Curl up with a good drink – and then a few more!
A tipsy historic tour will guide visitors to Brooklyn bars frequented by famous writers, while guides tell stories of the neighborhood in the words of those authors. The Brooklyn Literary Pub Crawl, which steps off each Sunday at the Henry Street Ale House, is a way to keep the names and tales of great authors from being swept away with time, says the group’s founder.
“It’s not just retelling stories, it’s a passion to keep the scenes alive,” said Eric Chase. “These authors shape the world in ways we forget.”
At each of the tour’s three stops, tour members can buy a drink while a guide reads aloud from the work of artists who sipped their liquid inspiration nearby. The experience creates a kind of kinship with the novelist, said Chase, regardless of how long ago the authors wrote.
A self-described literary fanatic, Chase has been running the Greenwich Village Literary Pub Crawl for the last 18 years, but he said that the Brooklyn tour has a different feel.
“Everything changed in Manhattan so fast,” said Chase. “Here I can feel the history.”
Writers on the tour include the borough’s beloved poet and newspaperman Walt Whitman; novelist Jonathan Lethem, the author of “Motherless Brooklyn,” and memoirist Frank McCourt, who lived above Montero’s bar in the 1980s.
Those writers have not changed since the Brooklyn tours started in 2014. But the tour guides say that up-and-coming novelists can make a literary reputation — of a sort — by joining the tour and making a scene at a famous bar.
“Make a name for yourself!” laughs Chase. “We’ll talk about you in tours for decades to come.”
Brooklyn Literary Pub Crawl at Henry Street Ale House [62 Henry St. between Orange and Cranberry streets in Brooklyn Heights, (212) 613–5796, www.liter
