How do you get into The Grain?
We have not confirmed it. The Grain is in the directory because it calls itself a speakeasy, and that is the whole of what we can stand behind about its door.
Drinks of the era
We have not seen this venue’s own list, so what follows is the period rather than the bar: Corpse Reviver No. 2, White Lady, and Twentieth Century are all drinks of this era, and each links to its origin and its build.
The building
Documented — The Grain occupies the Decker Building, a property listed on the National Register of Historic Places under reference number 03001179. The listing is a federal record maintained by the National Park Service, and the nomination document is the primary source for the building’s architectural and social history.
National Register reference 03001179 · NPS nomination document
Where The Grain sits
The Grain is in New York, New York, in the county of the same name, in the Mid-Atlantic of the United States.
Our directory currently lists 66 speakeasies and hidden bars in New York. The full list is on our guide to hidden bars in New York.
Measured from the map pins, the closest of those to The Grain are Lost Spirits, about 250 m away, Hidden Lane Bar, about 350 m away, and Blind Pig, about 600 m away.
New York holds 101 listed venues in this directory. See them all on our New York speakeasy guide.
Prohibition in New York
New York came under national prohibition on 17 January 1920, when the Eighteenth Amendment took effect and the Volstead Act defined an intoxicating beverage as anything above one half of one per cent alcohol — a threshold strict enough to close breweries that had expected to survive.
More on the period in our history of Prohibition in New York.
What the newspapers recorded in New York
Searching the Library of Congress run of New York newspapers for speakeasy, blind pig and bootlegger across 1920 to 1933 returns dated pages anyone can open. These are from New York:
- The daily worker, December 15, 1931 — read the page at the Library of Congress
- The daily worker, July 14, 1927 — read the page at the Library of Congress
- The daily worker, August 5, 1927 — read the page at the Library of Congress
- The daily worker, October 16, 1930 — read the page at the Library of Congress
Planning a visit
You can reach The Grain by phone on (646) 398-9663, through its own website, and on Facebook.
The address is 35 Union Square W, New York, NY 10003. Open in Google Maps.
What we have confirmed
For The Grain we hold street address, telephone number, official website, social accounts, and a listed-building record. We do not yet hold opening hours, a published drinks list, or an online booking link.
It is in the directory because the description in the source data describes it as a speakeasy.
Overture Maps carries this venue; OpenStreetMap has no matching record.
The source data classifies the premises as a bar.