Actually yes Manhattan is big on drinking, the difference is the bar closing times. In NYC they close at 4am while in England I believe it's 11pm
In my younger drinking days I lived in places where the bars closed at 1am - 4am. In places like NYC where the bars close at 4am, people generally stay at the bars and then slowly calmly filter out and go home over time.
In places where they close early, everyone leaves the bars at the same time and they all hit the street at once and they continue drinking on outside or go to after hours parties.
So early bar closing times tend to have the opposite effect.
The laws in England were changed years ago. When you walk near pubs at midnight, there are women passed out from drink on the large pavements. I once had to step over a prone body. It’s like a Hogarth print. In fact, there’s talk of cracking down on drink and returning to the old-fashioned pub hours.
I’ve never seen that in Manhattan. My Manhattan apartment has an Irish pub three stores down on 2nd Avenue. When I get out of the taxi late on a Saturday night, it’s amazing how well-behaved everyone is coming out. Also, congregating on the sidewalk, drunk, does not occur.
My husband used to refer to the closing hour (in Britain) as ‘chucking out time’. We tried to never be driving around at ‘chucking out time’ as it was dangerous to be on those narrow roads with all those who had been imbibing.