Pepper Pot Inn

146 West 4th Street | Greenwich Village | built 1828

Open on the map5 entries

The lot about 1940
About 1940. Via 1940s.nyc
The lot about 1985
About 1985. Via 80s.nyc

The city photographed every building for its tax records around 1940 and again in the 1980s. NYC Municipal Archives.

Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.

  1. 1918

    Carlyle and Viola Sherlock open the Pepper Pot Inn in a Federal row house

    Former silent-film actors Carlyle "Doc" Sherlock and his wife Viola turned the Federal-style house into a restaurant-nightclub in 1918. The basement dining room was hung with chili peppers and paper lanterns, and tables held towers of melted candle wax that artists carved. The third floor housed a bridge room and Frank Marshall's chess club.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  2. 1921

    February 17

    Neighbors take the Pepper Pot to court over jazz, and the owner turns the tables

    Two women across the street complained to a Jefferson Market magistrate in February 1921 that they could not sleep for the jazz. At the hearing on February 17, Carlyle Sherlock said his landlady, one of the complainants, had raised his rent from $25 to $125 a month in a year, and that chess players used the club. The charge of conducting a noisy public nuisance was dismissed.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  3. 1925

    December 19

    City College students brawl through the Bridge Room, smashing Viola Sherlock's vases

    On December 19, 1925, seventy City College sophomores were holding a smoker in the Bridge Room when about 200 freshmen rushed in. The Times reported that pottery, silverware and chair legs were used as weapons. Intruders broke into Viola Sherlock's upstairs studio and smashed rare Egyptian vases, but police made no arrests.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  4. 1958

    The Showplace stages Jerry Herman's revue Nightcap

    After the Pepper Pot years, the building housed Jim Paul Eilers' Showplace, a venue for musical revues in the early off-off-Broadway scene. Jerry Herman's revue Nightcap played there for eight months in 1958 and was later expanded into Parade. The Landmarks Preservation Commission cites it among the notable venues of the South Village.

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  5. 1971

    July 18

    Federal agents and police raid a Gambino-run after-hours club in the old Pepper Pot

    By 1965 the upper floors were apartments, but an illicit after-hours spot called The New Showcase operated in the building under the control of the Carlo Gambino crime family. Federal agents and NYPD officers closed it in a predawn raid on July 18, 1971.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

Further reading

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