About the archive

New York on Tap mapped the city's bars from 2005 to 2014. This archive keeps every bar it listed, as it stood around 2008, and notes what's at each one's address in 2026.

Two editions

This is the modern edition: the archive's bars on today's map, built for phones. The same listings, with the site's events, Things To Do, members' reviews and the rest, are at newyorkontap.com, rebuilt to look and work as the site did in 2008. Every bar page here links to its 2008 page.

The 2026 notes

Each bar has a note on what's at its address in 2026. 1,689 of the 3,130 bars have been looked up one by one in the venue research: AI researchers (Claude, Codex and Grok) searched the web for each bar, a script confirmed that every quote they gave is on the page they cited, and an uncertain answer goes to a second researcher. These notes say what became of the bar, and its page says when it was checked. Where there was a story to tell, the page also has a short history that Claude wrote from those confirmed facts, with its sources.

The rest come from liquor licenses: New York State's active licenses, downloaded October 9, 2026, and New Jersey's retail licensee listing for the bars there. A license shows that a business serves alcohol at an address, not that the 2008 bar or its owners are still there, so these notes say what the records show and no more, and never that a bar closed. A license note is worded plainly only where a random sample of its kind, checked by hand, was right at least 95% of the time. None has been yet, so each is worded cautiously.

The map colors each bar by its note:

• Still there. The bar is still pouring at its address: the research found it open, perhaps under a new name, or a license there still carries its name or a close one.
• Replaced. Something else has the space now, or the bar has moved: the research found another business there or the bar at a new address, or a license there is under another name, which may be a new business, the hotel the bar was in, or a company that may be the bar's own.
• Gone. The research found the bar closed, or no license is found at its address. A few of those not yet researched hold a license under their name elsewhere, and may have moved.
• Already closed by 2009. The site itself marked these bars closed.

Sources and credits

• The listings, reviews and photos are New York on Tap's own, from 2005 to 2014.
• Licenses: New York State Liquor Authority (data.ny.gov) and the New Jersey Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control.
• Places still listed online: Overture Maps Foundation (CDLA Permissive 2.0 and Apache 2.0).
• Map: © OpenStreetMap contributors, drawn with Protomaps and MapLibre. Subway lines from OpenStreetMap and the MTA.
• Type: Barlow, by Jeremy Tribby (SIL Open Font License).

Privacy

This site sets no cookies and uses no third-party trackers. The map's “near me” asks your browser for your location only when you press it, and uses it only on your device.