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Like the graying bohemians who walk the streets of the Village, this bucolic live music den may not be as hip as it once was, but it still gets around. When Allen Ginsberg gave the bar its name it was a Beat poetry café complete with kitchen. Now it's a fusty saloon with sawdust on the floor and red-checker tablecloths as the cornerstones of the design scheme. Every night the bar's miniscule stage (flanked appropriately by a wooden fence) hosts folk, country, and classic rock acts. A male-heavy mix of tourists, students, businessmen, artsy-types, and old-schoolers quaff pints at the weathered bar and toss peanut shells on the floor as they watch what plays out like an episode of Average Joe Unplugged. The Back Fence is a mellow enough place to put up your boots, but it probably won't regain its cultural significance until NYU threatens to annex it. — Andrew Paine Bradbury

Every Sunday, poet Brigid Murnaghan hosts an open mic poetry reading from 3pm-5pm. The only restriction for aspiring wordsmiths? "You can’t be stoned!"

Open-Mic Night
Last Monday of every month