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On Sunday morning, before the ancient doors of McSorley’s Old Ale House opened once again to spill that beer-and-sawdust aroma upon an East Village sidewalk, the owner took on a sorrowful job that in good conscience he could not leave to any of his employees. Too close to tempting the fates.

But it had to be done. The New York City health department was dropping hints as loud as the clatter of mugs on a Saturday night.

So, with heavy heart, the proprietor, Matthew Maher, 70, climbed up a small ladder. With curatorial care, he took down the two-dozen dust-cocooned wishbones dangling on an old gas lamp above the storied bar counter. He removed the clouds of gray from each bone. Then he placed every one of the bones, save for those that crumbled at his touch, back onto the gas lamp — where, in the context of this dark and wonderful establishment, they are not merely the scrap remains of poultry, but holy relics.

“Reluctantly,” is how Mr. Maher says he approached this task. “It’s kind of — how would you put it? It’s something you didn’t want to touch. It’s the last thing I wanted to touch or see touched.”

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But it had to be done.

A couple of weeks ago, another city health inspector paid another visit to McSorley’s, a drinking establishment that has been around since the 1850s, and looks it.

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For many, this is the charm of the place: you sip your beer, take in that portrait of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, or that wanted poster for John Wilkes Booth, or those firefighter helmets, and you can almost feel your long-dead relations beside you, waiting for a free round.