Bowery Barroom

Brass-railed mahogany saloons, backed by mirrors and filled with men drinking away their sorrows, were fixtures for decades in New York, including at this Bowery water hole at the turn of the century.

Things started to change in 1933, however, with a ruling that began to limit bars from being havens for just men. The Times reported that New York State’s Alcoholic Beverage Control Board ruled that bars should be “integral” parts of the restaurant which they serve-not like the old bars of happy and horrific American legend. The legendary American bar, that bogy of prohibitionist propaganda …was never a visible part of the open restaurant where ladies and gentlemen were served politely together.”

“The proclamation is made that the bar of the future is to be no refuge (as the old bar was) for those who prefer to do even their beer drinking cozily with a select circle of cronies of their own sex,” The Times added. “Everyman’s Club will never come back again.”

The Times article, “The Bar That Was and Cannot Return,” was published June 11, 1933, along with this historical photo of men belly up to the bar.