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City's top dive bars

By Nicole Zerillo | Special to amNewYork

October 5, 2007

Not every night out Manhattan requires a bunch of trips to the ATM.

Manhattan hosts many swanky watering holes with first-rate mixologists, design-savvy interiors and drinks that can cost an arm and a leg. But from time to time it¹s a welcome relief to head to a dive bar, where cheap brews abound and neighborhood regulars gather.

Here are a few of amNewYork¹s favorites:

Karma

51 1st Ave.
212-677-3160
www.karmanyc.com/
Break out your own smokes or try a round of grape or apple-flavored hookahs at this licensed tobacco bar and Eastern-influenced dive. Sink into cozy, velvet sofas with hipsters and old-timers, who remember the days when the streets of the East Village were filled with garbage, and a drink without a smoke was unheard of.

Red Rock West Saloon
457 W. 17th St.
212-366-5359
www.redrockwestsaloon.com
Over a round of drinks, local vagrants and lawmen sit side-by-side to watch curvy barmaids shimmy atop the bar, dousing themselves with H2O in the joint¹s infamous 'Water Dance.' Before you write this venue off as a less classy Coyote Ugly -- with run of the mill body shots and the average leather-clad ladies that breathe fire -- in terms of a dive bar, there's something wonderfully predictable about the golden formula of wine, women and song.

Johnny's Bar
90 Greenwich Ave.
212-741-5279
The neon 'Bar' sign and baseball games on the corner TV might make this living room-sized dive a seemingly sedate choice, but a cast of colorful regulars, ranging from fratty bankers to older Village layabouts, make the scene more than the sum of its parts. Conversation is not in short supply, but if you¹re stumped, try commenting on the Texas windchime (empty beers can attached to a stick) or the old-school register from the 1950s.

Floyd
131 Atlantic Ave.
718-858-5810