Pfaff's beer cellar
Coordinates: 40°43′36″N 73°59′45″W / 40.72675°N 73.99580°W
Pfaff's was a drinking establishment in Manhattan, New York City, known for its literary and artistic clientele.
Opened in 1855 by Charles Ignatious Pfaff, the original Pfaff’s was modeled after the German Rathskellers that were popular in Europe at the time. Charles Pfaff's beer cellar was located on Broadway near Bleecker Street (before 1862, Pfaff's address was given as 647 Broadway; after 1865, its location was advertised as 653 Broadway) in Greenwich Village, New York City. To enter the beer cellar—which was actually a vaulted ceiling bar and restaurant—its patrons had to go down a set of stairs.
From the mid-1850s to the late 1860s, Pfaff’s was the center of New York’s revolutionary culture. As writer Allan Gurganus has said, "Pfaff’s was the Andy Warhol factory, the Studio 54, the Algonquin Round Table all rolled into one."
Habitués included journalist and social critic Henry Clapp, Jr., Walt Whitman, author and actress Ada Clare, poet and actress Adah Isaacs Menken, playwright John Brougham, artist Elihu Vedder, pianist and composer Louis Moreau Gottschalk (who also had an affair with Ada Clare), actor Edwin Booth, author Fitz Hugh Ludlow, and humorist Artemus Ward. Whitman called Charlie Pfaff "a generous German restaurateur, silent, stout, jolly," as well as "the best selector of champagne in America." Whitman also wrote an unfinished poem about Pfaff’s called "The Two Vaults," which included the lines:
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