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This icon of East Village boozemanship has been a pioneer since the '80s, spawning half a dozen other ventures helmed separately by co-owners Laura and Michael. Time was, you could take a seat against 2A's wall of windows and survey the thriving drug market across the street; now, you'll be gazing at the traffic between Alphabet City's new and newer bistros. Gone are the blue lights intended to make vein-finding impossible in the men's room, along with the various restaurant experiments that fizzled in the now lounged-out space upstairs. But the bartenders still greet and serve with their usual unselfconscious bonhomie. And the view out those windows on a snowy winter night is worth any hangover. — Bruce Bennett

Considered to be the originator of the now ubiquitous (and generic) grid-system bar name (though the name "Windows on the Weird" was supposedly considered at one point), 2A was in fact not the first. Long gone hardcore punk hangout A7's, located where Niagara is now, has that distinction.