Learn with libations on this pub crawl of NYC’s literary history
As Edgar Allan Poe once wrote, “What care I how time advances? I am drinking ale today.” His words serve as the toast to kick off the weekly Literary Pub Crawl, which highlights the fascinating literary history around New York City, particularly in Greenwich Village.
Though the Literary Pub Crawl has a long history in New York City—25 years, 200 authors and 2,000 beers—it remains one of the more under-the-radar walking tours around town. As a book nerd who loves a good pint or two, I recently took the tour and was so delighted by it that I won’t gatekeep this super fun Saturday activity.
RECOMMENDED: Greenwich Village neighborhood guide
On the tour, guides will lead you to four bars throughout the Village. I won’t spoil the surprise and spill the names of all four, but I will say that you’ll start at The Four-Faced Liar. Inside that pub, you’ll meet your fellow tour members (my group contained three librarians!) and learn that there was so much American literature written in Greenwich Village.
Authors like Ernest Hemingway, J.D. Salinger, Edith Wharton, Louisa May Alcott, Jack Kerouac, Frank McCourt, Langford Wilson, F. Scott Fitzgerald, James Baldwin, and Edgar Allan Poe all have connections to the neighborhood. As our guide Kurt Kingsley put it, The Village was at one time a “dumping ground of social misfits”—and, yes, that makes for really good writing.
The guides—who are actually actors—share excerpts from the author’s works during the tour. They breathe life into words by poets like Dylan Thomas and Amiri Baraka to powerful effect, so powerful that I added several works to my to-be-read list.
Along the route, guides will point out other historical sites, like the prison where Mae West served time after being arrested for her show “Sex;” the apartment where Alex Haley wrote The Autobiography of Malcolm X; and the teeny-tiny building where Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Edna St. Vincent lived.
You’ll learn about the notorious speakeasy, Chumley’s, where F. Scott Fitzgerald and Zelda Fitzgerald got married and where Orson Welles was said to have left an outstanding tab totaling 30,000 beers. A few streets away, there’s the tale of a fight between Bob Dylan and Andy Warhol over Edie Sedgwick’s affections.
It feels very special to sip a beer at a spot where Frank McCourt tried to rub shoulders with the “real” writers and where Jessica Lange tended bar.
At each bar, you’ll get a chance to buy a drink and listen as the guides share fascinating tales of the authors who hung out, drank, and wrote there. It feels very special to sip a beer at a spot where Frank McCourt tried to rub shoulders with the “real” writers and where Jessica Lange tended bar.
It’s all quite dramatic. But is it true?
“We will never let the truth get in the way of a good story,” our guide Camber Carpenter joked, though the team does extensive research to make sure the stories are as true as possible. They’ve even debunked neighborhood legends. As Eric Chase, owner of Literary Pub Crawls and Walking Tours puts it: “Often the truth is more interesting.”
He founded the company in the late 1990s when Greenwich Village still maintained an identity as a counter-culture, accessible and affordable neighborhood. Back then, dozens of literary bars remained true to their cultural roots.
He was part of a group trying to fundraise for a small theater company called The New Ensemble (now defunct). They’d host events at bars like Chumley’s, the White Horse Tavern and Cornelia Street Cafe, where they’d share history about writers and perform their work. Eventually, that turned that into a literary pub crawl, drawing inspiration from the famed Dublin Literary Pub Crawl.
Even after the theater company closed, Chase gave the pub crawl its own life, expanding the tours to other neighborhoods. There’s a Brooklyn Literary Tour and a Bohemian Village Tour as well, in addition to the classic Literary Walking Tour in Greenwich Village.
We’ve dedicated ourselves to help keep the history and memory of the people and literature that made Greenwich Village a truly iconic neighborhood.
“What makes us unique is our passion, performance, our ongoing research and our tenacity. We have watched gentrification rapidly change the vibe and the affordability of Greenwich Village and we’ve dedicated ourselves to help keep the history and memory of the people and literature that made Greenwich Village a truly iconic neighborhood,” Chase said. “Of the five bars part of the original 1998 tour, only one still exists, and is not really accessible to tours in the same way anymore. Yet we persevere and continue to find new and interesting stories and pubs that keep the spirit of the village alive.”
Over the decades, they’ve stayed true to their mission: Get lit with us.
The tour runs about three hours, totaling a mile of walking. Tickets cost $49/person, plus bring along some cash if you’d like to buy drinks. When I attended, the group was a mix of longtime locals and visitors of all ages. From the young librarians visiting from Canada to the longtime Manhattanite in her senior citizen years, everyone left having learned something, having sipped a few drinks, and hopefully feeling inspired to go read.