The Cedar Tavern (or Cedar Street Tavern) was a bar and restaurant at the eastern edge of
Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village ( , , ) is a neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 14th Street to the north, Broadway to the east, Houston Street to the south, and the Hudson River to the west. Greenwich Village ...
,
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
. In its heyday, known as a gathering place for
avant garde writers and artists, it was located at 24
University Place, near 8th Street. It was famous in its day as a hangout of many prominent
Abstract Expressionist
Abstract expressionism is a post–World War II art movement in American painting, developed in New York City in the 1940s. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve international influence and put New York at the center of the ...
painters and
Beat
Beat, beats or beating may refer to:
Common uses
* Patrol, or beat, a group of personnel assigned to monitor a specific area
** Beat (police), the territory that a police officer patrols
** Gay beat, an area frequented by gay men
* Battery (c ...
writers and poets. It closed in April 1963 and reopened three blocks north in 1964, at 82
University Place, between 11th and 12th Streets.
History
1860s-1950s
The Cedar Tavern was opened in 1866 on Cedar Street, near present day
Zuccotti Park
Zuccotti Park (formerly Liberty Plaza Park) is a publicly accessible park in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan, New York City. It is located in a privately owned public space (POPS) controlled by Brookfield Properties and Goldman Sachs ...
. In 1933 it moved north to 55 West
Eighth Street. In 1945 it moved east to 24 University Place.
[Lieber, Edvard. ''Willem de Kooning: Reflections in the Studio'', Abrams:2000, pg. 127.] In 1955, the Cedar Tavern was purchased by Sam Diliberto, a butcher, and his brother in law, John Bodnar, a window washer, from Joe Provenzano.
1950s
Robert Motherwell
Robert Motherwell (January 24, 1915 – July 16, 1991) was an American abstract expressionist painter, printmaker, and editor of ''The Dada Painters and Poets: an Anthology''. He was one of the youngest of the New York School, which also inc ...
had a studio nearby in the early 1950s, and he held a weekly salon for artists there. The Cedar was the closest place for them to have a drink afterwards. Habitués liked it for its cheap drinks and lack of tourists or middle-class squares. University Place in those days was downmarket because of the several welfare and single-room occupancy hotels in the area.
Jackson Pollock
Paul Jackson Pollock (; January 28, 1912August 11, 1956) was an American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement. He was widely noticed for his " drip technique" of pouring or splashing liquid household paint onto a hor ...
,
Willem de Kooning
Willem de Kooning (; ; April 24, 1904 – March 19, 1997) was a Dutch-American abstract expressionist artist. He was born in Rotterdam and moved to the United States in 1926, becoming an American citizen in 1962. In 1943, he married painter El ...
,
Mark Rothko
Mark Rothko (), born Markus Yakovlevich Rothkowitz (russian: Ма́ркус Я́ковлевич Ротко́вич, link=no, lv, Markuss Rotkovičs, link=no; name not Anglicized until 1940; September 25, 1903 – February 25, 1970), was a Lat ...
,
Franz Kline
Franz Kline (May 23, 1910 – May 13, 1962) was an American painter. He is associated with the Abstract Expressionist movement of the 1940s and 1950s. Kline, along with other action painters like Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Robert Mot ...
,
Michael Goldberg, Landes Lewitin,
Aristodimos Kaldis Aristodimos Kaldis (August 15, 1899 in Dikeli, Asia Minor, Turkey – May, 1979) was an artist and left-wing activist in New York.
Aristodimos Kaldis was influential in the gallery and museum scene during the 1950s. His friendship with leading mem ...
,
Lynne Drexler,
Phillip Guston,
Knute Stiles Knute Stiles (1923-December 1, 2009) was a union organizer, painter, collagist, art critic, poet and entrepreneur. He was born in Minnesota, the son of the state's first female physician. He went to the St. Paul Art School, and after World War II, a ...
,
Ted Joans, James Brooks, Charles Cajori,
Mercedes Matter
Mercedes Matter (née Carles; 1913 – December 4, 2001) was an American painter, draughtswoman, and writer. She was a founding member of the American Abstract Artists, and the Founder and Dean Emeritus of the New York Studio School. ...
,
Howard Kanovitz
Howard Kanovitz (February 9, 1929 – February 2, 2009) was a pioneering painter in the Photorealist and Hyperrealist Movements, which emerged in the 1960s and 1970s in response to the abstract art movement.
Howard Kanovitz, whose 50-year car ...
, Al Leslie, Stanley Twardowicz,
Morton Feldman
Morton Feldman (January 12, 1926 – September 3, 1987) was an American composer. A major figure in 20th-century classical music, Feldman was a pioneer of indeterminate music, a development associated with the experimental New York School ...
,
John Cage, and others of the
New York School all patronized the bar in the 1950s when many lived in or near
Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village ( , , ) is a neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 14th Street to the north, Broadway to the east, Houston Street to the south, and the Hudson River to the west. Greenwich Village ...
. Historians consider it an important incubator of the Abstract Expressionist movement.
It was also popular with writers
Allen Ginsberg
Irwin Allen Ginsberg (; June 3, 1926 – April 5, 1997) was an American poet and writer. As a student at Columbia University in the 1940s, he began friendships with William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, forming the core of the Beat Gener ...
,
Jack Kerouac,
Gregory Corso
Gregory Nunzio Corso (March 26, 1930 – January 17, 2001) was an American poet and a key member of the Beat movement. He was the youngest of the inner circle of Beat Generation writers (with Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and William S. Burrou ...
,
Frank O'Hara
Francis Russell "Frank" O'Hara (March 27, 1926 – July 25, 1966) was an American writer, poet, and art critic. A curator at the Museum of Modern Art, O'Hara became prominent in New York City's art world. O'Hara is regarded as a leading figure i ...
,
George Plimpton
George Ames Plimpton (March 18, 1927 – September 25, 2003) was an American writer. He is widely known for his sports writing and for helping to found ''The Paris Review'', as well as his patrician demeanor and accent. He was also known for " ...
,
Jean Stein
Jean Babette Stein (February 9, 1934 – April 30, 2017) was an American author and editor.
Early life
Stein was born to a Jewish family in Chicago. Her father was Jules C. Stein (1896–1981), co-founder of the Music Corporation of America (M ...
,
Harold "Doc" Humes,
Alex Trocchi, and
LeRoi Jones. Pollock was eventually banned from the establishment for tearing the bathroom door off its hinges and hurling it across the room at Franz Kline, as was Kerouac, who allegedly urinated in an ashtray.
1960s
Sam and John looked to the
East Village around St. Mark's Pl. to reopen after the building was sold and demolished in 1963. After a year they bought the building at 82 University Place, which had been occupied by an antique store, and built the new bar in a more upscale pub style. By this time Pollock and Kline were gone, de Kooning had moved to East Hampton, and the scene gradually dissipated.
In the 1960s,
Tuli Kupferberg
Naphtali "Tuli" Kupferberg (September 28, 1923 – July 12, 2010) was an American counterculture poet, author, singer, cartoonist, publisher, and co-founder of the rock band The Fugs.
Biography
Naphtali Kupferberg was born into a Jewish, Yi ...
of
The Fugs
The Fugs are an American rock band formed in New York City in late 1964, by the poets Ed Sanders and Tuli Kupferberg, with Ken Weaver on drums. Soon afterward, they were joined by Peter Stampfel and Steve Weber of The Holy Modal Rounders. Ku ...
,
David Amram
David Werner Amram III (born November 17, 1930) is an American composer, arranger, and conductor of orchestral, chamber, and choral works, many with jazz flavorings. , and occasionally
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan (legally Robert Dylan, born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. Often regarded as one of the greatest songwriters of all time, Dylan has been a major figure in popular culture during a career sp ...
, were known to patronize the Cedar Tavern.
D.A. Pennebaker, Dylan, and
Bob Neuwirth
Robert John Neuwirth (June 20, 1939May 18, 2022) was an American folk singer, songwriter, record producer, and visual artist. He was noted for being the road manager and associate of Bob Dylan, as well as the co-writer of Janis Joplin's hit s ...
met there to plan the shooting of their 1967 documentary, ''
Dont Look Back
'' Look Back'' is a 1967 American documentary film directed by D. A. Pennebaker that covers Bob Dylan's 1965 concert tour in England.
In 1998, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library o ...
.''
2000s
Diliberto's sons Mike and Joe ran the place successfully for many years until 2006, when they decided to develop the site into condominiums. In December 2006, the Cedar Tavern closed to allow for the construction of a seven-story addition to the building in which it is housed. Its owners had pledged to reopen in six months, but an opinion piece in the December 3, 2006, edition of ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'' speculated that it was closed for good. This proved prescient; in the wake of Joe Diliberto's death on October 27, 2007, his brother Mike failed to reopen the establishment.
When the Cedar Tavern closed in 2006, its century-old, 50 foot mahogany bar was sold to Austin businessmen, John M. Scott and Eddy Patterson. The bar was taken apart into hundreds of pieces, transported by movers of fine art, and stored for ten years. In 2016, it was brought out of storage to serve as the centerpiece of Eberly, a restaurant in Austin, Texas.
The 24 University Place site, where most of the significant events in the establishment's history occurred, is now a full-block residential building; the primary ground-floor retail space of the building's University Place frontage is occupied by a
CVS Pharmacy
CVS Pharmacy, Inc. is an American retail corporation. A subsidiary of CVS Health, it is headquartered in Woonsocket, Rhode Island. It was also known as, and originally named, the Consumer Value Store and was founded in Lowell, Massachusetts, in ...
.
Artist photos
(Selection was limited by availability.)
File:Amiri Baraka.jpg, Writer Amiri Baraka (formerly known as Leroi Jones) in San Antonio Park, Oakland, California in 2007.
File:John Cage (1988).jpg, Composer John Cage in 1988.
File:Willem de Kooning in his studio.jpg, Artist Willem de Kooning
Willem de Kooning (; ; April 24, 1904 – March 19, 1997) was a Dutch-American abstract expressionist artist. He was born in Rotterdam and moved to the United States in 1926, becoming an American citizen in 1962. In 1943, he married painter El ...
in 1975.
File:Persconferentie componist Morton Feldman in concertgebouw Amsterdam in verband m, Bestanddeelnr 928-6143.jpg, Composer Morton Feldman
Morton Feldman (January 12, 1926 – September 3, 1987) was an American composer. A major figure in 20th-century classical music, Feldman was a pioneer of indeterminate music, a development associated with the experimental New York School ...
in 1976.
File:Allen Ginsberg and Bob Dylan by Elsa Dorfman.jpg, Poet Allen Ginsberg
Irwin Allen Ginsberg (; June 3, 1926 – April 5, 1997) was an American poet and writer. As a student at Columbia University in the 1940s, he began friendships with William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, forming the core of the Beat Gener ...
and musician Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan (legally Robert Dylan, born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. Often regarded as one of the greatest songwriters of all time, Dylan has been a major figure in popular culture during a career sp ...
, photographed by Elsa Dorfman in 1975.
File:Archives of American Art - Philip Guston - 3028.jpg, Artist Philip Guston
Philip Guston (born Phillip Goldstein, June 27, 1913 – June 7, 1980), was a Canadian American painter, printmaker, muralist and draftsman. Early in his five decade career, muralist David Siquieros described him as one of "the most promising ...
working on a mural in 1940.
File:Kerouac by Palumbo 2.png, Writer Jack Kerouac by photographer Tom Palumbo
Tomas Palumbo (January 25, 1921 – October 13, 2008) was an Italian-born American photographer and theatre director.
Biography
Palumbo was born in Molfetta, Italy, in 1921. His family moved to New York City when he was about twelve years old.
A ...
, c. 1956.
File:TuliKupferberg.jpg, Musician Tuli Kupferberg
Naphtali "Tuli" Kupferberg (September 28, 1923 – July 12, 2010) was an American counterculture poet, author, singer, cartoonist, publisher, and co-founder of the rock band The Fugs.
Biography
Naphtali Kupferberg was born into a Jewish, Yi ...
of the Fugs in 2008.
File:Frank O'Hara (photo portrait).jpg, Poet Frank O'Hara
Francis Russell "Frank" O'Hara (March 27, 1926 – July 25, 1966) was an American writer, poet, and art critic. A curator at the Museum of Modern Art, O'Hara became prominent in New York City's art world. O'Hara is regarded as a leading figure i ...
in a mid-century photo.
File:D A Pennebaker 2 by David Shankbone.jpg, Filmmaker D. A. Pennebaker
Donn Alan Pennebaker (; July 15, 1925 – August 1, 2019) was an American documentary filmmaker and one of the pioneers of direct cinema. Performing arts and politics were his primary subjects. In 2013, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sci ...
by David Shankbone in 2007.
File:George Plimpton 1993.jpg, Writer George Plimpton
George Ames Plimpton (March 18, 1927 – September 25, 2003) was an American writer. He is widely known for his sports writing and for helping to found ''The Paris Review'', as well as his patrician demeanor and accent. He was also known for " ...
in a 1993 photograph by Nancy Wong.
Literary and TV depictions
(Selection was limited by availability.)
File:Augusten Burroughs by David Shankbone.jpg, Writer Augusten Burroughs photographed by David Shankbone in 2011. The Cedar Tavern appears in the first chapters of his book ''Dry''.
File:Jonathan Franzen at the Brooklyn Book Festival.jpg, Writer Jonathan Franzen
Jonathan Earl Franzen (born August 17, 1959) is an American novelist and essayist. His 2001 novel '' The Corrections'', a sprawling, satirical family drama, drew widespread critical acclaim, earned Franzen a National Book Award, was a Pulitzer Pr ...
in 2008. Chip Lambert steals $9 from a Cedar Tavern bartender to pay for a cab to Tribeca in ''The Corrections
''The Corrections'' is a 2001 novel by American author Jonathan Franzen. It revolves around the troubles of an elderly Midwestern couple and their three adult children, tracing their lives from the mid-20th century to "one last Christmas" togeth ...
''.
File:Joyce Johnson by David Shankbone.jpg, Writer Joyce Johnson photographed by David Shankbone in 2007. The Cedar Tavern appears in ''Minor Characters'' her memoir about Jack Kerouac.
File:Marvelos.jpg, The cast of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel
''The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel'' is an American period comedy-drama television series, created by Amy Sherman-Palladino, that premiered on March 17, 2017, on Amazon Prime Video. Set in the late 1950s and early 1960s, it stars Rachel Brosnahan as ...
in 2018. In season 2's "Look, She Made a Hat," Benjamin takes Midge to the Cedar Tavern to introduce her to the New York art world.
File:Dawnpowell 1914.jpg, Author Dawn Powell
Dawn Powell (November 28, 1896 – November 14, 1965) was an American novelist, playwright, screenwriter, and short story writer. Known for her acid-tongued prose, "her relative obscurity was likely due to a general distaste for her harsh sati ...
in 1914. The Cedar Tavern is the setting of her book ''The Golden Spur.''
File:Kurt Vonnegut 1972.jpg, Author Kurt Vonnegut
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (November 11, 1922 – April 11, 2007) was an American writer known for his satirical and darkly humorous novels. In a career spanning over 50 years, he published fourteen novels, three short-story collections, five plays, and ...
in 1972. The Cedar Tavern features as the meeting place of fictional artist Rabo Karabekian and his Abstract Expressionist painter friends in ''Bluebeard''.
References
{{Reflist
External links
Features photographs then and now
Abstract expressionism
Beat Generation
1866 establishments in New York (state)
Drinking establishments in Greenwich Village