Pete's Tavern

66 Irving Place | also 127 East 18th Street | Gramercy | built 1900

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. 1864

    A tavern is first documented at East 18th Street and Irving Place

    The corner's grocery had turned into a saloon at some point, possibly as early as 1852, but the first firm record of a tavern here dates to 1864, as the Civil War neared its end. The tavern had a carved rosewood bar with an impressive mirrored Victorian backbar. The surrounding Gramercy Park homes were by then well established.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  2. 1899

    Tom and John Healy take over the tavern that O. Henry would write about

    Drinks have been sold at this corner since at least 1864. The Healy brothers bought the bar in 1899 and renamed it Healy's. O. Henry, who lived nearby at 55 Irving Place from 1903 to 1907, used it under another name in his story The Lost Blend. The popular claim that he wrote The Gift of the Magi in one of its booths is likely a legend.

    Source: Wikipedia

  3. 1926

    Peter D'Belles buys the bar and keeps it pouring behind a flower shop front

    The tavern took its current name in 1926 when Peter D'Belles bought it. During Prohibition it kept operating in secret, disguised as a flower shop. It claims to be the city's oldest continuously operating bar and restaurant, and it sits within the Gramercy Park Historic District, designated in 1966.

    Source: Wikipedia

  4. 1939

    Ludwig Bemelmans writes the first Madeline book at Pete's Tavern

    Illustrator and author Ludwig Bemelmans sits and writes at Pete's Tavern, working on the first Madeline children's book, following a literary tradition established decades earlier when O. Henry wrote there. The rosewood bar and pressed-tin ceiling that Bemelmans would have seen still remain in the tavern today.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  5. 1966

    The Gramercy Park Historic District is designated around Pete's Tavern

    Pete's Tavern sits inside the Gramercy Park Historic District, which the Landmarks Preservation Commission designated in 1966. The tavern bills itself as an official historical landmark, but it is neither an individually designated New York City landmark nor listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The historic district is the protection that covers it.

    Source: Wikipedia

Further reading

Nearby

All 40 buildings with stories in Gramercy