Welcome Freshmen, Part 3: Where To Drink And Study At The Same Time

by Chiara Atik · August 18, 2010

64,000 freshmen are moving to New York City in the next few weeks to start college. 64,000 eighteen year olds, navigating the subway, looking for bars that don't card, overrunning St.Mark's. Welcome to Part three of our five part guide on how to survive your college years in New York.

Yesterday, we gave you a full list of the city's best college bars.

The bad news? You're also supposed to, you know, study while attending college.

The good news? Drinking or studying? You don't have to choose!

The Top "Books And Bars" Spots In NYC

Think Coffee

NOT the weird new one in the NYU Bookstore (abomination), but the others will do. Think Coffee gets a lot of flack for being so self-consciously ---, and, well, it is. Every single person in there is usually either writing on identical Macbooks or Moleskines. So why do people go? Well, bizarrely, the lack of seating, loud music, and constant bustle are actually great for concentration--you can work at Think Coffee for hours without feeling too restless or bored, the food and people are great distractions for study breaks, and the staff is really, really good about not kicking out the loiterers who buy one cup of coffee and stay for hours.

Think also has a good selection of beers on tap and wine. Mercer location is the only one with wireless, but customers at the Bleecker Street Think are usually able to pick up signals from the Bowery Hotel.

Cafe Amrita

Cafe Amrita, on 110th, is a favorite of Columbia students looking to get away from Butler or Barnard Library. Plenty of tables, plenty of light, and three dollar pints of Blue Moon. (Also? Plenty of attractive grad students. Just putting it out there.)

Oro Bakery and Bar

A Guest of a Guest favorite (no, really. We go every. day.) The coffee is delicious, the baristas are the friendliest in town, and though it's small, you can usually find a seat (and a plug). Go for iced coffee and the best chocolate croissants you've ever had in the morning, and treat yourself to beer, wine, or sangria in the afternoons. The 2 for 1 Happy Hour from 4-8 is an insanely good deal, and a perfect chance to try out the delicious Lagunitas IPA. The only downside? No laptops/notebooks after 8 pm.

Society Coffee

Located a few blocks South and West of Columbia, Society Coffee is worth the trek from campus. The place even markets itself as a study/writing/thinking spot. And they have red velvet waffles. 'Nuff said.

The Grey Dog's Coffee

The Baristas at Grey Dog always seem stoned out of their mind, but that's part of the appeal of this popular NYC chain. The location on University is often a little too crowded to seriously sprawl out with all your books, but the Chelsea location, a mere 15 minute walk away, has plenty of room to spare.

Tables are easy to come by, the music is usually not too loud, and the food is expensive but goooood. The lack of wifi is a bummer, but Grey Dog is the perfect place to get some old fashioned reading and writing done.

Happy Hour starts at 3 pm, which, when you're in college, actually isn't obscenely early and unreasonable! (Enjoy it while you can, kids.)

V Bar

V Bar is a perennial favorite among grad students, writers, and, we imagine, would-be poets. (There are still would-be poets, right?) There are 30 wines and 36 "reasonably priced" beers.

Bring your laptop, buy a beer, and spend a lovely afternoon waxing poetic on the Indigenous People of Australia, or whatever else you might be studying; just make sure to clear out by 6 pm, when the lights go down and it turns into a more "romantic" setting.

Epistrophy

Not that we would ever, EVER cheat on Cafe Oro, but if for some reason we needed a back-up Nolita study spot, Epistrophy would definitely be our spot. Relaxed atmosphere, lots of reading light, free wifi, good food, and nice selection of beer and wine.