New York break: O’Leary’s? O’Reilly’s? Oh yes!

The night is young! an energized person tells me (she herself is not all that old, so why am I listening to her?) as my cab pulls into New York late in the evening. Come with me and we’ll join a New York crowd of shamrock-seekers. I oblige.

Morningside Heights (upper Westside, around Columbia) is not, demographically speaking, a good place to look for crowds with “Kiss Me, I’m Irish”-type t-shirts. In fact, the green motif, highly visible in the trimmings and decorations of the Irish Bar we stumbled upon, was not much in evidence among the patrons. It was the kind of place, also, where most people were drinking by the glass instead of by the pitcher – a welcome change from, say, State Street partying (although one might challenge my statements here, as I know next to nothing about Madison’s State Street bar scene).

Three women, sitting at a bar, is also an interesting situation, except when one of them so clearly is more than the combined age of the other two (yes, I did get called “mums” by one of the patrons, but the conversation sort of begged for it). If I had had any trepidations, they proved to be unwarranted. I would say that by the time we left (near closing?), the entire crowd (including the three of us) was pleasantly sober (-ish). Perhaps it’s because New Yorkers worry obsessively about keeping the numbers under control. You know, it’s the East Coast weight obsession.