The Ear Inn

On our list of the best live music venues in New York.

The building at 326 Spring Street went up in 1817 as the home of tobacco merchant James Brown, and by the 1890s it operated as a tavern serving the sailors and longshoremen who worked the nearby docks. During Prohibition it ran as a speakeasy called The Green Door; a group led by Rip Hayman bought the place in the 1970s and covered part of the "B" in the old bar sign so it read "Ear," a nod to Hayman's music magazine. The live band the Earregulars still plays regularly, and the kitchen serves mussels, meatloaf and confit duck legs alongside the burgers regulars keep ordering.