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Life after the Restaurant Business: Charles Pfaff, Jr., Amateur Athlete

Charles Pfaff, Jr. was seemingly the only surviving child of the restaurant owner. Although he had assisted his father at the 9 W. 24th Street location of “Pfaff’s,” he either could not afford to or simply chose not to continue in the restaurant and hotel business— at least not as a proprietor—after his father lost his last restaurant. Pfaff, Jr.’s biographical information has proven difficult to trace because there is no evidence that he ever married or had a family, and his name is, of course, not unusual. With the exceptions of Night Side of New York’s description of Pfaff, Sr. carrying young Charles around the bar-room and a brief mention of him in a biography of the actress Adah Isaacs Menken, Charles, Jr., much like his mother (although perhaps for different reasons) does not appear in the writings of the cellar’s regular customers. Yet, it is certain that, on some occasions, he did go with his father to the restaurant. Even so, the only time Pfaff, Jr.’s association with American Bohemia is explicitly acknowledged is when Menken’s biographer,

Knickerbocker Athletic Club Newspaper Article
Noel Bertram Gerson credits Charles Pfaff, Jr., with telling him that “Miss Menken reacted with pleasure when they notified her that Menken had divorced her, saying in the hearing distance of many, “Now thank the Lord, I am free.”1 If Pfaff, Jr. did relate this story to Gerson, it is likely that he was offering up a version of events that had been recounted by other Pfaff’s patrons after Adah’s marriage to Alex Menken ended since the official divorce petition was filed in 1860, when Pfaff, Jr. was, at most, only three-years-old.2

Pfaff, Jr. seems to have spent most of his childhood and much of his adult life in New York except for approximately five years—in the early and mid-1870s—when he attended Nazareth Hall in Pennsylvania. He worked first in connection with his father’s last restaurant and hotel and, later, he appears to have been employed in a series of jobs, where he likely utilized his skills as a clerk. Unlike his father, Pfaff, Jr.’s name was not known in New York as a result of his business savvy. But Charles Pfaff, Jr., would have certainly been familiar to some sports fans because the son of the famous proprietor was an avid participant in various athletic events and contests in the world of amateur sports. For example, he participated in the Knickerbocker Athletic Club’s amateur championship walk of twenty-five miles.3 But Pfaff, Jr. was primarily a speed-skater affiliated with the Manhattan Athletic Club, and he skated in races on the ice in his native New York and as far away as Canada.4 In addition to one victory on the ice, as of March 21, 1885, Charles Pfaff, Jr. held several amateur skating records in the United States, including one for “Running long jump on skates,” with “73 yards, 1 foot straightaway, with flying start and with the wind.”5 


Manhattan Athletic Club
With the exception of the sports pages of newspapers and/or gentleman’s magazines that covered the speed-skating competitions Pfaff entered, he seems to have lived his life largely outside the press, the family’s restaurant fame, and the American Bohemian crowd that had been associated with his father. The descriptions of Pfaff—as an “amateur skater” and the “smallest” in stature among the competitors—present a young athlete who must have stood in stark contrast, at least physically to his “rotund,” “broad,” and “shaggy” father.6 Pfaff, Jr. did not receive the kind of press coverage his father and the restaurants had either. There are census records, however, that may shed some light on Pfaff, Jr.’s life. In 1920, the U. S. federal census for New York lists Charles Pfaff as a “lodger,” age 63, single, and a “stock broker.” At the time, he was residing in a boarding house on West 92nd street, managed by Ms. Hattie S. Parsons. The birthplace of both of Pfaff’s parents is recorded as “Germany.”7 According to the New York State census records for 1925, there is a Charles Pfaff, age 68, a salesman, who is residing as a lodger at a Fort Washington Avenue home, and the 1930 federal census, includes a record for a Charles Pfaff age 70, who is working as a clerk in a hotel and boarding at the Manhattan home of Antonio Faval and his wife Ilma.8 The last U.S. federal census record that appears to include this Charles Pfaff is dated April 5, 1940, and at that time, Pfaff is an “inmate” of the Manhattan State Hospital at

Ward's Island
Ward’s Island, where he had begun residing sometime between the years of 1935 and 1940. According to this final record, he is 82, single, unable to work and is seemingly confined to the hospital room due to his advanced age and/or because he had no spouse, children, or other family members to care for him.9 Given what is known about Pfaff, Jr.’s life—that he was born in 1857 or 1858 and that no wife or children were ever mentioned in connection with his name— these listings for a “Charles Pfaff,” who boarded in others’ homes until he was hospitalized, may be among the only extant records of Pfaff, Jr.’s life.

There is a death record for Charles Pfaff, however, who passed away on July 11, 1940, at the age of 83, which would mean he was born between April 5th and July 11, 1857, the approximate year that is consistent with most census records for the son of the famous restaurateur.10 If this is indeed Pfaff Sr.’s son, it means that Charles Pfaff, Jr. not only lived through the Civil War during his early years (only being around eight- years-old when the War officially ended), but that he also saw World War I (he would have turned fifty-seven in 1914), and he was still alive at the beginning of World War II, although by this time he may not have been aware of the news and events taking place outside of the State Hospital. At the same time, because the aforementioned Charles Pfaff seems to have passed away while he was a patient in the hospital, and since there does not seem to be any evidence that he married, it is tempting to speculate that he had no wife or children to provide information about his life on the occasion of his death. Furthermore, at the age of 83, he had likely outlived most if not all of his friends who might have had memories of him as a young man. Therefore, despite his early years as an amateur athlete and, perhaps, even because of his long life there may be few if any obituaries or records of memoriam following his death. His place of burial is also uncertain. His name does not appear in the online index of interments at Green-Wood Cemetery, where his father was buried, and the location of his mother’s grave is unknown.

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