Bars & Clubs >>

• Best $10 Recession-Friendly Bar Zone-Out (1 Comment)
  Barcade
  This is very simple. First, somehow acquire a $10 bill. (Maybe sell some furniture? Some plasma? Some dignity?) Then go to Barcade. Buy a pint of one of their 20-plus fine beers on tap. (Scout their constantly rotating selection at barcadebrooklyn.com.) Tip generously. And then slip whatever... More >>
• Best L.E.S. Spot for Balancing Seediness and Intimacy
  Living Room
  The Lower East Side, generally, and Ludlow Street, specifically, is larded with tiny, nonchalant, painstakingly rough-hewn clubs usually so jam-packed that the mere act of turning 360 degrees is a 10-minute operation. Such is the price of culture. This is occasionally true at the folkie-centric... More >>
• Best Place to Get Loaded With Hooligans and Cops (1 Comment)
  Farrell's
  If you walk by Farrell's pregnant, all the firemen and policemen drinking inside will whistle. Loudly. If you are a yuppie or a hipster, work from home, are on your way to see MGMT at Prospect Park, or don't have a badge, hose, or paper bag at your disposal, you might not like Farrell's (est.... More >>
• Best Beer Garden (1 Comment)
  Radegast Hall and Biergarten
  Now that Americans have rediscovered what beer is supposed to taste like, is it any wonder that the traditional setting is coming back, too? Beer gardens are popping up across the land, but owners know there's something they have to avoid when they open a new facility: the feeling of newness... More >>
• Best Place to Have Gay Sex That'll Irritate the Shit Out of the Red States
  Black Party
  The Black Party—the legendary Saturday-night debauch annually held in March at the Roseland Ballroom—attracts something like 5,000 revelers for a gigantic whoop-de-do that starts edgy, gets raunchy, and ends up in need of paper towels. The bash attracts gays from all over the world,... More >>
• Most Literate-Looking Hangout
  Hudson Bar & Books
  No one touches or even goes near them, but still, just the sight of the rows of books in the back of Hudson Bar & Books makes for a more elevated experience than you'll find at the usual beer hall. This is far from some low-rent drinking dive where the fanciest thing on display is some... More >>
• Best Gay Hipster Rock Party
  QxBxRx
  The bears have Chelsea, the twinks have Hell's Kitchen, the dykes have Park Slope, and the hipster queers have Williamsburg . . . and the Lower East Side? Amid scantily clad, possibly roofied blondes and their former-frat-boy boyfriends, a gaggle of tight-pantsed (or no-pantsed) indie- and... More >>
• Easiest Place to Score Free Gay Drinks
  The Townhouse
  The Townhouse is the long-running "wrinkle bar," where the crowd predominantly consists of one-foot-in-the-gravers in business suits, with an occasional entrepreneurial twink thrown into the mix. And if you're a young hottie—or even someone in his late fifties—you may as well work... More >>
• Least Embarrassing Place to Belt Out a Show Tune
  Marie's Crisis
  Piano bars are dying faster than car dealerships, but Marie's Crisis carries on as a communal space for those who live for Cole Porter, kneel before Sondheim, and don't feel the slightest bit self-conscious about adopting a little girl's voice and chirping, "It's a Hard-Knock Life" from Annie in... More >>
• Liveliest African-American Gay Bar
  Chi Chiz
  Way down toward the river, past the run-of-the-mill boîtes that pop up in all of the gay guidebooks, Chi Chiz provides an upbeat hangout filled with people of color and their admirers, all lifting their slushie-type drinks (with alcohol, naturally) to the back of the room for pool, card... More >>
• Most Underrated Drag Queen
  Britney Houston
  Britney Houston—also known as Lil' Britney—is an amalgam of various pop divas, all rolled into one ball of finger-snapping, head-swiveling sass. Having toured with Rent, Britney came upon the Gotham club scene and started popping up in virtually every gay bar with a liquor license,... More >>
• Most Welcome (and Welcoming) Party Presence
  Malik So Chic
  Having bolted straight out of Canada, Ladyfag is a biologically female promoter (Greenhouse, Garden of Ono) who whips up extravagant looks to match her lack of shyness and comes off very Frida Kahlo–meets–Big Bird. She ties in this category with another promoter, Ohio-born Malik So... More >>
• Best Advance in the World of Fag Hagdom
  Melanie Adelman and Ellie Dvorkin
  Performance duo Mel & El—a/k/a Melanie Adelman and Ellie Dvorkin—don't care for the term "fag hag." They feel it has acquired a sort of negative sound, as if there were something wrong with a woman wanting to cling to a gay man day and night until she passes out. They prefer... More >>
• Best Venue for Massive Hearing Loss
  Brooklyn Masonic Temple
  Fort Greene's Brooklyn Masonic Temple, with its humble wooden floors and high-school-talent-show vibe, does not much look like the death-dealing, ear-destroying terrordome it has proven to be. The venue—populated by snack-and-beverage-laden folding tables and a cushy, seat-filled upper... More >>
• Best Brooklyn Whiskey Bar
  Char No. 4
  Ready to take that all-too-crucial step into adulthood? No, we're not talking about marriage or real estate—we're talking about whiskey. The day you move from Jack and Coke into the land of Oban, Glenrothes, and Classic Cask, pat yourself on the back and consider yourself a man (that goes... More >>
• Best Bar for Large Get-Togethers
  Union Hall
  So, you'd like to have a big party at your place, except: 1) It's the size of a closet; 2) Your landlord wouldn't approve; 3) You've had a recurring nightmare that your guests will have nothing to discuss and end up staring at each other in silence; and 4) All of the above. Fear not, dear host.... More >>
• Best Karaoke Bar
  Winnie's
  Dingy, dimly lit, and not too crowded, Winnie's in Chinatown is the antithesis of the slick, sanitized karaoke bars you're likely to encounter uptown. As you enter, you'll notice it's a bit segregated: On the left, old Chinese dudes play dice games at the bar; on the right, spacious red booths... More >>
• Best Bar to Spirit Yourself Away to the Adirondacks
  Black Mountain Wine House
  With its wooden façade and pile of firewood out front, the Black Mountain Wine House looks like a charming mountain lodge plunked down in the middle of brownstone Brooklyn. Just pretend that the nearby Gowanus Canal is actually a pristine babbling brook, kick back in one of the Adirondack... More >>
• Best Speakeasy
  Dutch Kills
  No offense to Long Island City, but we rarely head out there unless we're having a picnic at Gantry Plaza, going to a P.S.1 gathering, or taking over our friend's rooftop at one of the condo buildings that line the East River. However, if you look closely, on Jackson Avenue, there's a joint... More >>
• Best Niche Bar
  Mayahuel
  The website of Mayahuel takes great pains to acknowledge the stigma of a certain amber nectar: "Perhaps your experience with tequila was decidedly collegiate," thunders the gray script. "Perhaps it involved praying to a certain ironic goddess. Perhaps, consequently, you have since maintained... More >>
• Best Trivia Night
  Telephone Bar
  Where is the former nerd now the king? Well, anywhere in New York—this is the promised land of reinvention and intellectual competition—but nowhere more so than the twice-weekly trivia night at Telephone Bar in the East Village. While other low-key bars offer their own minutia-fests... More >>
• Best Grad Student Bar
  1020 Bar
  A pretentious dive bar? No, although the Ph.D. candidates at 1020 Bar will be more than happy to engage you about the ongoing debates in the humanities. Or they might just want to match you Jack for Jack. This is where the elite of Columbia University's brainiacs come to unwind—the few,... More >>
• Best Wine Bar
  City Winery
  To mutilate an old adage, wine doesn't sophisticate people. People sophisticate people. So why does every wine bar in New York seem to pipe in that glassy, thin, innocuous piano pop, that nü-elevator nonsense? Is it supposed to add to the soi-adult atmosphere? City Winery, the intimate new... More >>
• Best Warm-Up
  Harlem Tap
  Tap-dance studio by day, speakeasy by night, Harlem Tap has been described by owner Omar Edwards as an "interval hang." By that lovely turn of phrase, he means that the pint-size West Harlem spot is not a full-on destination club, but a place where you chill and have a drink for maybe 20 minutes... More >>
• Best Place to Park Your Ass at the Hottest Gay Party
  Cuckoo Club
  Cuckoo Club, the long-running event on Sunday nights at Maritime Hotel's Hiro Ballroom, is still the packed-to-the-gay-rafters destination for multiculti guys who want to dance (to DJ Honey Dijon), sweat, and hook up to sweat some more. But if you're more of an ogler than a dancer, the best spot... More >>
• Most Unflappable Doorman
  Derek Neen
  Manning the door at Beige—the long-running Tuesday-night gay lounge at B Bar—Canadian-born Derek Neen emits charm and humor, never caving in to the pressures of the gig, yet knowing just when to put his designer-clad foot down. A club presence since the '80s, Neen is quick with his... More >>
• Least Offensive Karaoke Night
  Pieces
  If you absolutely have to do karaoke—and, Lord knows, everyone does, at some point—your new home should be Tuesday night at the casual West Village gay bar Pieces. People of both genders actually get on a waiting list to take the stage, and when they do, it's with a real sense of... More >>
• Gay Dive That Has Best Survived 'Progress'
  Boots & Saddle
  When the relatively skanky Boots & Saddle underwent a name change and a renovation in 2007, hearts sank all through the gay community, and even some LGBT-friendly straights were upset about it. The main appeal of the small, long-running bar was its continual absence from the radar, its... More >>