McSorley’s Old Ale House

McSorley’s Old Ale House is a historic Irish saloon located at 15 East 7th Street in the East Village of Manhattan, New York City. The establishment traditionally dates its foundation to 1854, when Irish immigrant John McSorley opened it under the name The Old House at Home. The pub occupies the ground floor of a red-brick tenement and retains a dark wooden interior, a sawdust-covered floor, a pot-bellied stove and walls crowded with old photographs, newspaper cuttings and historical memorabilia. McSorley’s remained an exclusively male establishment until a court ruling forced it to admit women in 1970.

McSorley’s Old Ale House has appeared in Once Upon a Time in America (1984), The Hard Way (1991), Rounders (1998), The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (2017–2023) and Dash & Lily (2020). Its largely preserved interior has allowed it to appear both as itself and as other historic New York drinking establishments.

In Once Upon a Time in America (1984), the interior of McSorley’s is used for a bar during the section depicting Noodles and his friends as young gang members. The boys discuss whether to accept a dollar from Bugsy to burn a newspaper stand or instead rob a drunken man. They decide to target the drunk, leading to an encounter with Max, who interferes with their plan and later joins the gang. Only the bar interior was filmed at McSorley’s, while the exterior was provided by a different location.

In The Hard Way (1991), McSorley’s appears during a conversation between Hollywood actor Nick Lang and New York detective John Moss. After Nick has interfered with Moss’s date with Susan, the two men sit inside the pub, where Nick offers Moss unwanted advice about women and tells him that he needs to loosen up. The scene develops their reluctant partnership away from the police investigation that Nick is observing for his next acting role.

In Rounders (1998), McSorley’s appears when Jo confronts her boyfriend, Mike McDermott, about returning to poker and lying to her about his gambling. Mike had promised to abandon the underground poker world after losing his bankroll, but his reunion with Worm has drawn him back into it. Their argument inside the pub reveals the growing conflict between Mike’s relationship with Jo and his inability to leave gambling behind. Both the interior and exterior of McSorley’s are shown in the film.

In The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (2017–2023), McSorley’s appears in the second-season episode “Look, She Made a Hat” as the Cedar Tavern, another historic New York bar associated with artists. Benjamin Ettenberg takes Midge Maisel there during an evening exploring the city’s art scene. Inside the crowded bar, they meet artists and encounter painter Declan Howell, whose work Benjamin hopes to buy. The production renamed the location because the real McSorley’s did not admit women during the period in which the episode is set.

In Dash & Lily (2020), McSorley’s appears in the episode “Christmas”. After learning that Dash left a party with his former girlfriend Sofia, Lily goes to the pub with a group of carollers and becomes drunk on peppermint schnapps. She sends Edgar a message asking him to meet her, and he arrives with mistletoe and kisses her. Dash then reaches the pub carrying Lily’s missing red boot and sees the two of them together, creating the misunderstanding that separates Dash and Lily before the series finale.

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