Our urban hike just won't go away. Yesterday, Bird Dog posted pics of Trinity Church. Today I'm posting one location we didn't happen to visit. It was on the original agenda, by the time we got to Washington Square, taking a swing west would have added too much time to the walk. Spirits were high, but it seemed too much to ask. There's always next year.
As a young arrival in New York, I was single and had small amounts of cash to spend on entertainment. There were plenty of ways to find that entertainment at South Street Seaport, midtown in some of the (much more expensive) watering holes, Greenwich Village, and even portions of the West Village. In particular, The White Horse Tavern (warning - the full article, if you wish to read it, requires joining the site, but there is plenty in the portion I've linked to) was one of my favorite places to go after work on Thursday and Friday. For some reason, I never stopped in on the weekends.
The White Horse began as a James Dean's Oyster Bar, which closed and was replaced with a longshoreman's bar, close to the docks, in the 1880s. Most likely named after all the horses in the area, it was popular with the local workers.
Unlike its counterpart on the eastern side, McSorley's, which gained fame due to Joseph Mitchell's World-Telegram and New Yorker articles in the 1930's and 1940s, the White Horse rose in prominence during the 1950's.
Like McSorley's, the White Horse became popular due to its influence on America's literary life. However, that influence was felt by the appearance of the literary elite at its tables, less than their writing about experiences at the tavern. Names like Jack Kerouac, Dylan Thomas and Delmore Schwartz spent hours there. The White Horse gained additional notoriety in 1995, when Pete Hamill wrote about his time drinking there in A Drinking Life, boozing it up with other members of the artistic crowd.
The White Horse's rich history dates back years, and like its eastern cousin McSorley's, is part of the scenic traffic of people, places and events which have shaped New York City, and provided an outlet for the artistic energies of notable American media personalities.
