The 50 Best Dive Bars in NYC

Lead

What is a dive bar? Everyone knows New York has plenty, but what binds them all together? Are there organizing themes? Or is it more like pornography—you know it when you see it.

Much like with hipster bars, there are certain generalizations you can make—filth, Christmas lights, cheap drinks, undrinkable drafts—but there are exceptions to every rule. For every time you say no dive could possibly serve food, there's a dive that just happens to make incredible pulled pork sandwiches. And this goes on and on.

But let's get off the dictionary tip, and get to the list. These bars are all dives. Ultimately, what do they have in common? They're great places to drink. Here are the 50 Best Dive Bars in NYC.

RELATED: First We Feast - Best Bars in NYC
RELATED: 10 Best Car Services in NYC
RELATED: First We Feast - The Best NYC Bars of 2013
RELATED: The 15 Best Hipster Clothing Stores

International Bar

50. International Bar

Neighborhood: East Village, Manhattan
Address: 120 1/2 1st Ave.
Website: 120point5.wordpress.com

It may be under new ownership, there might be a handful of beers on tap, and the bathroom might have a sink for the first time in ages, but dammit International Bar is still a dive. The martinis (always brimming over) still flirt with rubbing-alcohol-levels of decadence, a bourbon and a beer still costs five bones, and there are more older heads than ever (the remains of Mars Bar have staggered in). If you're kind, tip well, and come often, you might get a kiss on the cheek from one of the female bartenders.

B-Side

49. B-Side

Neighborhood: East Village, Manhattan
Address: 204 Ave. B
Website: n/a

At a dive, either the bartender won't hestitate to get chummy or they'll ice you out until you've spent a couple of years ordering the same bottled beer from them. This Alphabet City spot tends to skew younger in terms of clientele and staff, meaning all the skinny kids will be talking to one another. It also helps that the place is so small. Get friendly at the bar (either that or you're pressed against a wall, practically), peruse the jukebox (with a name like B-Side, it'd be embarrassing if they didn't deliver, so they do), grab one shot and one beer, and make like you never drink alone.

Milady's Bar and Restaurant

48. Milady's Bar and Restaurant

Neighborhood: Soho, Manhattan
Address: 160 Prince St.
Website: n/a

Old lady bartenders—Milady's has them in spades. They mean mug, they bullshit, they pour cheap pints. The squad of old lady bartenders at Milady's is one last sign of hope in Soho; we need these women more than any of us realize. Sing along with them to Patsy Cline from the jukebox. Share your tater tots with them to show your appreciation (Note: The food here is remarkably good). And always buy another round.

Double Down Saloon

47. Double Down Saloon

Neighborhood: East Village, Manhattan
Address: 14 Ave. A
Website: doubledownsaloon.com

Pubic hair and ass juice should be the Double Down's post-colon subtitle. Ass Juice is a $5 concoction they serve up that tastes like a Hurricane with more fruit punch. The pubic hair comes courtesy of the '70s porn that plays on the televisions mounted into the ceiling. The floor is sticky. The back patio is large. You'll want to try the bacon-infused vodka and you'll ache for a cigarette. A cigarette smoked indoors, which, these days, is the best kind of smoke a New Yorker can have. Not that you can have one. Good dives are all about denial on some level.

Heathers

46. Heathers

Neighborhood: East Village, Manhattan
Address: 506 East 13th St.
Website: heathersbar.com

Heathers, like many other cool guy bars, has no sign on the door outside. But that's where the pretension stays. Inside is a full bar (including real absinthe!) and a laid-back bartender who'll serve you strong and cheap drinks like a good dive should. It's dark and divey without being too dirty (bathrooms that shine like the top of the Chrysler Building) and there's always good background music to talk over.

Crocodile Lounge

45. Crocodile Lounge

Neighborhood: East Village, Manhattan
Address: 325 East 14th St.
Website: myspace.com/crocodilenyc

Repeat after me: free pizza with a drink. Yep. That's what's made this place such an institution. You could bring your out-of-town friends all over the place and they'll reminisce to their buddies back home about how we have "this one bar where they give you free pizza with a drink." So urbane.

Continental

44. Continental

Neighborhood: East Village, Manhattan
Address: 25 3rd Ave.
Website: continentalny.com

This bar's claim to fame is they'll hook up you with 5 shots of anything for $10. Bring cash, a thick skin, and someone who can back you up in a fight. Things can get rowdy with all the fake thugs and bros drawn to the promise of getting slizzered for less.

Clem's

43. Clem's

Neighborhood: Williamsburg, Brooklyn
Address: 264 Grand St.
Website: n/a

The corner of Grand and Havermeyer in Williamsburg is one of those junctions where long-legged chicks of the brunching class intersect with the neighborhood's old, pre-gentrification guard, so if you sit outside at one of the sidewalk tables in front of Clem's there is no shortage of entertainment. Have a Tecate and a shot for $5 during happy hour, and enjoy the scenery—you'll find local Puerto Rican youngsters playing home run derby (with actual hardballs) in the middle of the street, a steady procession of white people with stupid looking dogs, and braless, tattooed girls walking around like they might be needed for an impromptu Richard Kern photo shoot. What's that? Still happy hour? Awesome. Another beer! Another shot!

The Girl from Ipanema

42. The Girl from Ipanema

Neighborhood: West Village, Manhattan
Address: 252 West 14th St.
Website: n/a

At this Colombian bar, the women—they will be the only women in the establishment—pouring the drinks wear very little clothing. You feel like you could get stabbed by one of the dudes playing pool if you stare too long or ask the wrong questions (Where's the bathroom?). It's a basement bar basted in neon, but some of the pool players will still be wearing their sunglasses. Mind your business and you'll have a solid time, assuming you get off on low-level danger and a general air of potential violence.

White Horse Tavern

41. White Horse Tavern

Neighborhood: West Village, Manhattan
Address: 567 Hudson St.
Website: n/a

Frequented by some of the best deadbeats of all-time, guys like Jack Keroac (get it? dead beats...), the White Horse Tavern is one of the only dives in the West Village. That said, it is in the West Village, and rather than be an unslightly pimple on the otherwise smooth-as-satin ass that is the Village, White Horse is more like a tiny scar one could easily overlooked. In other words, this isn't as grimy as some of the others. Sorry. But because of the clientele—an extra-hopeless bunch of artists looking for art with a capital A at the bottom of whiskey-filled rocks glasses—it earns dive status. Desperation comes in all forms, and desperation drives dives.

Milano's Bar

40. Milano's Bar

Neighborhood: Nolita, Manhattan
Address: 51 East Houston St.
Website: n/a

So dark and so narrow there's almost something anatomical about it, Milano's is one of New York's oldest dives, a fact made apparent by the tin ceiling and poor layout. They encourage a shot of pickle juice back with each whiskey, and last call comes at 4 a.m. The jukebox stocks mostly oldies; singing along is encouraged, but do so mournfully. Also, we hear you can buy drugs here.

Vega Alta Tavern

39. Vega Alta Sports Bar

Neighborhood: Concourse Village, Bronx
Address: 880 Gerard Ave.
Website: n/a

A predominantly Latin joint known for having some of the prettiest bartenders in all of Dive-land, Vega Alta is the pre- and post-Yankees game destination. The beer is middle-of-the-road cheap, with brews topping out at $6 a pop. Brush up on your Spanish; it'll help you order over the ear-bleeding roar of the bar's sound system, which is the most intense of any dive known to man.

Brooklyn Ice House

38. Brooklyn Ice House

Neighborhood: Red Hook, Brooklyn
Address: 318 Van Brunt St.
Website: n/a

Right next door to Bait & Tackle is this upstart dive, a spot known for cheap (but good) barbeque, including a quite satisfying pulled pork sandwich. The beer list runs almost 70 deep, and owner Trevor Budd knows all of them intimately. There's a backyard for smoking. In the winter it gets a bit drafty, but that's part of the reason it's a dive. When too many things go right, a place becomes suspect. We're not really claiming this, but it's not out of the question that Budd sabotaged the heating here so that it could seem divier than it first appears. We would respect that.

Turkey's Nest Tavern

37. Turkey's Nest Tavern

Neighborhood: Williamsburg, Brooklyn
Address: 94 Bedford Ave.
Website: n/a

The draw to this spot was the huge Styrofoam cups of alcholic goodness and the ability to order your drinks "to-go." Sadly, the take-out service is no more due to a little thing called THE LAW. We'll always have our extra large styrofoam cups though. They're like a consolation prize that's horrible for the environment. Opt for the margaritas, which will creep up on you.

Station Cafe

36. Station Cafe

Neighborhood: Woodside, Queens
Address: 39-50 61st St.
Website: n/a

The phone's been disconnected, and from the street outside it looks closed. But Station Cafe is open, though not necessarily "alive" in the classic sense of the word. The bar is in a coma. Everything has slowed down inside this dive. The liveliest scene you'll encounter here are the screenshots from The Honeymooners that plaster the walls. And those are stills. Everyone's drink has been set in stone since they first started coming here, decades ago. Take heed of the "No Dancing" sign. That won't fly. Order your beer and settle in. Give your resting heart beat the opportunity to hit the bar's level. Just don't, you know, succumb.

Cherry Tavern

35. Cherry Tavern

Neighborhood: East Village, Manhattan
Address: 441 East 6th St.
Website: n/a

Under red light, everyone looks more fuckable. At least, that seems to be the prevailing notion at Cherry Tavern, a place where the phone numbers flow as freely as the $4 PBR and whiskey special. Come on in, feign like you play pool, drink till you've lost your inhibitions and try and pull something. If it's going to happen, it'll happen here, in the soft red glow of this wood-paneled den of sin.

Dublin House

34. Dublin House

Neighborhood: Upper West Side, Manhattan
Address: 225 West 79th St.
Website: dublinhousenyc.com

Unlike lesser Irish pubs, Dublin House's bartender can actually claim Ireland. This is part of the bar's success, but only partially. The rest is due to the quiet, middle-aged clientele, all drinking for their own, singular reasons that, within the bar, ties them together in an unspoken, stereotypically American-male way. Some dives are boiling over with chaotic energy, vomiting clients, a jumping jukebox, drug sales spilling out of the bathroom stall and into the lap of the dude thoroughly working the video poker machine. Dublin House is pacific; the line of stools extending down the bar is neat. The bathroom is clean. Just like you wish your conscious was.

Red Hook Bait & Tackle

33. Red Hook Bait & Tackle

Neighborhood: Red Hook, Brooklyn
Address: 320 Van Brunt St.
Website: redhookbaitandtackle.com

One of the few spots in NY where you can be the only person in the bar (the bartender is there, too), Red Hook Bait & Tackle is a sleepy, out-of-the-way dive full of dead things. Taxidermied things, to be exact. Stuffed animal heads. A bear. Mounted fish. Norman Bates would feel right at home, though he might be short on women to stab. Not many people want to bus out to a bar, which is the fastest way to reach this dive. We never said any of this was going to make sense.

Goodbye Blue Monday

32. Goodbye Blue Monday

Neighborhood: Bushwick, Brooklyn
Address: 1087 Broadway
Website: goodbyeblue.com

Part bar, part coffee shop, part cluttered attic where your crazy uncle hangs out, Goodbye Blue Monday is all dive. Maybe if all the houses in the world had continued to appreciate at a 10% clip, this place would've fallen victim to Williamsburg's encroachment onto Bushwick a territory a couple years ago, but they didn't and it hasn't and this stretch of Broadway under the JMZ subway lines is all the better for it. They serve food (pretty insolently), and bands play (pretty terribly), but you can smoke in the junk heap of a backyard, so keep your complaints to yourself.

Gotham City Lounge

31. Gotham City Lounge

Neighborhood: Bushwick, Brooklyn
Address: 1293 Myrtle Ave.
Website: myspace.com/gclny

To speak broadly, the theme at dive bars is usually "sadness." But this Bushwick dive said, "Fuck that; our theme shall be superheroes." And so it was. Owned by schoolteacher Ray Torrellas, Gotham City Lounge is busting at its dilapidated seams with comic book and other nerdcore memorabilia. Superman and Batman emerge frozen from the 3-D mural outside the bar. Rather than exploding through the walls to the outside, you'll want to be freezing your ass to a bar stool; you're not likely to find a better deal than Gotham's $3 PBR and whiskey shot value meal.

Stacks Tavern

30. Stacks Tavern

Neighborhood: Riverdale, Bronx
Address: 5723 Broadway
Website: n/a

The large red awning makes Stacks look like a restaurant high on kitsch and short on class. Instead, Stacks is a spacious free-standing dive (one of the few in NY). No one has any misunderstandings about the nature of the bar. Their Facebook page (!) describes the establishment as "a nice place to get a beer" and then goes on to not list the address. During the colder seasons, the door to the ladies restroom is always open because of a heating problem. Shoulder shrugs all around. But hell, still a kinda nice place.

Frank's Cocktail Lounge

29. Frank's Cocktail Lounge

Neighborhood: Fort Greene, Brooklyn
Address: 660 Fulton St.
Website: n/a

Fort Greene used to be the haven of black artists in Brooklyn. These days, that's not so much the case, and at this predominantly black dive, you'll find gentrification rubbing elbows with the neighborhood's older residents. No tension, though. No real cheap drinks, either. And no real grime. But there's plenty of sass from the bartenders and you can do karaoke to all the T.I. you want. Why you wanna go and drink anywhere else? Frank's is king.

169 Bar

28. 169 Bar

Neighborhood: Lower East Side, Manhattan
Address: 169 East Broadway
Website: 169barnyc.com

This pseudo-tiki bar is dimly lit and about 80-years-old, which makes it the ideal spot to hide away and knock back cheap drinks. They also offer an extensive selection of food that's deep-fried to oblivion so that no one gets the wrong idea about where they are. It was also featured in an episode of Flight of the Conchords.

Doc Holliday's

27. Doc Holliday's

Neighborhood: East Village, Manhattan
Address: 141 Ave. A
Website: myspace.com/dochollidays

Welcome to country. That's the jukebox drowning out everything, all Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson. Many famous New York dives are associated with a particular scene (think Mars Bar and punks), and Doc Holliday's is just another example of that, though one that gets considerably less attention. Dance around the pool table with a pretty girl, but be forewarned: You can't just middle-school grind your way out of this one. That doesn't work with Waylon Jennings.

Port 41

26. Port 41

Neighborhood: Hell's Kitchen, Manhattan
Address: 355 West 41st St.
Website: port41bar.com

Bikini bars are strange. Port 41 is a bikini bar, thus Port 41 is strange. Amidst bottles of booze, free popcorn and free hot dogs, the bartenders will be moving about wearing bikini tops. They don't take the tops off. They don't dance. They wear a bikin while they do regular bartender things, like pouring your drink, bantering with regulars, and telling people that the top stays on (this is only a regular bartender thing at Port 41). The clientele is a mixture of men that appear to have no other commitments in their lives and Port Authority commuters. Everyone agrees that the $3 Bud happy hour special is a nice, generous thing.

Montero Bar & Grill

25. Montero Bar & Grill

Neighborhood: Cobble Hill, Brooklyn
Address: 73 Atlantic Ave.
Website: n/a

If you suffer from claustrophobia, Montero's may not be the dive for you. No, it's not one of those hallway type joints; rather, Montero's is full of stuff. Packed to the gills, actually. That's an appropriate pun to make because of the bar's nautical theme. The stuff constricting your breath in your chest is life rafts, life vests, model ships, newspaper articles about things that float (or one day stopped floating, tragically), and just about anything else you might associate with the sea (no tridents, though). The drinks are stiff, just like any salty dog would want. You might actually hear someone use the phrase "salty dog," and it won't be ironic. You're in Cobble Hill; even the hipsters are too poor for this neighborhood.

Blarney Stone

24. Blarney Stone

Neighborhood: Midtown, Manhattan
Address: 106 West 32nd St.
Website: n/a

Usually a place that serves food that's not only edible but actually good can't actually be a dive, but we'll make an exception for this particular Blarney Stone (Blarney's Stones are all over New York, but this is the best). You know all that Mad Men afternoon martinis '60s nostalgia going around? How about some early '60s plumbers and steamfitters style nostalgia, with some sliced turkey and mashed potatoes and gravy? Oh, and this Blarney Stone also has the Sunday NFL Ticket, usually another dive bar disqualifier, that's mitigated in this case because it's played through TVs made in the Reagan years.

Subway Inn

23. Subway Inn

Neighborhood: Upper East Side, Manhattan
Address: 143 East 60th St.
Website: n/a

You know how you can walk through the wrong part of Bloomingdale's and get an ambient coating of cologne and perfume without even trying? Well, the Subway Inn is the perfect stale-beer-and-piss antidote if that grave fate befalls you in Midtown. Located around the corner from Bloomie's glittering Lexington Avenue entrance, Subway glitters in a different sort of way: neon, and the special sparkle of vomit on porcelain at 5:30 on a weekday afternoon. This is a working person's commuter bar (the 59th Street subway station is a stumble away, with connections to Queens and the Bronx), but it's in Midtown, so those working people are just as likely to be secretaries and sales clerks as hardhats. The joint is a total throwback, and likely not long for this world given the Disney-fication of all parts of Manhattan. Enjoy it while you can.

Mr. McGoo's

22. Mr. McGoo's

Neighborhood: Riverdale, Bronx
Address: 5602 Broadway
Website: n/a

There's a website called "cleanchow.com" that posts the health code violations of establishments that serve food, which apparently Mr. McGoo's does (though this is not an obvious fact). Here are some of the violations listed (note: cleanchow misspells the name of the bar): Smoking policy inadequate. Lighting inadequate. Food item spoiled, adulterated, contaminated or cross-contaminated. Non-food contact surface improperly constructed. Unacceptable material used.

Are you convinced of Mr. McGoo's greatness yet?

The Subway Bar

21. The Subway Bar

Neighborhood: Williamsburg, Brooklyn
Address: 27 Metropolitan Ave.
Website: n/a

Not to be confused with Manhattan's Subway Inn, Subway Bar sits directly above an entrance to the Metropolitan Avenue subway stop. It used to be bigger, with a pool table and ski ball game, but now it's even divier, with nothing but a sticky bar and one of those digital play-anything-in-the-world jukeboxes to keep your attention (that and the booze). Subway's got PBR for cheap, but it's as far from the proto-Williamsburg hipster bar as you can get, with a bathroom that might be the most disgusting in the city now that Mars Bar is closed.

Nancy Whiskey Pub

20. Nancy Whiskey Pub

Neighborhood: Tribeca, Manhattan
Address: 1 Lispenard St.
Website: nancywhiskeypub.com

Very few bars in New York have shuffleboard. In the tightening venn diagram of qualifying locations, the portion marked off for dives with shuffleboard is smaller still. But the sleazy best of them is Nancy Whiskey Pub (what a name!). The beer is cold, the food rightly mediocre and priced low, and the bartender is often drunk. He's drunk, you're drunk, we're all drunk at Nancy Whiskey Pub (such a joy to say).

7B (Horsehoe Bar, or Vazac's)

19. 7B (Horsehoe Bar, or Vazac's)

Neighborhood: East Village, Manhattan
Address: 108 Ave. B
Website: n/a

Any place that acted as a location for The Godfather Part II must be a national landmark, right? It must be well-preserved, roped off with velvet, dusted to suggest its cultural merit? Nope. It's a dive. And a messy dive at that, especially with regards to architecture. More than any other dive on this list, Horsehoe is a maze. We dare you to find the men's room on the first try. Between the punk blaring from the jukebox and the tall cans of Labatt Blue, you'll pass it more than once working through this U-shaped marvel. Don't piss your pants.

Rudy's Bar & Grill

18. Rudy's Bar & Grill

Neighborhood: Hell's Kitchen, Manhattan
Address: 627 9th Ave.
Website: rudysbarnyc.com

Rudy's, famous for the the pig standing guard outside the entrance, has been open since the '30s, meaning you'd need ticker tape to count the men and women who came here to drink themselves to death (we're only half kidding, for the record). Even with free hot dogs at the ready, Rudy's is still a drink-till-your-guts-are-wetly-on-the-floor type place. Normally it's not a good idea to get draft beer at a dive (assuming it's even available), but Rudy's house brews are so cheap ($2.50 for a pint!) that an exception must be made. Honestly though, we don't know if the blonde really tastes as good as we want it to, or if it's just the extra dead presidents in our wallets whispering that it's delicious. Is Rudy's the heir to Mars Bar? Discuss. We'll be burrowing into a red, duct-tape covered booth, trying to keep our shit together.

11th Street Bar

17. 11th Street Bar

Neighborhood: East Village, Manhattan
Address: 510 East 11th St.
Website: 11thstbar.com

The happy hour here knocks two bucks off each drink, but besides the low-key ambiance and comfy chairs, the real gem about this place is the Liverpool Supporters Club, which means the bar sometimes opens at a ripe 7 a.m. so you can enjoy some brews while watching soccer. Now that sounds like a good morning.

O'Connor's Bar

16. O'Connor's Bar

Neighborhood: Park Slope, Brooklyn
Address: 39 5th Ave.
Website: n/a

With a nondescript door and signage that actively discourages visits from newcomers, O'Connor's has the grumpy old man persona of a good dive bar down pat. Cozy, not entirely comfortable booths line one wall, a classic bar the other, and nary a draught beer is to be found on the premises (although the fridge where they keep the Budweisers is set to "sub-Arctic"). O'Connor's is located almost literally in the shadow of the rising Barclays Center; should it actually survive the wave of rent hikes surely coming its way, it'll be the perfect spot for Nets fans of a certain mien to nurse their miseries.

Jeremy's Ale House

15. Jeremy's Ale House

Neighborhood: South Street Seaport
Address: 228 Front St.
Website: jeremysalehouse.com

The bras that hang from the ceiling at Jeremy's dangle low, but not so low that you'll lose an eye to a rusty clasp. In special dive fashion, the beer is served in Styrofoam cups, because inside a good dive you don't give two shits about the environment. Inside a good dive, you know it's all hopeless out there and that the only thing you can count on is the joy of a drunk in a dank place that serves $1.50 junior cheeseburgers you wouldn't give to a dog (unless you didn't like that dog). The food at Jeremy's isn't shit necessarily, but if you're looking for food, you're looking for a different kind of bar experience. Take a walk.

Lucy's

14. Lucy's

Neighborhood: East Village, Manhattan
Address: 135 Ave. A
Website: n/a

The cafeteria-style tables combined with the homeliness of Lucy, the titular bartender who still works regular hours (along with her daughter and grand-daughter), make this a dive that feels like a diner. But there is no food. Instead, there is cheap pool on worn tables, a jukebox full of cherry-picked New Wave jams, and many porcelain knick knacks. There's also a Polish flag, for those of you keeping track of the ethnic identities of many of these dives (this could be a secondary dive characteristic, a strong ethnic identity). Maybe this is more like drinking at your grandma's house. If she was the coolest.

Lakeside Lounge

13. Lakeside Lounge

Neighborhood: East Village, Manhattan
Address: 162 Ave. B
Website: lakesidelounge.com

Usually little distance between you and the live band you're seeing is a cause for excitement. Well. Lakeside Lounge would very much like for you to feel that way about the sweaty garage band making a cacophonous noise front and center, but you're at a dive. Everything smells, including the band and the taps (when were the lines cleaned last? Wait, don't tell us). The kids celebrating someone's birthday at the table behind you don't seem to mind, but they're so smeared with Little Debbie sweets and cheap beer, they might not be conscious of anything outside the immediacy of their festivities. Remember: You always have the option of dipping into the safety of the old-timey photo booth. But then you'll have to see pictures of yourself when it's over. And you've just spent the night at Lakeside Lounge, where people go to forget such things.

The Alibi

12. The Alibi

Neighborhood: Fort Greene, Brooklyn
Address: 242 Dekalb Ave.
Website: n/a

Despite the healthy number of Pratt students that take the walk downstairs to Alibi, this is the sort of dive where ugly looks and minor contempt are part of the experience of drinking there (unless you've been going there for the last 15 years, in which case you probably aren't reading this list; you probably just started in on your first round of the day). That said, they aren't entirely unfriendly to bushy-tailed youngsters encroaching on their booze (why else would Big Buck Hunter III sit turned on and glowing on premises?), they just want to give you a hard time. Like a locker room ball busting. It comes with the territory.

Coal Yard Bar

11. Coal Yard Bar

Neighborhood: East Village, Manhattan
Address: 102 1st Ave.
Website: n/a

Fast become an East Village favorite, Coal Yard is famous for its eclectic jukebox (Dead Kennedys smack up against Etta James) and infamous for it's brawny female owner, a woman who could kick the shit out of you without breaking a sweat. Two-dollar Michelob and mad tats on punk rockers of all ages. Coal Yard might be new, but you wouldn't know it to get trashed there.

Winnie's Bar and Restaurant

10. Winnie's Bar and Restaurant

Neighborhood: Chinatown, Manhattan
Address: 104 Bayard St.
Website: n/a

Karoake at a dive bar is weird on top and always sad underneath. No one singing at Winnie's (in English or Mandarin) missed their chance at fame. But, of course, that's part of the fun. From your red pleather booth, under a hot, hanging light, watch the slaughter roll past at a buck a song. Drink one or more "Hawaiian Punch"—don't ask what's in it—and you might find yourself, mic in hand, slurring about why you have to sing "I Believe I Can Fly" right this instant, because it's the only thing that matters in this mixed up world. Everyone will beam at you. Or maybe that's just the punch.

Holland Bar

9. Holland Bar

Neighborhood: Hell's Kitchen, Manhattan
Address: 532 9th Ave.
Website: n/a

If Holland Bar could muster up the beer muscles to eat Times Square whole it would be the bad-old days all over again, sin and loathing in NYC. All these winos screaming, "Travis Bickle back!" That's a fantasy. The reality is, Holland Bar is a dive of the first-order. The walls are collages of poorly-lit photographs of regulars living side-by-side with yellowing newspaper clippings, suggesting that the bar and the happenings of the world exist on the same plane of importance. The Yankees win in 1983 and Bill the Drunk photographs his third wife looking lurid in the neon—it's all the same. It's all beautiful.

Crehan's Pub

8. Crehan's Pub

Neighborhood: Astoria, Queens
Address: 41-04 31st Ave.
Website: n/a

Nine times out of ten, you will see drunk grown-ass men fight each other in Crehan's. It might be over pool. It might be over a busted woman. It might be over Vietnam. Certainly it will be a dirty fight, using whatever is at hand. Fists (right there at the end of your arms). Bar stools (within arms reach). A bottle (inside one of the aforementioned things at the end of your arms). The bar tenders are nice fellows; probably they'll bust it up after some of the steam escapes the warring parties. Or, on occasion, everyone will retreat into the bathroom to do some coke together. In the morning, everything will be fine.

Blue & Gold Tavern

7. Blue & Gold Tavern

Neighborhood: East Village, Manhattan
Address: 79 East 7th St.
Website: n/a

Sweet baby Jesus, it's cheap. Classically, that's a key component of recognizing a dive (though it's not always the case in NY). But at Blue & Gold it is. Your well drink will cost less than $5. And you will want a well drink. Or at least you'll want something not from a tap (again, this is another hallmark of a good dive). Maybe the bartenders can be gruff. But, as is the case with many dives, you have to earn your spot. Walking in and ordering a pitcher of Magic Hat and then tapping your foot when things don't quite speed along is just one way to show you don't deserve this.

Billymark's West

6. Billymark's West

Neighborhood: Chelsea, Manhattan
Address: 332 9th Ave.
Website: billymarkswest.com

A dive is nothing without a few classic characters. Billymark's West features on of NY's best: Billy Penza, the bartender you'll never see without his thick-framed glasses or striped short-sleeved button-ups the color of Easter. The bar features a jukebox that leans heavily on dance music and disco, seemingly at odds with the dingy interior and sometimes somber clientele. Penza is always charming though, ready to point out the platinum Blondie plaques on the wall (his brother, Mark, was a session drummer for Deborah Harry's outfit back in the day). A bright spot of realness in Chelsea.

Blarney Cove

5. Blarney Cove

Neighborhood: East Village, Manhattan
Address: 510 East 14th St.
Website: n/a

What's the difference between an old drunk and an alcoholic? Whether or not they're drinking in the dingy hallway that is Blarney Cove. When you're here, you're family. You're imbued with the weary charm of an endless night of drinking at one of New York's finest. You're welcome. But if you're young (under 70), you'll only be sight-seeing here. Sight-seeing is a facet of every dive experience. Wave your hand in front of your Bud bottle and realize that it's a crystal ball. In forty years, you will be punching in the number for the same Black Sabbath wailer you played two hours ago, but no one will notice. Nothing even matters at Blarney Cove. There's always another day and another beer. That'll do.

A Touch of Dee

4. A Touch of Dee

Neighborhood: Harlem, Manhattan
Address: 657 Malcom X Blvd.
Website: n/a

Do you know how legit Harlem's A Touch of Dee is? It has one Yelp review. The people that frequent A Touch of Dee give zero fucks about Yelping; they might even go upside your head for suggesting something as asinine as writing a review of a bar that's more lifestyle than post-work hang-out. See, most of the clients at Dee's are middle-aged ladies. They either drink strong mixed drinks or they drink their beer from bottles because there are only bottles at Dee's. Taps? Never heard of 'em. The Happy Birthday sign behind the bar? Yes, it's always been there. If you keep asking questions, you're going to be pelted with shoes while you fumble for the exit. Now shut up and have another drink. And put your goddamn cellphone away.

Sunny's Bar

3. Sunny's Bar

Neighborhood: Red Hook, Brooklyn
Address: 253 Conover St.
Website: sunnysredhook.com

So fucking out of the way you'll need a bus and a compass and the resolve of a dogsledder, Sunny's is an event, an event you should be sure to plan correctly. If you come on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, or Sunday, you'll have no fun. Because the bar is closed on these days. Sunny's doesn't care. If you aren't open to playing by the rules of this longshoreman's bar, they aren't interested in your business. Keep your money, Sunny's will say, patting you on the chest, we're doing just fine without you. But if you feel like playing (and possibly listening to live bluegrass and/or discussing literature about snowdogs), Sunny's has room for you.

Holiday Cocktail Lounge

2. Holiday Cocktail Lounge

Neighborhood: East Village, Manhattan
Address: 75 Saint Marks Pl.
Website: n/a

The booths are jet-black and the wood paneling only a few shades lighter (if it were a crayon, it might be called "Coffin Brown"). Holiday Cocktail Lounge is a relic, a sooty spot of time trapped in a dark bar where you lose track of time, your sobriety, even the status of your life. You've become unstuck in time, Billy Pilgrim. You aren't on St. Marks anymore—all the kids buying glass pipes have vanished. There's only your $4 whiskey and the senile guy at the end of the bar who wants to talk to you about something but he keeps forgetting what. So you move to one of the cracked booths. And then, when you wake up, the world has ended. But this bar is still here.

Tip Top Bar & Grill

1. Tip Top Bar & Grill

Neighborhood: Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn
Address: 432 Franklin Ave.
Website: n/a

There is no draft beer. If you order a mixed drink, you will watch the bartender open a 12-oz. bottle of soda and pour in just a nip—the bottled soda is more valuable than the liquor. The jukebox has no white musicians on it. Every night, the door is manned by Junior, the co-owner; his wife, the other co-owner, will either be sitting near him, the two talking, or she'll be in the kitchen (which is directly opposite the bar), cooking. Regulars and friends often get this food for free; the smell lingers on your clothes like the scent of a lover.

Dives are typically about feeling sad in a fun way, or intruding on someone else's sadness. At worst, pursuing dives can be a terrible form of cultural tourism. Tip Top isn't sad. Everything about this family-run basement bar is beautiful, from the tacky Christmas lights to the Obama memorabilia coating the walls like a second skin. You can smoke outside, on the large covered back porch. Junior will always smile and nod at you when you enter and when you leave. Sometimes he has light-up pens to hand out. They're emblazoned with the bar's name. If you don't fall in love here, if you don't sense that one day you'll marry this bar or get married in the bar, there's an icebox where your heart should be.