4. The Bar Scene

Foundations of Lovelace Tavern at 85 Broad Street

Unlike those killjoy Puritans to the north, the Dutch knew how to pound a few back. They loved their beer so much that New Amsterdam’s first town hall, the Stadt Huys, was a tavern. Actually a quarter of the structures in New Amsterdam were bars. Sounds a little like modern day Bushwick whose original Dutch name Boswijck comes from its 1638 deed title meaning “heavy woods.” When New Amsterdam’s last Director General, Peter Stuyvesant, was sent to the newly minted city to clean up its act the first thing he did was ban the sale of alcohol before 2 pm on Sundays to prevent the rampant drunkenness that plagued the city at the time. A version of this law is still in effect today in the five boroughs.