Scheffel Hall at 190 Third Avenue in the Gramercy Park neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, was built in 1894–1895, and designed by Henry Adams Weber and Hubert Drosser, at a time when the area south of it was known as Kleindeutschland ("Little Germany") due to the large number of German immigrants who lived nearby. The building, which served as a beer hall and restaurant, was modeled after an early 17th-century building in Heidelberg Castle, the "Friedrichsbau", and was named after Joseph Viktor von Scheffel, a German poet and novelist. It later became known as Allaire's,[1] a name still inscribed on the building. The building's style has been described as "German-American eclectic Renaissance Revival".[2]
Later, in the late 1920s, the building was used by the German-American Athletic Club. By 1939 it became the German-American Rathskeller,[1] and then Joe King's Rathskeller. O. Henry used Scheffel Hall as the setting for "The Halberdier of the Little Rheinschloss" and wrote some of his stories there.[1] Beginning in the 1970s, it was the home of Fat Tuesday's, a well-known jazz club, and the restaurant Tuesday's, which lasted until the early 21st century. In subsequent years it was a yoga and pilates studio and today is unoccupied.
Scheffel Hall was designated a New York City landmark in 1997.[3]
- ^ a b c Federal Writers' Project (1939). New York City Guide. New York: Random House. p. 191. ISBN 978-1-60354-055-1. (Reprinted by Scholarly Press, 1976; often referred to as WPA Guide to New York City.)
- ^ White, Norval & Willensky, Elliot (2000). AIA Guide to New York City (4th ed.). New York: Three Rivers Press. ISBN 978-0-8129-3107-5. p.205
- ^ New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission; Dolkart, Andrew S.; Postal, Matthew A. (2009). Postal, Matthew A. (ed.). Guide to New York City Landmarks (4th ed.). New York: John Wiley & Sons. p. 85. ISBN 978-0-470-28963-1.