It’s stupid to talk about the history of New York because there’s been about 87 New Yorks. And every time a new New York takes over, people from the old New York go, “New York is so over.” They said it back in the 30s when all the artists were moving out of what’s now Harlem and moving into the West Village. You heard it after Giuliani got most of the junkies out of the Lower East Side in the 90s. By the time you’re finished reading this a whole other New York has probably come and gone. This is a good thing—you don’t have to feel like an outsider here because this place doesn’t belong to anybody.

If you’re here for a few days you probably want to walk around all day and get wasted all night. Not sure where you’re going to sleep, though. All the hotels are like, $150. Why don’t you stay on a friend’s floor? Remember to do all your dishes, not piss off his neighbors, buy extra toilet paper, and buy him beers like crazy. The guy’s saving you a lot of money by letting you stay there so you owe him big time. Oh yeah, and you can’t stay for more than three days. Not that you’ll be able to afford a longer stay. It’s nearly impossible not to spend $100 a day here. You can get off the bus, buy a piece of pizza, and walk to your friend’s house and—bang—$20 is gone. No idea where it went. It’s just gone.

We didn’t bother listing fancy restaurants and touristy things like the Empire State Building and Central Park. If you want to try that out, ask a cab driver. This guide is basically a booze cruise with several places to jam bits of food in your mouth so you are still alive at the end.

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You’re going to hear a lot of bullshit about how rad Hell’s Kitchen is and how the real East Village is over in DUMBO, but people just say that to sound cool. The truth is, the only good places to walk around are the East Village, the Lower East Side, and Williamsburg. Let’s start with the first two.

1 There are two ways to the East Village. You can take the L to the 1st Ave stop or…

2 You can take the B, D, F, or V (all the same train basically) to the 2nd Ave stop. Why is the 2nd Ave stop on 1st Ave? We don’t know. We just noticed that now.

3 Mars Bar: A dirty shithole filled with crusty punks and homeless people who think they’re tough. It’s a good place to go if you like to make normal people feel uncomfortable.

4 2nd & 2nd: Not sure if that’s the right name. It’s a big huge bourgeois karaoke place. You can sing songs for a dollar each or go to one of the private rooms and do it for free (assuming you buy a ton of drinks, which you will). The selection is standard karaoke fare.

5 The Hole: A greasy gay bar covered in graffiti and bodily fluids. The bathrooms don’t even have fucking doors. Saturday nights there used to be legendary—some of the most debaucherous parties we have ever witnessed. Every few months the straights will take it over and claim it as their own. Last we checked, the gays owned it again. It is fun no matter what, though.

5A A Salt and Battery: (For the record, if we have a number like 5A it means we forgot about a place between 5 and 6 and don’t want to have to renumber everything.) This is a perfectly authentic fish-and-chips shop. If you are hungover, this starch hut is a great cure. It’s pricey as fuck, though.

6 Lit: Wandering around looking for fun on any given night seems to come down to three staple bars: Max Fish, Lit, and 2A. Lit can get a bit heavy on the NYU kids some nights, but when it’s good it’s a really good place to dance around like an idiot. It used to be better to hang out in the downstairs, but now the upstairs has taken over.

7 Poutine: There’s some Belgian french fry place around here that serves poutine. That’s the classic Canadian dish involving fries, cheese curds, and tons of gravy.

8 St. Marks between 2nd & 3rd: This short street is a fucked-up combination of skater kids heading to work, NYU jocks getting wasted, rich suburban punks buying bondage pants, homeless crusty punks panning for change, Japanese tourists eating lunch, and cracked-out pathetic sore-infested junkie whores trying to score dope. They all coexist without even knowing anyone else exists. It’s like they are all in different dimensions, hence the amazing people-watching factor.

9 Search & Destroy: This weirdo Japanese used-clothing store is a great place to get Le Tigre polos and tight cords. You can also buy Hitler dolls and shit porn if you’re feeling particularly deviant.

10 St. Marks Books: Not sure why you’d want to come all the way to New York just to buy some books. What can you get here that you can’t get online? Anyway, this is a good place to get stuff to read (if you insist).

10A Black & White: Great bar that’s faraway and always has good DJs. If you want to know what we’re complaining about when we say Brooklyn has bad tunes, come here, close your eyes, and just… listen.

11 Decibel: This is a dark little grotto of a sake bar. It’s down in the basement and if it’s not crowded it’s a good place to get drunk on fermented rice while nibbling on edamame.

12 3rd Avenue: More like Turd Avenue. This is where all the NYU kids and Wall Street types who think the East Village is “funky” congregate and watch football in sports bars. Avoid at all costs.

13 14th Street: If anyone is stupid enough to brag to you about how great New York City used to be, take a look at 14th Street. It is a blighted shithole. So bad, in fact, that it’s kind of good. Nowhere sums this up better than a drunken puke-stain of a bar called…

14 The Blarney Cove: Walk in here and be instantly transported to a scene out of Midnight Cowboy. There is absolutely nothing cool about this bar—which can be pretty refreshing if you’ve been cooling it up all day.

15 Guinness-y bar: There’s some dark gloomy bar around here that’s great when it’s empty and always has good tunes. There are tons of old-school regulars with their funny hats and glasses and battered old suit jackets. It’s one of the few bars in the East Village that really feels like the East Village. Oh hey, you know what’s really challenging? Try to start here and head south down B, having one pint at every bar you see. You will be dead before 10th Street. We’re not sure how meathead jocks do it. It’s really hard.

16 7B: This is a great bar to get drunk in during the day. The jukebox is filled with punk classics and there are great little booths where you can sit and discreetly let off big ones. The only bummer is the presence of 17 gigantic TV screens blaring away. Why the fuck do bars need to have those things anyway? Could they be more distracting? I don’t need to see spinning Entertainment Tonight graphics while I’m having a pint. I can barely stand hearing music. Geesh.

17 Casimir: A super-nice fancy French place that’s a bit pricey but has these killer cheeseburgers with bacon on them that will fill you up for days.

18 Manitoba’s: Every scary punk that ever owned a knife hangs out here. We dare you to go there and ask the first person you see if he has a staring problem.

19 Kate’s: This is the best vegetarian diner on earth. Get the tofu wings and the un-turkey club. There’s also a ton of good mixed juice drinks, which you need because you’re probably not used to doing this much walking.

19A Mama’s: is a great home-style restaurant and adjacent bar that has good tunes and even serves Canadian beer (hence Canadians spending Canada Day there).

20 NYC ICY: They have great little ice cream and sherbet cups that make for a good tourist break. You know what’s gay, though? They won’t let you mix flavors.

21 Parkside Lounge: One of those bars where you go, “Why don’t I come here more often?” When everywhere else is packed it’s a great place to get some room.

22 Meow Mix: used to be here but their “we hate men” stance didn’t do so well for business (you hate half the population? That’s cutting a rather large swath, is it not, ladies? Even the KKK only hates about 20% of America). Anyway, now the bar is a slightly cheesy, lo-fi Coyote Ugly kind of situation. That might not sound like a great pitch, but we like it in a lame way.

22A Katz’s: Apparently you’re supposed to go here for smoked meat. Presidents do.

23 Max Fish: The best bar in New York, which is both a boon and a curse. This place can get so fucking packed on weekends you have to get in the bathroom line about an hour before you start feeling like you might have to go pee. Another thing to remember when you’re down in the Lower East Side is, though there are plenty of rich white people having a good time, there are also still a lot of junkies that wouldn’t mind blowing your head off. Don’t be too pals-y with strangers that look like they are really into hip-hop.

23A The Dark Room: Oh yeah, we forgot this place. It’s good to go back and forth between here and Max Fish, seeing which is more fun. A lot of bands on tour want to go here for some reason. Maybe they think it’s the new Max Fish.

24 The Hat: Everyone likes to get frozen margaritas here, but it looks kind of sketchy because they don’t have any other liquor available. That must mean they don’t have a liquor license, no? What do they use, grain alcohol? Anyway, these are basically cups of moonshine, and you get them to go and then cruise around the neighborhood getting plastered. You’ll have a hangover before you even get to the bottom of the cup.

25 Piano’s: This is more of a venue than a bar. We didn’t list venues. If you want to go see Bow Wow Wow why would you care if they’re at Bowery Ballroom or Irving Plaza? The reason we included Piano’s is it’s still a pretty good bar and they have a lot of good after-parties there. They also just started serving buffalo wings and stuff upstairs.

26 JP Ward’s: We’re not sure what it is with this place, but it is always abandoned. Is it built over an Indian burial ground? If you need a place to regroup and go over this guide without getting jostled, go here. Then leave like everybody else does.

27 2A: We were told this bar hasn’t been cool for ten years, but it sure is fun hanging out upstairs here and doing whatever you want.

28 Some Health Food Store: Not sure if this is where it is, but there’s a health food store around here that sells energy shakes. Get the protein shake, the one with banana in it. If you’re too hungover to eat actual food this is a good way to get nutrients into your body. It tastes like a hug.

29 7A: If you go here for brunch on a Saturday, you’re fucked. You’ll be waiting forever. But if you need something to eat late at night this place is perfect.

29A Niagara: Joe Strummer used to always want to come here. Actually, all old punks do. Downstairs is especially fun.

30 Odessa Bar: Good place to get laid if you’re really young and have a livejournal. Next door is Odessa Diner, a good place to take the edge off your drunk with some mozzarella sticks.

31 Doc Holiday’s: One of the few authentic-feeling New York Texas bars, though it does get real studenty on Friday and Saturday. Doc’s is a good place to load up early and a great place to get wasted in the day since it’s right on the park and you can watch all the weirdos march by. Tons of homeless people too.

32 International Bar: This shithole is pretty seedy, which makes it a great place to drink alone. There are plenty of gregarious freaks that want to talk to you about bullshit.

33 Cheap Shots: This place made the typical NY-bar mistake of hoisting a 300" plasma screen above the bar. If you can ignore South Park blaring in your face there’s a wicked air hockey table in the back. They also have that jukebox where you can pay an extra quarter to get your song next.

34 Ace Bar: If you’re getting homesick for hipster Toronto this is a good place. Plenty of 70s punk and 80s kitsch. It’s also rarely crowded.

35 Sophie’s: If NYU kids haven’t taken this over it’s a great place to laugh at junkies. This bar hasn’t changed since A was the scariest street on earth.

36 Frank’s: Great fucking Italian restaurant. The kind of place you want to become a regular at. Rumor has it, though, that a bunch of the waiters had a mutiny and started another, equally amazing Italian restaurant down the street called…

37 Max’s: The gnocchi, the spinach ravioli, and the bruschetta are out of fucking control here.

38 Lil’ Frankies: Sorry about all the Italian, but what? But nothing. Great pizza here.

39 Frog coffee spot: This is inside the park and it’s a good place to stop and get a coffee while wandering around on a sunny day. We hope you don’t get the irritating frog waiter that says “Excellente magnifique” at the end of every sentence.

40 Mud: We’re not sure what it is about this coffee joint but it is always filled with the biggest douchebags in the city (seriously, it’s uncanny). If you’re into eavesdropping on painfully lame conversations you might want to go here and pretend to hang out.

41 Dumpling Man: This is cheap and easy food that takes seconds to make and is delicious. They even have weird ones like hot-and-spicy and shit like that.

42 This Bodega: is easily the best bodega on earth. The Pakis who run the place are more like ninjas than grocers. Each one wears a headset and knows the whole place like the difference between Urdu and Bengali.

43 The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: is a great store for girls to get sexy, funny stuff they couldn’t get anywhere else. Everything there is designed by Judi Rosen.

44 Atomic Passion: Same as 43 but all vintage.

45 Bobby 2000: Same as 44 but for boys. They have really weird classic sneakers here.

46 Built by Wendy: If you’re a girl you already know this (7 Centre Market Place near Delancey and Lafeyette).

47 Vice: And finally, the Vice store, where you probably got this thing in the first place (252 Lafayette. 212-219-7788).

48 Winnie’s: Oh yeah, you may have noticed a lot of these places are pretty dude-based, like the bar on Drew Carey but with better music. If you want to up the chick factor a bit you don’t have to go to shitty L.A. bars like Bungalow 8. All you have to do is go to Chinatown and check out this karaoke bar on 104 Bayard St. It’s packed with broads and it’s worth the long drive. You won’t even see this one on the map in this Guide, because it’s deep in Chinatown. Just tell a cabbie to take you to Baxter and Bayard. You can’t miss it.