New York City's Best Dive Bars. Ben Westhoff

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       Alibi

      242 Dekalb Ave (Clermont Ave and Vanderbilt Ave) Transit: G to Clinton-Washington; C toLafayette Ave

       (718) 783-8519

      Normally, I took notes for this book by sending myself text messages, as I stopped using pen and paper after the bartender/lap dancer at Navy Yard Cocktail Lounge ripped my notebook out of my hands and began reading my assessment of her dump aloud.

      However, at Alibi I sort of lost my head. I’d heard that the venerable Fort Greene garden-level watering hole was a writer’s hangout, and therefore I didn’t think anyone would give me grief for jotting down notes in my Mead. And they probably wouldn’t have, either, if I hadn’t done it while peeing. “That’s what I call multitasking!” chided the gaunt guy with the cigarette behind his ear at the urinal next to me. He then proceeded to compare me to women who drive while applying make-up. “In America, we’ve got to cut that shit out!” he concluded. Walking out of the rest room, he proceeded to flirt with my friend Anna—a different Anna than my wife Anna, but still—and then, to top it all off, he bounced the cue ball off of a bumper and sent it directly into the corner pocket on the other side of the pool table. Damn.

      But who cares? Alibi is the perfect dive bar, equally grungy and comfy. “It seems kinda borderline welcoming, almost,” said Anna’s husband Justin, nailing it. The tin ceiling hangs low, the fireplace props up 8 Ball trophies and is full of debris, and the unvarnished wooden tables have an eighth-grade girls’ school worth of gum under them. The bartender calls the Brooklyn Lager simply “Lager,” like they do with Yuengling in Philly; that might be because there’s not much else by way of selection. They’ve got a dozen bottles of Jameson behind the bar and seemingly little else, but my happy-hour serving of said Irish whiskey was only $3, so there’s that. And Anna’s Coke was free.

      In conclusion, yes, Alibi is a writer’s bar, but don’t get cocky.

      Dive Bar Rating

       Antarctica

      287 Hudson Street (Dominick Str and Spring St) Transit: C, E to Spring St; 1 to Houston

       (212) 352-1666

      Great gimmicks birth great bars, and Antarctica’s got a doozy: Each day a staffer writes down a random first name on the front board, and anyone who walks in with that name drinks free that night. Simple and pretty brilliant, although it requires some enforcement. “We absolutely demand I.D.,” the genial redheaded barkeep told me. “People try to scam me every day.”

      Does she allow for spelling variations? For example, the day I was there the posted name was “Phillip.” Would “Philip” be okay? “It would depend on his attitude and the size of his group,” she went on. “If he brought a large, paying, posse I’d let it slide.” Most importantly, she didn’t have to add, remember that “free” does not include gratuity. “Real winners tip!” reads the board.

      Even if you’re not named Phillip, or Elsa or Helena or Marley or Ishan or any of the other fairly-obscure winning monikers that pop up there, Antarctica is a low-key, spacious place to kick it between Canal and Houston. It’s the antithesis of nearby Nancy Whiskey Pub, which is crowded, inexpensive, intense and full of weirdos. At Antarctica, a Corona will cost you $6.50, but in return you get an airy, scrubbed facility to lounge in, one with exposed brick and pretty wood plank floors.

      The place is considered something of a haven for pool players, if only because it provides sufficient elbow room to actually get off a shot. The extensive house rules state, in part: “Skip shots okay;” “Spotting 8-Ball after scratch okay;” “Peace, love and understanding.” I have no idea what any of that means, but the assembled sharks do. When I was there they were gay and had brought cues from home, carrying them inside leather cases that looked designed to hold shotguns. I’ve got a sneaking suspicion at least one of them was named Phillip.

      Dive Bar Rating

       B Side

      204 Avenue B (12th & 13th Sts.) Transit: L to 1st Ave

       (212) 475-4600

      Some people call B Side a punk dive, but I find it to be more of a dyke dive. There’s red mood lighting, pin-up girls painted on metal canvases, and a steel bar. There’s also a bartender with a shark fin hairdo, who was staring at my wife Anna when we were there. Another of the bartenders, Amy, sells her own brand of trail mix on the premises. It’s called “Best Snack Ever,” and the original variation features candied pecans, pistachios, roasted and seasoned walnuts, dark chocolate covered raisins, and peanut butter chips. A cut above your average GORP, for sure.

      Despite the ovarian vibe, the place is ballsy. They either don’t have air-conditioning or else opt not to run it, perhaps for the thrill of seeing people sweat. The music tends toward slowcore when it’s not punk, and their most popular drink special is a can of PBR and a shot of well whisky for $5. That’s the quintessential New York dive bar special, actually, and it says a lot about a place—namely that it’s not sponsored by any big liquor companies and its clientele is not snobbish about what it dumps down its gullet.

      Unlike some dives, B Side is not crawling with grizzled, thickly-bearded, toothless men. There was only one person like that when we were there, and he was bragging about having scored a free pint from an anonymous stranger bragging that “he didn’t trust anyone who didn’t drink.”

      A sweaty room full of mostly women drinking cheap booze and eating GORP, that’s pretty much B Side in a nutshell. There are worse places to spend your time.

      Dive СКАЧАТЬ