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San Remo Caffe Espresso.; City Scenes

1937

San Remo

San Remo Caffe Espresso.; City Scenes

IMAGE DATE1937
FromMuseum of the City of New York logoMuseum of the City of New York

San Remo Cafe, 1937.

The San Remo was a cafe and bar which opened in 1925 and closed in 1967. In the 1950s it became a popular haunt for literary and artistic notables of the Beat and Bohemian generation. Regulars included Gore Vidal, William S. Burroughs, Jack Kerouac, Dylan Thomas, Miles Davis, Jackson Pollack, James Baldwin, and Allen Ginsberg.

A later account of the Cafe said this, “With its pressed-tin ceiling, black-and-white tile floors and dollar salads with all the bread and butter you could eat, the San Remo attracted a younger, hipper crowd more into experimenting with drugs than The White Horse’s habituées,”

The bar and its patrons are described in a number of literary works authored by those who hung out there, including Jack Kerouac's 'The Subterraneans.'

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