Subway Inn, Upper East Side.

The dive bar that was physically moved.

Subway Inn opened in 1937 across the street from the Bloomingdale's department store on East 60th Street. It poured continuously for seventy-seven years, until the building was demolished in 2014 to make way for a luxury condo tower. The Salinas family, who had owned it since 1979, refused to close. They negotiated with the building owner, salvaged the entire 1937 bar back, the eight red vinyl booths, the famous neon sign, the cigarette dispenser, and the metal ceiling tiles, and trucked everything five blocks east to a former Mexican restaurant on Second Avenue.

The new room was painted dark, the booths were bolted to the wall in the same configuration, the bar was reinstalled along the right wall, and the neon sign was hung above the door. The relocation took eleven weeks. The bar reopened in February 2015. The same regulars who had drunk at the old location showed up the first night.

Why this matters. Subway Inn is the rare proof that a dive bar's value lives in the physical objects, not the address. The Salinas family understood that the booths, the bar back, and the neon sign were the bar. Move them, and the bar moves with them.

The relocated neon sign.

The Subway Inn neon sign was made in 1944 by a Brooklyn neon shop that no longer exists. It is twelve feet wide, red, with the words SUBWAY INN in capital sans serif and a small neon arrow pointing down. The original sign hung above the East 60th Street entrance from 1944 until 2014. The Salinas family had it removed by a specialist, refurbished by a third generation neon shop in Long Island, and remounted above the new entrance.

The sign now hangs above the door at 60th and Second. The arrow still points down, although the original direction it pointed (the Lexington Avenue subway entrance) is now five blocks west. The slight inaccuracy is part of the bar's identity. The neon hum is the same hum the bar has had since 1944.

Bud bottles and a shot of Old Crow.

• Bud bottle: four dollars. The Subway Inn standard. Twelve ounce bottle, ice cold from the cooler under the bar.
• Old Crow: three dollars a shot. The bar's well bourbon. Ordered alongside the Bud as a boilermaker.
• Vodka cranberry: six dollars. The 1980s Upper East Side drink that is the bar's other signature.
• The pickle plate: three dollars. Whole dill pickles, sliced raw onion, mustard. Bar food.
• The thing nobody knows: the bar pours a shot of Sambuca with three coffee beans on top, lit briefly with a match, for four dollars. Ask for the "Salinas." The Salinas family has been pouring this since 1979.

Friday at 6pm. The Bloomingdale's after-shift.

Subway Inn opens at 11am for the lunch crowd and closes at 4am. The Friday at 6pm hour is when the Bloomingdale's after-shift arrives. Sales associates from the department store half a block west have come in for a Bud and a shot at this hour for four decades. The booths fill in. The conversation is a specific Manhattan retail-floor dialect.

The 2am hour is the late-night honest hour. Upper East Side late-night dining staff finish their shifts at 1:30am and walk over for a beer. The bar is half empty between midnight and 1am, then fills up with cooks and waiters between 1:30am and 3am. If you are doing the late-night walk, this is the bar to anchor it.

Sunday afternoons are quietest. The bar is open from 11am with brunch service, but the booths are open and the 1pm to 4pm window is when the Salinas family does the bar's accounting at the front booth.

What the Salinas family saved, and what they lost.

The 2014 relocation cost the Salinas family approximately $180,000. They saved the bar back, the eight booths, the metal ceiling tiles, the back-bar mirror, the cigarette dispenser, the cash register, the neon sign, the cooler, and forty-seven framed photographs of regulars. They lost the original tile floor (could not be moved), the front window (broke during removal), and an estimated 2,000 names scratched into the booth wood by regulars across seventy-seven years.

The Salinas family responded to the lost names by pinning a small box of pencils next to the front booth at the new location, with a printed sign reading "Add yours." Customers carve their names into the booth wood when they visit. The new booths have already accumulated approximately 800 names in eleven years. The wood is filling in.

Twenty-five dollars per person, four drinks.

Plan for twenty to thirty dollars per person for a three-hour visit. Three Bud bottles at four, two Old Crow shots at three, twenty percent tip. A pair of friends drinks for forty-five to fifty-five dollars total. A four-top sharing two pickle plates: ninety to a hundred dollars.

Cards are accepted but cash is preferred. The Salinas family pays the bartender pool weekly in cash and your tip goes through the system faster as cash on the bar. Two dollars per drink in cash is the local minimum.

The Bloomingdale's crowd, the late-night cooks, the relocation pilgrim.

Subway Inn draws three populations. The first is the Bloomingdale's retail crowd: long-tenure sales associates, building maintenance staff, and the occasional store buyer from out of town. The second is the late-night Upper East Side restaurant crew: cooks, dishwashers, and front-of-house staff finishing shifts at midnight. The third is the relocation pilgrim, often architects or preservationists, who come to see how the move was executed.

You will not find a wealthy Upper East Side crowd here. The bar's price point and the bar's population are both proudly working-class. The Salinas family's commitment to the four-dollar Bud is the bar's organising principle.

How not to be the worst person at Subway Inn.

• Do not photograph the carved names on the booth wood. The names are personal. Add yours instead.
• Do not ask the bartender what the old location was like. They will tell you, but only after a third visit.
• Do not order an espresso martini. The bar will pour a vodka cranberry instead.
• Do not bring a stag party. The bar will not refuse but the Salinas family will note you and the regulars will move to the back booth.
• Do not mention the luxury condo that replaced the original location. The Salinas family does not need to be reminded.
• Do not request the original neon sign location for an Instagram photo. The arrow points where the arrow points. Take the photo at the new door.
• Do not, ever, ask if the new location feels different. It does. That is not what the Salinas family wants to discuss.

Burger at JG Melon, drinks at Subway Inn, walk to Pioneer Bar.

The classic Upper East Side dive walk: burger at JG Melon on Third Avenue at 7pm, the cheeseburger institution since 1972. Walk five blocks east to Subway Inn at 8:30pm for two Buds and an Old Crow. End at Pioneer Bar on First Avenue at 11pm for one more, the rare Upper East Side dive that survived the rents.

For more bars in the area, see our New York city guide, the Upper East Side sports bars, and the hidden gems list.

Yes. The dive bar that proved the form is portable.