I spent a bit this morning digging through the NY Public Library online archives for photos of Standard Buffet No. 2, at 231 Barclay St, where William Schmidt held court from roughly 1889–1904. That should be off the NE corner of Broadway and Barclay St, two buildings north of Astor House.
This first photo is ostensibly from the 1870s, which would be well before Schmidt arrived, but around the time Jerry Thomas had a bar at 3 Barclay St, which was a couple doors down the block (out of site—see above map). The full-block building at the left edge of the photo is Astor House. The building Standard Buffet No. 2 should ultimately occupy is two buildings north. (I haven’t figured out what the large structure is at the right edge of the photo, but it’s also long gone—it appears to be sitting on part of what is today City Hall Park.)
And this third one is ostensibly from 1904, with the clearest view of that building, yet. Alas, all we can see is the sign for “Fred Eberlin Co.” on the ground floor.
That mystery building was the US Post Office, which was in the middle of City Hall park. The Fred Eberlin sign is interesting: Fred Eberlin’s downstairs bar on New Street, around the corner from the NYSE, was one of NYC’s most famous watering holes, and lasted from the 1880s, when he left the Hoffman House, to the 1970s (it was the home of the Daisy). This was a branch. Eberlin took it over in 1902 or 1903, long after William Hayward, owner of the Standard Buffet, went nuts, which was in 1896. By the time Eberlin got it William was actually working on Park Place, after working briefly on Dey St; it looks like he left the bar at 231, whoever was running it, in late 1900.
At some point it was also the Exchange Buffet and the Post Office Cafe; it’s a really murky location. William seems to have been the proprietor before Hayward, then worked there under Hayward, and still worked there after Hayward flaked out. I don’t know if there was a stable silent partner throughout or what, although I might have known that once (I have a lot–a lot–of material on William; too much to go through at one go).
Man, what I wouldn’t give to time travel these joints. Three of four days and I’d be good!
If someone pays for it, I’m in. We’ll file it under ‘Fact-Finding Mission’!
It would be a hell of a mission, that’s for sure. I’d just love to see how the bartenders worked–I’m sure there are little things they did that didn’t make it into the books. Oh, and to eat vanished delicacies such as canvasback duck and terrapin stew!
He was committed in early 1896 to an asylum in Amityville for his insane and violent jealousy towards his wife. Later in the year he sued to get out but his testimony, which was reported on extensively, did him no favors and he was kept in stir.
According to that testimony he was a young rake, to the point of shooting duels and bigamy, in Charleston and then enlisted in the Confederate army after Fort Sumter, serving through Second Bull Run, which he spent sipping apple brandy and potting at the Yanks, until he was shot four times.
Oh, and 231 Broadway? His wife bought it for him in 1893 (he had been running the place since 1891 at least). Once he was locked up his son Edwin took it over.
Having spent a fair bit of time in the NYPL photo library as well as the city’s 1940 street photo records, I must say it is uncanny how few photos of saloons (exterior or interior) can be found, considering how damned many there were. Here’s one of the few, which many have already seen before, but which I have significantly cleaned up and sharpened. Alas, undated.
