Photograph of the Ding Dong Lounge by Theodoric Meyer

Hours after Mayor Bloomberg declared that weather conditions made it “unsafe to stay outside,” several bars in Manhattan Valley and Morningside Heights remained full of New Yorkers unwilling to spend a Saturday night watching “My Wife and Kids” reruns.

“We never close,” said the owner of 1020 Bar, on Amsterdam Avenue and 110th Street, who declined to give his name. The bar remained open on Sept. 11, 2001, he said, and he did not consider shutting down for Hurricane Irene.

“We’re a neighborhood bar,” he added, glanced around at the full barroom at 1:30 a.m. “Our patrons are here.”

At the Ding Dong Lounge, a few blocks over on Columbus Avenue, about two dozen people remained crowded around the bar and the pool tables.

Missy, one of the bartenders, said the crowd was about average size and predicted more people would show up before the end of the night.
“It’s kind of like a bomb shelter,” she said, gesturing at the darkened room. “It’s safe here.”
Patrons seemed to agree. One bearded man dismissed the storm as a “media cyclone,” and said that he planned on walking home to Harlem at around 4 a.m.

But holing up in a bar isn’t an option for residents of Hoboken, N.J. The police there reportedly ordered all establishments with liquor licenses to close by 8 p.m.

Written by Theodoric Meyer