Luchow's - History

History

Through the doors of Luchow's pass all the famous people of the world.

August Guido Lüchow, an immigrant from the city of Hanover, Germany, arrived in the United States in 1879 at the age of 23. After working as waiter for a cafe on Duane Street, he became a bartender and waiter at a cafe and beer garden belonging to Baron von Mehlbach. Just a few years later, at the age of 26, he was able to purchase the business with the help of a $1500 loan from William Steinway, the piano magnate, who had his concert-hall-and-showrooms venue Steinway Hall across the street at Union Square, and was a regular customer at the von Mehlbach establishment. The property was only about an eighth in size of what would become Lüchow's, and did not yet reach 13th Street on the downtown side.

At that time the stretch of 14th Street extending crosstown on either side of Union Square was at the heart of the most prestigious part of the city, and August Lüchow's new establishment quickly became known as "the capital of 14th Street".

Steinway and his circle of touring and transplanted European musicians comprised Lüchow's core clientele during the early years. A pre-sailing farewell engagement at Lüchow's in honor of the pianist Ignaz Paderewski – which lasted six hours – is noted by the New York Times in 1906. James Huneker, writing for the Times in 1919, describes how he was called upon in the 1890s to introduce Antonín Dvořák – who is referred to as "Old Borax" – to New York society by founder of the National Conservatory Jeanette Myers Thurber, who had engaged the composer to lead her nascent musical institution: "Later we went down to Gus Lüchow's. For a musician not to be seen at Lüchow's argued that he was unknown in the social world of tone." Huneker aslso relates several anecdotes about Oscar Hammerstein, another Lüchow's habitué.

By 1885 Lüchow had become the American agent for Würzburger Beer and shortly thereafter for Pilsner, another famous brand, made with soft water. Space was at a premium, and so the beer garden located behind the original restaurant on the east was made to provide access to a newly purchased lot extending back to 13th Street, on which stables were built to enable delivery of beer throughout the city. In 1902 further construction was undertaken, converting the stables, beer garden, and another large space behind the bar on the west into three ornate dark-panelled rooms, two of which had 30' ceilings – with frosted skylights with etched stained glass. These became known as the "Heidelberg Room" – still being called "the New Room" eighty years later, "Garden" – because it occupied the location of the original beer garden – and "Cafe", respectively. With the purchase in 1910 of the Huber Museum property at 106 East 14th Street the restaurant's physical layout took its final form, allowing the addition of two more public rooms: Hunting, and Nibelungen.

The Heidelberg Room featured the enormous 7'x10' painting of The Potato Gatherers by Swedish artist August Hagborg, that Lüchow had purchased at the St. Louis World's Fair in 1904, when he was there to run the food concession for the Tyrolean Alps Exhibit. The painting was still to be found in its place at the back of the New Room in 1980 – near the 13th Street entrance. Also prominent in the Heidelberg Room was an extremely large model of the four masted clipper ship Great Republic which was visible from the majority of tables in the six main rooms, in addition to numerous "small masterpieces of the Dutch, Austrian and Flemish schools". Multitudes of mounted animal heads and colorful beer steins having German and Austrian geographical significance – of varied and sometimes extreme size – were displayed throughout the room. The Hunting (or Hunt) Room – where, as latter-day owner Jan Mitchell once observed "twenty-one mounted deer heads gaze in blank nonchalance upon the pleasant spectacle of their descendants being eaten with considerable satisfaction" – was especially prolific in regard to taxidermy, and provided a few big tables to accommodate the larger parties of guests within the public rooms.

The art nouveau "Diamond Jim Brady Room" was fitted out with matching cabinetry appointments and Tiffany glass, with arched mirrors of beveled glass and cut flowers across an expanse of marble and dark carved mahogany: "At one end stands the knightly figure of Lohengrin, and at the other, on the wall, broods a shaggy buffalo head obtained at the St. Louis World's Fair. An oil painting of Bacchus appropriately surveys this scene from the opposite wall." The room was named after Diamond Jim Brady, a voracious eater who was referred to by one New York restaurateur as "the best twenty-five customers I ever had". Brady was not a gangster, as some assumed, but a successful executive and founder of an automobile and railroad rolling stock manufacturer, the Standard Steel Car Company – later merged with Pullman – who had a passion for fancy jewelry. He said, "Each must have a good time in his own way." Brady's long-time eating companion was the noted actress Lillian Russell, for whom another room at Lüchow's was named.