GRAMERCY PARK — Even if you cannot write as well as O. Henry, you can still eat as he did at the height of his powers. The literary master penned “The Gift of the Magi,” one of the most beloved short stories ever written, while sitting in a booth in his favorite tavern. The tavern is still there today at 129 East 18th St., and so is O.Henry’s booth.
Pete’s Tavern opened in 1864, when Abraham Lincoln was president, and is still going strong while preserving its rich history, according to Gary Egan, the managing partner who started off there as a busboy decades ago.
The Gramercy Park tavern, known for its steaks, burgers, pasta, fish, and chicken parmigiana, still has the original 40-foot rosewood bar from when it opened 162 years ago. The rosewood booths lining the walls, the tin roof, and the tile floor are also original.
“Everything is the same as it was the day it opened,” Egan said. “The only difference is the electrification of the chandeliers and the installation of the air conditioning.”
The tavern’s brick walls (also original) are lined with bookshelves and framed photos of the hundreds of celebrities who have dined or enjoyed a pint of ale over the years.
One booth that literary-minded diners always seek out is the O. Henry Booth, so-named because it’s where William Sydney Porter (pen name, O. Henry) wrote “The Gift of the Magi,” the short story that ran in The New York Sunday World in 1905 and was published in book form the following year.
The tale of an impoverished married couple who sell their favorite possessions to buy each other Christmas gifts has been an emotional touchstone for generations. The husband, Jim, secretly sells his pocket watch to buy his wife, Della, beautiful combs for her hair, while she sells her long hair to buy a chain for her husband’s watch. They discover on Christmas Eve that neither can use the present they received, and eventually realize the significance of the sacrifices they made.
“O. Henry lived right on the next block,” Egan explained. “So, this was his watering hole. He came here a lot.”
On the day The Tablet visited, Monica Ballard, a playwright from Austin, Texas, was sitting in the O. Henry Booth enjoying a Gramercy Burger (which comes with cheddar cheese, crispy onions, and the Tavern’s special sauce).
“It was a dream of mine to come here and see where he wrote that remarkable story,” Ballard said, adding that she made the trip to New York just to sit in the booth. “What’s important as far as the Catholic message of giving and receiving is that when you give from the heart, it’s that much more valuable.”
Ballard, who is Catholic, has written a play, “O. Henry’s Christmas Miracle,” that imagines the back story of how O. Henry came to write “The Gift of the Magi.” The play will have its world premiere next year at the Penfold Theater Company in Austin.
Pete’s Tavern was originally the bar on the ground floor of the Portman Hotel.
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“We were here before the Brooklyn Bridge was here,” Egan said. “We’re older than asphalt streets. We’re older than so many things.”
In 1899, the bar was bought by two brothers, Tom and John Healy, who renamed it Healy’s Cafe. The name was changed again to Pete’s Tavern when it was bought by Peter D. Belles in 1922 and has remained so ever since.
During Prohibition (1920-1933), when the sale and consumption of alcohol were outlawed in the U.S., Pete’s Tavern disguised its front entrance as a florist shop to avoid detection, encouraged its regulars to use a side door, and continued pouring drinks.
In the ensuing decades, Pete’s Tavern has continued to thrive, Egan said.
“When you think of glass and concrete, which New York is, especially Manhattan, it’s just so nice to be in this little corner of Gramercy Park,” he added. “Everything is preserved.”