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The End of the American Bohemian Group at Pfaff’s

The coterie of American Bohemians drank beer and wrote poetry at the 647 Broadway location throughout the Antebellum years; however, as early as 1861, the year that marked the start of the Civil War, the group may have begun to go their separate ways. The new restaurants and saloons that opened near Broadway meant Pfaff’s customers now had more establishments to choose from, and Megargee insisted that “the first blow delivered at Pfaff’s” both to the proprietor and to the Bohemian group occurred in 1861 when “a man named Garrad opened a rival chop house in Bleecker street next to the Savings Bank, which was also graced with a round table.”1 According to The New York Times, this chop house had begun as a saloon known as “Shades” in 1860, which was located at 71 Bleecker Street and belonged to A. S. Pentin. Pentin sold the place to a “burly,

Laura Keene's Theatre
jovial mutton-chop-whiskered Londoner” named William Garrard the following year.2 Garrard named the place the De Soto, and he served a number of house specialties including “chops, port wine, brandy, and English ale.” Within a few months of opening, Garrard had a booming business on his hands, and customers “had to wait their turn in front of the little cubby hole of a bar which would barely hold the stalwart Boniface and his assistant.”3 Interestingly enough, at about the same time as Garrad was gaining popularity with New York saloon patrons, the Wilson’s Business Directory for 1861-1862 listed Pfaff’s establishment as a “Porter House,” presumably a reference to the dark style of English beer of the same name.4 Even though Pfaff may have been serving porter as well as lager beer at that time, in the evenings, writers, artists, and journalists came to the De Soto along with actors and drama critics, a crowd very similar to that which frequented Pfaff’s.5 Garrad’s patrons would later include Southern sympathizers and the actors and actresses from both Laura Keene’s Theatre and the Winter Garden. This may have marked the beginning of the end of the American Bohemian circle. The new saloon, so very close to Pfaff’s place, became popular among Pfaff’s loyal customers; it “caused a division in the Bohemian circle, and from that time the fame of the cellar alcove began to pale.”6

The start of the Civil War in 1861 also played a role in the dissolution of the Bohemian social circle since Fitz James O’Brien and 

Miles O'Reilly
Miles O’Reilly would both serve as Civil War soldiers, and even Walt Whitman left Pfaff’s in December 1862 and went on to become a volunteer in the wartime hospitals in Washington. Pfaff’s would, from time to time, attract new customers, especially at the beginning of the Civil War, when young, middle and upper class men like Whitman’s comrade and New York native Fred Gray and his group of friends—a set of bachelors and young men-about-town—visited the cellar while they waited to see if the war would continue before they enlisted. But young soldiers and their commanding officers soon began to patronize Garrad’s: “Among those who delighted in the place in those days were

Gen. John A. Dix
Gen. John A. Dix, his staff officers, Gen. Canby, Superintendent John A. Kennedy, Inspectors Daniel Carpenter and James Leonard, Col. Whitley of the United States Secret Service, [and] Capt. John Young of the Police Headquarters detective force.”7 Both this new competition and the changes that the Civil War brought with respect to Charles Pfaff’s patrons may have been factors in his decision to move to 653 Broadway in 1864, a place that was a bit farther away from Bleecker Street, but closer to Bond Street, and a move in the direction of the theaters as well. Pfaff’s competition from Garrad may also have played a role in his efforts to turn his new restaurant and saloon into a summer garden that would retain the interest of any former patrons that had not yet gone off to other circles and who were not then involved in military service outside the state, while also attracting many New York tourists.

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