White Horse Tavern

The most celebrated watering hole in the West Village has its ghosts.

Poet’s Org: The White Horse Tavern, built in 1880, has been a stomping ground for New York’s literary community since the 1950s when the bar’s most famous patron, the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas, was introduced to this longshoreman’s haunt. The White Horse holds the dubious distinction of being the place where Thomas drank his last whiskey. In November of 1953, Thomas beat his own personal record by downing eighteen shots of whiskey. Soon after the last drink he stumbled outside and collapsed on the sidewalk. He was taken to the Chelsea Hotel and there fell into a coma; the next morning he was transferred to St. Vincent’s Hospital where he died.

If Thomas is haunting the pub, he's not making himself a nuisance. "He's never a bother," says owner Eddie Brennan. In fact, the ghost may have provided at least one worker with a few free drinks. A porter hired to carry kegs down to the basement often told Brennan he heard footsteps in the bar and found an empty beer glass and shot glass on Thomas' favorite table, near the radiator in the middle room.

The bar soon drew more literary figures as patrons including James Baldwin, Norman Mailer, and Anais Nin. The bar was also a gathering place for both the Beat writers, like Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac, as well as the New York School poets, such as John Ashbery and Frank O’Hara.

Bob Dylan was a regular here in 1961, often to watch the The Clancy Brothers play.