The neon sign of Harry's New York Bar, rue DaunouHarry's New York Bar
- Best time
- Late evening
- Getting there
- Between Avenue de l'Opéra and Rue de la Paix; Métro Opéra
Why it’s in the log
The American jockey Tod Sloan turned a Paris bistro into the New York Bar in 1911 and hired a Dundee barman, Harry MacElhone, to run it; MacElhone bought it in 1923 and added his name. It became the American expatriate bar of Paris, and the MacElhone family ran it for most of the next century.
It claims a whole list of classics: the Bloody Mary, the French 75, the Sidecar, the Monkey Gland, the White Lady. The Bloody Mary claim, that the bartender Fernand Petiot made it here in 1921, is backed by his granddaughter and the bar, but New York's 21 Club has rival claims, one of them for the comedian George Jessel. Petiot himself told The New Yorker in 1964 that Jessel's drink was "nothing but vodka and tomato juice when I took it over" — in New York, in 1934.
The piano bar is where George Gershwin is said to have composed An American in Paris.
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