Butter-Cake Dick's was a Manhattan café in the cellar of the ''

New-York Daily Tribune The ''New-York Tribune'' was an American newspaper founded in 1841 by editor Horace Greeley. It bore the moniker ''New-York Daily Tribune'' from 1842 to 1866 before returning to its original name. From the 1840s through the 1860s it was the dom ...

'' building in

Spruce Street Spruce Street is a three-block-long street in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan, New York City. It starts at Park Row, near the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge, and runs east to Gold Street, intersecting with Nassau Street. History Spru ...

. It was named after the proprietor, Richard Marshall, who had been a newsman but now sold butter-cakes, also known as sinkers, which were a type of rich biscuit containing a knob of butter. It was open all night and did good business with newsboys and politicians from the nearby

Tammany Hall Tammany Hall, also known as the Society of St. Tammany, the Sons of St. Tammany, or the Columbian Order, was a New York City political organization founded in 1786 and incorporated on May 12, 1789 as the Tammany Society. It became the main loc ...

who would treat journalists to a butter-cake as a form of patronage or bribe. In the 1850s, the price of a butter-cake with a cup of coffee was three cents.

References

Coffeehouses and cafés in Manhattan 19th century in Manhattan Defunct restaurants in Manhattan {{NYC-restaurant-stub