Eating out classic New York style: in Preview's 2000 edition, late Art Business News Columnist Emmett Murphy took us back 100 years to restaurants that have been around since the last millennium. These New York City dining classics are still going strong, and in celebration of a classic show, here is a list of some classic restaurants

Art Business News, Dec, 2002 by Emmett Murphy

The life expectancy of a new restaurant in Manhattan is slightly longer than a Baked Alaska in August, so any place that survives more than a decade becomes a New York landmark. In honor of noteworthy anniversaries, Preview will take a look at the handful of eating places that have been serving satisfied patrons for more than 100 years. You may want to visit one of the dwindling few listed here before it's too late.

BRIDGE CAFE

279 Water Street at Dover Street (212) 227-3344 $$ All major credit cards

The bridge in this case is the Brooklyn, and the location is the south side of the ramp leading across the East River to the other boroughs. Historians argue whether the building dates from 1794 or 1801, but whatever the date, for generations it has served the fisherman and long-shoremen of the booming South Street Seaport. Nowadays, seafood is still a specialty, but there are plenty of other steaks, chops and pasta dishes to order from a menu that changes frequently. Sunday brunch here has become a habit with many of the newcomers in the Wall Street area that is becoming increasingly residential.

EAR INN

326 Spring Street near Greenwich Street (212) 226-9060 $ All major credit cards

Since 1817, the landmark James Brown House, named after a Revolutionary War-era tobacco trader, has housed some sort of tavern. When it first started selling rum to the visiting seaman, the place was on the waterfront, but since then it has moved two blocks in from the Hudson River as landfill widened the island and enriched the speculators. The food is basic and inexpensive and for both reasons has wide appeal to area residents who go for the grilled shell steak, grilled salmon, chicken pot pie or spaghetti with shrimp and scallops. Of all the golden oldies, the Ear Inn is most likely to vanish from the scene before long, thanks to a state plan to lay a new water main under Spring Street which could fatally undermine the ancient timbers.

HARRY'S AT HANOVER SQUARE

1 Hanover Square (212) 425-3412 $$$ All major credit cards

Harry's is a public restaurant in a private club called the India House. It was built in 1851 by Richard Carman, a carpenter for the Hanover Bank. From 1870 to 1885, it housed the New York Cotton Exchange, and later W.R. Grace & Co. India House was organized as a private businessman's club in 1914, and Harry's appeals to its membership and discriminating locals with dishes like steak Diane, filet of sole almandine and shrimp fra diavolo. Harry's wine cellar is one of the best in the city, with prices that won't break the bank.

LANDMARK TAVERN

626 11th Avenue at 46th Street (212) 757-8598 $$ All major credit cards

Like the Ear Inn, this one-time Hell's Kitchen saloon was on the waterfront when it opened in 1868 to serve the local Irish stevedores and visiting seamen from the world over. Since then, the bar has been burnished to an admirable sheen and a century of smoke from the wood-burning stove has smudged the ceiling a bit. But all this adds to the flavor of potato soup, soda bread and corned beef and cabbage for the traditional-minded, or grilled salmon steak or chicken breast for calorie and cholesterol conscious contemporaries.

OLD HOMESTEAD

56 9th Avenue near 14th St. (212) 242-9040 $$$ All major credit cards

This landmark steakhouse also opened in 1868 on the south edge of Chelsea in what has long been the meatpacking district. The area is now becoming known as Little Belgium because of all the new Heineken and mussel purveyors crowding into the former low-rent neighborhood. But the name of the game is still steak at the Homestead, and the porter-house for two is as thick and as heavy as your telephone book. Other popular cuts are the chateau-briand for two, the heavy-cut sirloin and prime ribs served on the bone. If you order ahead, you can be served the house exclusive, Kobe beef, or you can order a sampler of the pampered, massaged and beer-feed Japanese specialty to see if you want to go whole hog on your next visit.

BILLY'S

948 First Ave. near 52nd St. (212) 355-8920 $$ All major credit cards

General Ulysses S. Grant had just been inaugurated as the 18th President of the United States when Billy's opened in 1870, a time when this section of the fashionable Upper East Side was home to a wealth of breweries and meatpacking plants. Today, the restaurant is owned by the great granddaughter of the founder and is still run as a family business. Conservative is the term usually applied to the kitchen, so if you want nouvelle cuisine, take a hike elsewhere. Here you order salisbury steak, lamb stew or shepard's pie, and if you want to confirm that the more things change the more they stay the same, check the antique menu on the walls.

KEENS STEAKHOUSE

72 West 36th St. (212) 947-3636 $$$ All major credit cards

It's a toss-up whether the Landmark Tavern or Keens Steakhouse is closer to the Javits Center, but both are within comfortable walking distance. Little has changed at Keens since 1885 except its name, which until recently was Keens Chophouse. In the good old days, mutton chops were both a cut of meat and a style of whiskery adornment, and Keens' rivals had names like Delmonico and Rector. Mutton chops are still on the top of the menu, followed by broiled filet mignon, rack of lamb and a thick, crusty veal chop smothered in wild mushrooms. Ladies should not be put off by the clubby masculine atmosphere. Actress Lily Langry successfully sued the management for sex discrimination in 1905, so everyone has been on their best behavior since.