. Stop at Buddy’s Bar afterward for a Carib or Blackbeard Ale.

IF YOU GO: For information on the U.S. Virgin Islands: http://www.usvitourism.vi/
For British Virgin Islands: http://www.bvitourism.com/

WHAT TO READ: and a Bottle of Rum by Wayne Curtis is the ultimate book to take on any Caribbean vacation. In a fun and highly readable book, he tells how rum has shaped the history of the world (or at least, America) by relating the stories behind ten popular cocktails. How many books are not only fun to read on the beach, but also increase your knowledge and enjoyment of rum at night?
For excitement, read Treasure Island – the greatest adventure and pirate novel of all time. Legend says that Robert Louis Stevenson used Norman Island in the BVI’s as the island in his book. Yo ho ho…..

Walking and Drinking Beer in New York's Historic Taverns

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free…

…while searching to find a nicely poured pint in a quiet bar with a wonderful little neighborhood to stroll around afterwards. Well, maybe not, but Emma Lazarus wrote those lines in 1883 to fundraise for the Statue of Liberty’s pedestal, and they certainly epitomize New York’s historic appeal. It’s been burned to the ground, occupied by military forces and survived numerous terrorist attacks. In movies, New York has been frozen, flooded and invaded by apes and aliens. But still, everyone wants to come here. Last year, the city attracted 46 million visitors from every country of the world, speaking 300 different languages.

London has Public Houses that developed into pubs primarily for the locals, but New York’s fame is the tavern – a “clean, well-lighted place” where over the years the city’s many visitors could feel welcome with a good meal and drink. Here are some great historic taverns, along with a speakeasy, an Irish pub or two and some other fine stops.
Fraunces Tavern Museum, http://www.frauncestvernmuseum.org/
Well, it’s not the best bar in the city for a drink, but it is one of three with a claim to being the oldest. Opened in 1719, it was originally called the Queen’s Head. The Sons of Liberty plotted a revolution here and in 1775 the British fired an 18-pound cannon ball into the roof. But it is most renowned as the place where George Washington bid an emotional farewell to his officers on Dec. 4, 1783. The most famous party of the Revolution was held upstairs in the Long Room, which has been re-created as it appeared on the afternoon that wine and tears flowed freely. A museum has exhibits on New York’s role in the Revolution, along with one of George’s false teeth and a lock of his hair.

The building was restored in 1904 and how much of it is authentic can be debated, but it is one of a very few structures in New York to survive in any way from the Revolution. When the British captured the city in 1776 (backed by the largest armada and invading army the world had known to that point), retreating Americans set fire to the town and much of it was destroyed

Fraunces Tavern witnessed more violence in 1975 when it was bombed by the Armed Forces of Puerto Rican National Liberation and four people were killed.

Today, the restaurant and bar have a colonial feel with wooden tables and chairs, and there are flags and paintings, and (God knows why) fake African animal heads in the bar, but you can’t deny the sense of history.

Neighborhood Walks in Lower Manhattan
The great thing about Fraunces Tavern is that it is in the heart of Lower Manhattan. Your first walk should be up the gangplank to board the Staten Island ferry for the free, 5-mile trip back and forth across the harbor. At Staten Island, you simply follow a series of ramps and re-board immediately; the whole trip takes about an hour and offers views of the Statue, the skyline and whatever ships are heading into port. On the ride back to New York, go down to water level for a very different view of Manhattan.

Battery Park is adjacent to the ferry and has one of New York’s old forts – Castle Clinton – and two emotional memorials. The Sphere designed by Fritz Koenig was a monument to world peace that stood in the plaza in front of the World Trade Center. In the 9-11 attacks, it was buried under tons of rubble, torn apart, bent and scraped, but it has been dug up, reassembled and now sits in the park as a testament to New York’s resiliency. Nearby, the Merchant Marine Memorial is truly eerie. Commemorating the 7,000 merchant marines who died in World War II, it depicts a drowning sailor with his arms stretched out of the sea. Depending on the tide, you see half of his body or just his arm and neck reaching out for help.

New York’s famous Broadway starts at the intersection of Battery Park and Bowling Green, and here you’ll find the 7,000 pound bronze Charging Bull sculpture by Arturo Di Modica that has become the symbol of a bull market on Wall Street. Rub its nose for luck, and continue up Broadway to the beautiful Trinity Church, where Alexander Hamilton is buried. It’s a good place to consider how strange America is that we have a treasury secretary on the $10 bill who was murdered by a former vice president (Hamilton made it clear before his famous “duel” with Aaron Burr that he would not fire; former VP Burr still deliberately aimed and shot him down.)

If you need any more evidence of America’s financial strangeness, cross Broadway and head down Wall Street. The famous flag on the New York Stock Exchange with Washington’s statue in the foreground (he was inaugurated as president on these steps) have become an iconic photo of New York. If you look closely, you’ll see the stock exchange is on Broad Street, not Wall Street. Less well known is that yet another of New York’s terrorist attacks took place here in 1920 when 31 people were killed by a bomb placed in a horse and carriage. The building across the street from Federal Hall still has pot marks from the explosion.

Anywhere else in the nation – or the world – Federal Hall National Monument would be famous. In New York, the 1842 modified version of the Parthenon is overshadowed. But climb the steps and go in – the rotunda is amazing, it’s free, there’s a lot of history and (always important in New York) there are clean, free public restrooms.

It’s a ten-minute walk to South Street Seaport, which is a bit touristy, but it’s hard to beat the views of The Peking (the second largest sailing ship ever built) against the skyline. There are plenty of bars on Pier 17 with views of the Brooklyn Bridge or the East River, and the schooner Pioneer goes out on day sails into the harbor. The cobblestone pedestrian mall, old 18th century buildings and squawking seagulls remind you that New York was once one of the biggest commercial harbors in the world.

McSorley’s Old Ale House, 15 E. 7th Ave., http://www.mcsorleysnewyork.com/

Both Abe Lincoln and John Lennon have bellied up to the bar here (standing room only, please, no bar stools), as have Presidents Franklin and Teddy Roosevelt and John Kennedy. Woody Guthrie played guitar at the front table, and e.e. cummings wrote a poem about the place.

Opened in 1854, McSorley’s is the longest continually operated saloon in New York…and looks it. The floor is still covered with sawdust, there’s a genuine coal- burning stove, and the walls are a museum with everything from the handcuffs used to tie up Houdini to an authentic wanted poster for John Wilkes Booth. No women were admitted in the bar until 1970 (an early 1920s slogan was: “Good Ale, Raw Onions and No Ladies). It took a lawsuit and a ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court to change that. The bar’s revenge? They allowed women, but didn’t offer a ladies room. I can remember many nights in the 70s standing guard for women friends outside what became the most interesting co-ed bathroom in New York. A real women’s room was not added until 1986. For its entire history, McSorley’s has served only one beverage – ale. Ordering is simple, you simply say “Light or dark.” In another quirk of the bar, you need to buy two beers at a time, though they are smallish mugs, about 10 ounces each.

As you would expect, the place attracts a large crowd and seems to be a mecca for college students. It’s best on a cold afternoon before the rush, with the late afternoon sun streaming through the windows and the coal heat from the stove warming the room. Pet one of the house cats, eat some peanuts and read e.e. cummings’ poem: “I was sitting in mcsorleys. outside it was New York and beautifully snowing. Inside snug and evil.”

Walks Around the East Village
McSorley’s is a block from St. Mark’s Place, ground zero of the Hippie movement in the 60s. The block between Third and Second is where Andy Warhol and Yoko Ono (pre John Lennon) staged hippie happenings and the nearby Fillmore East was where the Who premiered their rock opera Tommy. Forty years ago, as a long-haired college student, I spent many evenings here. From the funky t-shirt shops, costume stores, tattoo parlors, and basement shops, the street still has that same electric, edgy, crazy, punk-goth feel. You won’t be surprised that this was Madonna’s first New York neighborhood.

One of the best and cheapest places to eat in the city is in Little India, a row of a dozen Indian restaurants nearby on East Sixth Street at Second Ave. A table full of food with pan bread, mango chutney and even a bottle of wine will set you back less than $20 each. The Taj Mahal usually has musicians playing sitar and tambura.

But there’s no shortage of cheap food in the area. Both Second and Third avenues heading north are lined with cheap eats, ethnic restaurants, outdoor cafes, crazy shops and just the general teeming crowds of daily life in the city. This is “deep” New York and a fascinating walk.

Nearby Alphabet City is also great for a stroll. In the 60s, it was your life to walk on these three north-south avenues, A, B and C, between 2nd and 10th, but now the brownstones have been fixed up and mixed between them are wonderful little cafes and galleries. Check out Obscura Antiques & Oddities at 280 E. 10th, between 1st and Avenue A. It’s like walking into the Adam’s Family living room.

Pete’s Tavern, 129 E. 18th Ave., www.geocities.com/petestavern.geo/historyb

Pete’s never attracted George Washington or Abe Lincoln, but it has been featured in Seinfeld, Sex in the City and Law and Order, which makes it a New York classic. Opened in 1864, Pete’s claims to be the longest continually opened bar and restaurant in the city. (Pete’s stayed open during prohibition, disguised as a flower shop. McSorley’s was operated as a speakeasy.)

Perhaps the most famous event occurred at Pete’s in 1904 when bar regular O. Henry came in and wrote the classic short story, Gift of the Magi, in one-sitting at his favorite booth, the first one in from the front doors. Sit at the 30-foot-long rosewood bar and try their 1864 Original House Ale. Gramercy Park is a couple blocks away. The park is locked and private, but surrounded by gorgeous flats, giving it the look and feel of London. Chelsea (due west on 23rd) makes a nice stroll. Swing by the Chelsea Hotel, 222 W. 23rd, www.hotelchelsea.com/history, where Jack Kerouac wrote On the Road in one marathon session, Arthur C. Clarke wrote 2001: A Space Odyssey, Bob Dylan composed songs and Sid Vicious of the Sex Pistols may have stabbed his girlfriend to death. The art-filled lobby is as wild as you would expect.
Up for another pint?…or least ready for a restroom, the Half King http://www.thehalfking.com/ is down the block at 23rd and Tenth Ave. It’s a literary bar (Sebastian Junger, author of A Perfect Storm is one of the owners), filled with a maze of rooms lit by candles and known for book readings and signings. The Half King, by the way, was an Indian chief who guided George Washington in Western Pennsylvania. George no doubt drank with, but not in, the Half King.

Grand Central Terminal: The Oyster Bar www.oysterbarny.com and Campbell Apartment, www.hospitalityholdings.com

The restored Grand Central is New York’s masterpiece. Opened in 1913 at a cost of $80 million, the Beaux Arts building just had a $200 million restoration. Go during rush hour to see the madness as New York races across an acre of marble floors, topped by a nine-story atrium (the windows alone are seven-stories high) with a vaulted ceiling covered with 2,500 hand-painted stars pinpointing the major constellations. Outside, there are ten pillars and a gigantic statue of Mercury (the god of travel). The outdoor clock features the largest piece of Tiffany glass in the world.

But of course, for our interests, Grand Central also has some of New York’s finest historic bars. The Oyster Bar has been the city’s most famous seafood restaurant since it opened. Ian Fleming thought it the best restaurant in America, so he made it the favorite restaurant of James Bond, too. The crazy arched ceilings made of yellow Guastavino tiles were used as the inspiration for Lex Luthor’s hideaway in Superman. Sit at the counter, sip a Brooklyn “Local 1” Ale, and order some oysters (there are two dozen choices running about $2-$2.50 each) or some little neck clams for $1.35. An oyster poor boy is only $8.25.

Campbell Apartments is a bit more pricey, but there’s no more romantic spot for a cocktail. The 1920s room was once the office of mogul John W. Campbell, who turned the place into a replica of a Florentine palazzo with an inlaid ceiling, massive fireplace and leaded windows. It’s simply incredible – you expect to see Nick and Nora Charles sitting at one of end of the bar and Scott and Zelda at the other. Most of the cocktails are shaken and will set you back $12-15, but the experience is worth it.

And like a real speakeasy, it’s not easy to find. Going up the west ramp from the Oyster Bar, look for a freight elevator with a brass marker. That’s the only in-terminal entrance. The bar has a strict dress code with no t-shirts, shorts, athletic shoes, sweatshirts or torn jeans, thank you very much.

Walking Around Grand Central Station

No one needs a walking guide to mid-town Manhattan – it’s all good. But if you need another beer, or that all important easy public restroom, head to Bryant Park at Sixth Avenue and 42nd. Once the most dangerous spot in mid-town, Bryant Park has been transformed into a little slice of Paris. There are hundreds of French green folding chairs and tables to sit at – on gravel paths under the shade of rows of London Plane trees or beside a massive Italian fountain. The outdoor bar here is magnificent. I have seldom been in New York and missed an opportunity to have a beer at this lovely oasis. And although it’s just a block from Times Square, there’s a clean, safe, public restroom playing classical music. Only in New York.
In mid-town there are a hundred interesting bars, Irish pubs and the city’s only Scottish bar, St. Andrews at 140 W. 46, http://www.standrewsnyc.com/. With kilted bartenders and live music on the weekends, it’s a nice break from the 80 or so Irish pubs in the area. But if you’re so inclined, for a Murphy’s pub, try the brand new Legends at 6 W. 33rd which has great live music, http://www.legends33.com/, or for a Guinness and Irish music, head to the Galway Hooker, at 7 E. 36th, http://www.galwayhookernyc.com/. Practically next door is The Ginger Man, 11 E. 36, http://www.gingerman-ny.com/. With 70 beers on tap and 160 in bottles, it is, as beer guru Michael Jackson said, “one of the great beer bars of the world.”

But if you need one more historic bar, try the Algonquin Hotel, on 44th, between Fifth and Sixth, http://www.algonquinhotel.com/. Opened in 1902, the elegant hotel was home to the “Algonquin Round Table,” a bar where throughout the 1920s, the city’s greatest wits and writers gathered to tell jokes and trade insults, many of which worked their way into novels, films and plays. Dorothy Parker, Robert Benchley, Harpo Marx and George S. Kaufman (who wrote the Marx Brothers movies) were just some of the regulars who lunched here. The lobby bar has been maintained in the same style. Waiters will point out the location of the original “Round Table” and there is a historic display case telling the story. But best of all are the bar’s cocktail napkins, which have one of the great lines of Dorothy Parker that originated in this room: "I love a martini -- but two at the most. Three I'm under the table; Four, I'm under the host."

St Paddy’s Day Tips
The largest St. Patrick’s Day Parade in the world is literally “marching and drinking beer” down Fifth Avenue (though New York has zero tolerance for drinking in public and people are arrested. No worries, there’s a pub on every corner).

The parade starts at 44th Street and Fifth, and they’ll tell you on TV that with the crowds, it’s impossible to see anything of it south of 66th. Well, of course, they’re wrong. The parade starts forming on 44th, but doesn’t really get going until 47th. There are no crowds around the forming that takes place east and west of Fifth on 44th-47th; you can wander around these side streets, easily getting your fill of pipe bands, Irish wolfhounds, and the green-covered crazies, take some great photos, and be on your way.
Even at “ground zero” of the parade, passing St. Patrick’s Cathedral, I could easily see enough of the parade in 2009. In the end, how much of it do you really want to see, anyway? When you’re ready for a pub, pick up the free St. Patrick’s Day Irish Pub Guide, available in every pub with details on 80 Irish pubs, including who has music. Slainte!