Elaine's
1703 2nd Avenue | also 1703A 2nd Avenue | Yorkville | built 1900
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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.
- 1963
Elaine Kaufman opens Elaine's, a restaurant for writers and celebrities
Elaine Kaufman opened her restaurant at 1703 Second Avenue, near East 88th Street, in 1963 and ran it for more than four decades. Its regulars included Woody Allen, Norman Mailer, Joseph Heller, Joan Didion and Kurt Vonnegut. Allen filmed the opening dinner scene of Manhattan (1979) here, and later a scene of Celebrity (1998).
Source: Wikipedia
- 1964
Actress Elaine Stritch tends bar at Elaine's
Elaine's was only a year old in 1964 when the actress Elaine Stritch served as its bartender. Another bartender, Thomas Carney, later worked behind the same bar from 1978 until 2007. Over the decades the restaurant drew writers and actors, and visitors included Mick Jagger and Willie Nelson.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1970
Sally Quinn tells Washington Post readers what kind of crowd Elaine Kaufman wants
In 1970 the Washington Post's Sally Quinn wrote that Kaufman did not think of herself as a snob but had a clear picture of the place she wanted to run. Kaufman told Quinn that a writer's personality was not required, since a butcher came in with his wife every week. She said her customers were a little more sophisticated, without being pretentious about it.
Source: nbcnewyork.com
- 1978
Billy Joel name-checks Elaine's in "Big Shot"
Billy Joel's 1978 hit "Big Shot" put Elaine's into the pop charts, singing of the crowd who used to be seen "at Elaine's." The line cemented the Second Avenue restaurant's reputation as the place where New York's writers, actors and socialites went to be noticed.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1979
Woody Allen opens Manhattan with a scene shot at Elaine's
Woody Allen filmed the opening dinner-party scene of his 1979 film Manhattan inside Elaine's, cementing the restaurant's place on screen as well as in the gossip columns. He returned to shoot at Elaine's again for his 1998 film Celebrity.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1988
Gay Talese calls Elaine's a boarding house with a round table
In 1988 the author Gay Talese, a regular, described the restaurant as centered on Elaine Kaufman, whom he called its den mother. He compared it to a boarding house, with a round table where no reservation was needed if Kaufman counted you a friend. Norman Mailer, Kurt Vonnegut, Talese and George Plimpton had become regulars soon after she bought the bar in 1963.
Source: nbcnewyork.com
- 2003
The city's smoking ban reaches Elaine's, and Elaine Kaufman objects
In 2003 New York banned smoking in restaurants, and Kaufman was unhappy about it. She said she had stopped smoking some years before but disliked making her customers give up tobacco at their seats. In a 2002 New York Times essay she wrote that her business was hospitality and that she would much rather say yes than no.
Source: nbcnewyork.com
- 2010
Owner Elaine Kaufman dies, and her restaurant follows six months later
Elaine Kaufman, who had run her namesake restaurant for over four decades, died on December 3, 2010, at age 81. Manager Diane Becker inherited the business but closed it the following May, explaining that there was no Elaine's without Elaine.
Source: Wikipedia
- 2011
Elaine's closes after a 46-year run
Elaine Kaufman died on December 3, 2010, at age 81. The restaurant carried on for a few more months without her and closed on May 26, 2011, ending a 46-year run on this corner of Second Avenue.
Source: Wikipedia
- 2013
The Writing Room opens in Elaine's old space and keeps the canopy
In late 2013 Michael and Susy Glick opened The Writing Room in the space where Elaine's had been. It kept the previous restaurant's original canopy and paid tribute to the writers who had eaten there. It closed in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Source: Wikipedia
- 2021
Cafe d'Alsace takes over the former Elaine's space
In 2021 the French restaurant Cafe d'Alsace moved into the former Elaine's site on Second Avenue. It renovated the interior of the space that had been Elaine's from 1963 to 2011 and then The Writing Room.
Source: Wikipedia
Further reading
- Elaine'sWikipedia
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