Paris Café

USA / New Jersey / Hoboken / South Street, 119
 restaurant, interesting place, apartment building, 1870s construction
 Upload a photo
5-story residential and restaurant building completed in 1873. Designed by John B. Snook for William H. Onkerdonk, the two facades are similar; the elevation facing South Street is slightly wider, at eight bays, than the 6-bay Peck Slip elevation. At the ground floor a series of openings are framed by paneled cast-iron square columns of varying widths. The ground floor is painted white and yellow. One of the most interesting features is the diagonal corner entrance. A metal canopy supported on wood posts has been added at the Peck Slip facade and extends partly along the South Street front; the sloping roof of the canopy is now covered with shingles.

The upper floors are clad in red brick. In contrast to the earlier buildings on this South Street block, this facade has a relatively modern appearance, due to the broad expanse of windows which progressively diminish in height at the upper floors. The windows have white, flat stone sills and lintels. Dominating each facade isa large triangular pediment bearing the date of 1873 at its center. A row of dentils runs along the rake of the pediment and across the top of the building.

It was purchased 10 years after completion by liquor merchant Henry Mayer and converted to a hotel and a boardinghouse. Some of the frequent guests were inventor Thomas Alva Edison, sharpshooter Annie Oakley, gourmand “Diamond Jim” Brady, and Teddy Roosevelt when he was police commissioner. The hotel was centered around a bar that Meyer also opened, called the Paris Café, on the ground floor. While the hotel is long gone, the Paris is still going strong. The floors above the bar are now rental apartments.

www.pariscafenyc.com/
 Add place (company, shop, etc.) to this building
Nearby cities:
Coordinates:   40°42'26"N   74°0'5"W

Comments

  • The Paris Bar used to be a meeting point for people working at the old Fulton Fish Market (closed in November 2005, it moved to Hunt's Point at the Bronx). Today it is just another sports's bar -- the building is nice though.
This article was last modified 2 years ago