Literary New York: Its Landmarks and Associations

by Charles Hemstreet

It is hard to locate Pfaff's place now. Go to look for it on the east side of Broadway, above Bleecker Street three or four doors, and you will be disappointed, for there is nothing to locate—just a conventional business house. Take an idle hour and picture it in memory; that will be better. Thinking of it now it is quite natural to contrast it with modern eating- and drinking-houses, famous for their mirror-lined walls, richly carved appointments, carpeted floors, and flashing electric lights. Pfaff's was a hole beneath the surface of the street, ill-lighted, ill-ventilated, ill-kept. But it is far better to read George Arnold's poem embodying the spirit of the cellar, and recording how the company was "very merry at Pfaff's." This poet was one of the merry company in the days when he wrote regularly for the columns of Vanity Fair. He has himself said that some of the poems were written in the late hours after an evening spent in the underground Broadway resort with Fitz-Hugh Ludlow, with Mortimer Thomson, the famous "Q. K. Philander Doesticks," and a score of like writers. It was Arnold, too, who caused an hour of sadness when he took there the story of the death of Henry W. Herbert, who was well known to all the habitués. They all knew his life's story; they had heard him tell of his father, the Dean of Manchester and cousin to the Earl of Carnarvon; they had heard him tell how he had come to New York from London, how he had taught in the school in Beaver Street near Whitehall, and how in that little school he had partly written his historical romance Cromwell, and how he had mapped out some of the others that followed it. They knew, too, how he had, under the name of "Frank Forester," produced such books as American Game in its Season, The Horse and Horsemanship in North America, and become famous by novel-writing. He was the first to introduce sports of the field into fiction in America. Some of his comrades knew the unhappiness that had crept into his life, but even his dearest friends were not prepared for the news which Arnold brought one day, that "Frank Forester" had died by his own hand in a room on the second floor of the Stevens House, there in Broadway by the Bowling Green, not more than the throw of a stone from the place where, in his early days in New York, he had taught school.

Another friend of George Arnold's, who sometimes spent hours with him at Pfaff's, was George Farrar Browne, but few will remember him by this name, while many will recall that which he made famous, Artemus Ward. He had passed his apprenticeship as a printer and reporter, had made the country ring with the name of the lively but illiterate showman, and was in New York trying to carry Vanity Fair to success—a task which he could not accomplish.

Another of the Pfaff company was Thomas Bailey Aldrich. This was at a time when he had editorial charge of the Saturday Press after he had come from Portsmouth and served three years at his desk in the commission house of his rich uncle. Working over the books of the firm, his mind was often busy with themes outside of the commission house, all tending towards a literary career.

Another lounger at Pfaff's whose name has become famous in the world of letters was William Winter, who was sometimes a visitor. Howells went there on his first visit to New York and dined with Walt Whitman, and there were others—Bayard Taylor and Stedman among them.

It was only a few minutes' walk from Pfaff's to Washington Square, and there could be found the substantial-appearing University building, where Theodore Winthrop had his office and where he wrote Cecil Dreeme and John Brent. From that gloomy building he was called to the war, and to his home there friends brought the details of his death—shot through the heart while rallying his men in an attack which he had helped to plan at the action of Big Bethel in June, 1861. At the time of his death he was scarcely known as a writer, and it was not until the publication of Cecil Dreeme that the world realized that it had lost an entertaining story-teller as well as a brave soldier when Winthrop fell.

Among others who served in the Seventh Regiment of New York, of which Theodore Winthrop was a member, was Fitz-James O'Brien, the erratic and brilliant journalist, whose tale of The Diamond Lens was his best contribution to the literature of the day. The only literary man of the Seventh to return to New York was O'Brien's friend, Charles Graham Halpine, who resigned, and lived to make his name famous by his humorous sketches of army life supposed to have been penned by "Private Miles O'Reilly."

The name of Winthrop naturally suggests the name of Dr. John W. Draper, who was associated with the University of New York for more than thirty years. His technical writings made his name known over the world, and he spent many years of his life in the dingy old University building working on a History of Intellectual Development in Europe.