Chumley's
86 Bedford Street | West Village | built 1831
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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.
- 1905
Police Captain John J. Murtha lives in the little Federal house with his family and a cook
The two-and-a-half-story brick house at 86 Bedford Street went up between 1820 and 1830 as a plain working-class home. In 1905 it was still a private residence, home to John J. Murtha, a police captain at the Eldridge Street station, together with his wife, two children and a cook. Its rear had been extended, and a side door opened onto a courtyard shared with neighboring buildings.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1922
Leland Stanford Chumley opens a speakeasy in a former blacksmith's shop
Socialist activist Leland Stanford Chumley established Chumley's in 1922, converting a former blacksmith's shop near Bedford and Barrow Streets into a Prohibition-era drinking business. It had unmarked entrances on Barrow and Bedford Streets, along with trap doors and secret stairs meant to avoid detection.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1926
No. 86 is remodeled to disguise the speakeasy's entrance as a garage
The 1969 landmark designation report for the Greenwich Village Historic District notes that in 1926, No. 86 Bedford Street was remodeled to look like a garage even though it actually served as the entrance to one of the era's best-known speakeasies. The disguise let patrons come and go without advertising what was inside.
Source: media.villagepreservation.org
- 1935
Founder Leland Chumley dies of a heart attack, and his wife Henrietta runs the bar until 1960
Leland Chumley, whom the New York Times called a laborer, stage-coach driver, artist, waiter, cartoonist and editorial writer, died in 1935. His wife Henrietta kept managing the bar until 1960. Since repeal in 1933 the place had held onto its Prohibition mood, with no exterior sign, so only people who already knew about it could find it.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1943
The film noir The Seventh Victim fictionalizes Chumley's as a Village bar called Cleary's
The 1943 film noir The Seventh Victim takes place in Greenwich Village and renames Chumley's as Cleary's. The bar later turned up in other stories: two Mad Men episodes send the office staff there for after-work drinks, and Alison Bechdel's memoir Fun Home mentions it.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1948
Simone de Beauvoir writes that Chumley's is the one place in New York where she can read and work all day
Simone de Beauvoir visited several times, though she never spelled the name right, and wrote about the bar in America Day by Day, published in 1948. She described a square room with small tables, old book jackets on the walls and no music, so people could talk. To her it was the one place in New York where a person could read and work all day, then talk all night, without anyone staring or judging.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1988
A New York Times writer counts more than 125 patrons' book jackets on the walls
By house tradition, a writer who came back for a second visit counted as a regular, and Leland Chumley asked for a dust jacket from one of his books to hang on the wall. In 1988 Douglas Martin of The New York Times found more than 125 of them, with people still coming to drink and think. Early drinkers included F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and Eugene O'Neill, and the jackets came to include Norman Mailer, John Steinbeck and William Faulkner.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 2000
Chumley's is named a Literary Landmark
Friends of Libraries USA placed a plaque designating Chumley's a Literary Landmark. The plaque names writers who frequented the bar, including Willa Cather, E. E. Cummings, Theodore Dreiser, William Faulkner, Ring Lardner, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Eugene O'Neill, John Dos Passos and John Steinbeck.
Source: Wikipedia
- 2006
Preservationists warn the city that 86 Bedford Street is missing from its historic district list
In 2006 the preservation group GVSHP told the Department of Buildings that an administrative error had left several hundred buildings, 86 Bedford Street among them, off the department's record of the Greenwich Village Historic District. That let the department issue alteration permits without owners first getting approval from the Landmarks Preservation Commission. The building already had violations for neglecting its facade and for removing structural partitions and digging two feet deeper in the cellar without permits.
Source: Village Preservation
- 2007
A chimney collapse closes Chumley's until 2016
Chumley's closed after the chimney in its dining room collapsed. Following extensive rebuilding, it reopened on October 18, 2016, as a reservations-only restaurant. It closed in March 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, and later businesses have since opened in the building.
Source: Wikipedia
- 2016
Chumley's reopens as a reservations-only restaurant after a nine-year rebuild
Owner Alessandro Borgognone reopened Chumley's on October 18, 2016, nine years after a collapsing chimney had closed the bar. The rebuilt dining room, roughly a tenth smaller than before, kept the old speakeasy's unmarked entrances but operated as a reservations-only restaurant rather than a walk-in bar.
Source: Wikipedia
- 2020
Chumley's closes for good after the pandemic shutdown
Chumley's shut its doors permanently in July 2020, following the citywide COVID-19 lockdown, ending the run that had restarted in 2016 after the chimney collapse. The Bedford Street space later held the Frog Club in 2024 and the Eighty Six steakhouse in 2025.
Source: Wikipedia
- 2025
A steakhouse called the Eighty Six opens in the old Chumley's space after the short-lived Frog Club
After Chumley's closed for good in 2020, a restaurant named Frog Club opened in the building in February 2024 and shut that December. In September 2025 a steakhouse, the Eighty Six, took its place. The address is tied to a rumor that the restaurant term to 86 something began here, when an unruly guest was escorted out the 86 Bedford Street door.
Source: Wikipedia
Further reading
- Chumley'sWikipedia
- Then & Now photos: 86 Bedford StreetVillage Preservation: Greenwich Village Then & Now
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