Wow. You see, I missed out on all of that and only know it from old-timers.
The Post building was the coolest. Sad to see it gone to waste as a Manhattan Storage site. At least the old Park Row Times building is a Pace University building.
Gough's was an institution. Great Gough's story: for years there was a dirty, ornate frame some six feet high behind one of the booths. The canvas it held was so dirty from cigarette smoke an grim, it basically looked like a picture of a black cat at midnight. One of the art guys from the Times take the picture one day and decides he's going to restore it. Doesn't have a clue how to do it, but he reads some books and starts. About a year later, the fully restored painting comes back into the bar -- who is it? It's an enormous, life-sized portrait of John L. Sullivan in formal attire.
I was in there one night and there's a very proper British actress in the back booth giving an interview to the reporter about her new play that's about to open. The interview ends and roughly three hours later, she on the bar -- literally on the bar -- singing the filthiest songs you can imagine to a full house.