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| Cedar Tavern | |
|---|---|
| Name | Cedar Tavern |
| Other name | Cedar Bar |
| Established | 1915 |
| Closed | 1982 |
| Location | Greenwich Village, Manhattan, New York City |
| Coordinates | 40.7282°N 74.0007°W |
| Type | Tavern, bar, literary salon, artists' hangout |
| Patrons | Frank O'Hara; Jackson Pollock; Willem de Kooning; Mark Rothko; Allen Ginsberg |
Cedar Tavern was a recurring locus for twentieth-century American artistic and literary exchange in Manhattan's Greenwich Village. The establishment functioned as a nexus for painters, poets, critics, and musicians associated with Abstract Expressionism, Beat Generation, and postwar avant-garde movements. Over its operational decades the tavern became entwined with the careers of numerous artists, shaping dialogues that influenced exhibitions, manifestos, and literary journals.
Opened in 1915, the tavern initially served neighborhood workers before evolving into an artists' haunt by the 1940s and 1950s. During the postwar period the site intersected with the trajectories of Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning, whose practices contributed to the emergence of Abstract Expressionism alongside figures such as Mark Rothko and Barnett Newman. Poets affiliated with the Beat Generation—including Allen Ginsberg and Frank O'Hara—frequented the space, linking literary developments to visual art debates involving critics from The New York Times and galleries like Peggy Guggenheim Collection advocates. The tavern witnessed debates over representation, color field painting, and action painting that paralleled exhibitions at institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art.
Through the 1960s and 1970s, the venue continued to host conversations as movements like Pop Art and Minimalism emerged, with visitors including proponents and detractors from galleries like Stable Gallery and Leo Castelli Gallery. Economic shifts in Manhattan, changes in neighborhood demographics, and evolving cultural scenes led to decreased prominence in the late 1970s. The establishment closed in 1982, marking the end of an era frequently referenced in memoirs, oral histories, and critical studies.
Situated in Greenwich Village, the tavern occupied a modest storefront on a side street characterized by Federalist-era townhouses and walk-up apartments. The interior featured sawdust-strewn floors, a long wooden bar, mirrored back-shelves, and a low ceiling—elements that resonated with the informal ambience prized by artists associated with Tenth Street galleries and downtown studios. The layout facilitated prolonged gatherings; small tables, barstools, and booths enabled impromptu readings, sketching sessions, and debates among visitors from institutions like School of Visual Arts and New York University.
Architecturally the space reflected vernacular commercial design common to early twentieth-century Manhattan taverns, with signage and neon lighting visible from the sidewalk—an urban tableau often depicted in photographs by documentarians linked to the New York School and photographers such as W. Eugene Smith and Diane Arbus. Its proximate location made it accessible to artists commuting from lofts in SoHo and students from Columbia University.
The tavern functioned as an incubator for critical exchange, where painters and poets cross-pollinated practices associated with Abstract Expressionism and the New York School (poets). Conversations that occurred there influenced catalogues raisonnés, exhibition curatorship at venues like the Guggenheim Museum, and poetry anthologies circulated by editors of The New Yorker and small presses such as City Lights Booksellers & Publishers advocates. The informal salon contributed to mythologies surrounding figures like Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning and supported the social networks that enabled gallery introductions to dealers such as Leo Castelli and Martha Jackson.
Critical dialogues at the tavern also intersected with emerging movements—discussions about surface and gesture paralleled writings by critics like Clement Greenberg and Harold Rosenberg, whose reviews in publications such as Artforum and Partisan Review shaped reputations. Musicians and composers from downtown scenes, including associates of John Cage and performers linked to Village Vanguard, occasionally participated, further entwining visual, literary, and musical avant-gardes.
Frequent patrons included painters Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Mark Rothko, and Franz Kline; poets and critics such as Frank O'Hara, Allen Ginsberg, John Ashbery, and Harold Rosenberg; and dealers and curators like Leo Castelli and Sidney Janis. Anecdotes recount heated exchanges—sometimes physical—between artists over canvases and critical praise, contributing to the tavern's lore in biographies and documentary films about figures like Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning. Readings by poets from the New York School (poets) often followed gallery openings at spaces like Stable Gallery and Green Gallery, while launch parties for small-press publications and manifestos took place at the bar.
The tavern also hosted moments later recounted in memoirs by participants in exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art and retrospectives at the Whitney Museum of American Art, and served as a backdrop in photographic essays by artists associated with the New York School.
After its closure in 1982 the tavern's memory persisted in biographies, oral histories, and scholarship on postwar American art and literature. Its role as a social hub has been cited in monographs on Abstract Expressionism, studies of the Beat Generation, and exhibitions tracing the social networks underpinning downtown art worlds. Contemporary historians and curators reference the tavern when mapping relationships between artists, dealers, and institutions such as the Guggenheim Museum and Museum of Modern Art; its atmosphere is evoked in novels, films, and retrospectives that reconstruct midcentury New York scenes.
The tavern's cultural afterlife includes commemorative exhibitions, documentary features, and archival collections housed in repositories connected to figures like Frank O'Hara and Allen Ginsberg. While the physical site no longer operates, its symbolic function endures in studies of the downtown scenes that shaped twentieth-century American art and literature.
Category:Bars in Manhattan Category:Greenwich Village Category:American art history