"Ben Westhoff has compiled an absolutely splendid list of NYC miracles...These spots are all perfect places to party and to party hard."--Andrew W.K.

"Every pubcrawler in the NYC Metro area should be grateful for Ben Westhoff's New York City's Best Dive Bars."--Geoffrey Bartholomew, longtime McSorley's barman and author of "The McSorley Poems."

Sponsored by Village Voice, New York's Best Dive Bars takes you on a tour of the dingiest, awesomest watering holes in the five boroughs (and Jersey City and Hoboken), from downtown relics to surreal joints in Queens and Staten Island where time seems to stop. You'll read wild, firsthand accounts of English-optional ethnic dives, bikini bars, spots that belong on the National Register of Historic Places, and lawless hellholes where cops and firefighters duke it out. You'll learn where to get free grub and cheap drinks, and where you can go to avoid the hipsters. Whether you're looking to live dangerously or simply get plastered on a budget, New York's Best Dive Bars is your guide to both the classic pubs and those joints so off-the-beaten-path joints that you'll need a team of sherpas to find your way back.

Ben Westhoff is a freelance writer based in New Jersey. (Don't hate.) He writes regularly for The Village Voice and others. He likes blended whiskey neat, gin and tonics with the cheap stuff, and Budweiser in a bottle.