Fraunces Tavern, ca. 1905.

The Fraunces Tavern, built in 1719 as a mansion for the family of Stephen De Lancey, was opened as the Queen’s Head Tavern in 1762. A meeting place for Loyalists during the British occupation of New York, it was the site of Governor DeWitt Clinton’s Evacuation Day celebrations in 1783, when remaining British troops departed New York. Shortly thereafter, the Fraunces Tavern — named for its owner and proprietor, Samuel Fraunces, who may have been a spy for the Continental Army during the British occupation — hosted General George Washington’s farewell meeting with his officers.

During the 19th century, Fraunces Tavern suffered a series of fires, with subsequent reconstructions, including the addition of two upper stories, substantially altering the building’s appearance. In 1900, the tavern was under the threat of demolition before being temporarily designated a “park” by the State of New York, an ad hoc ruling in an era with scant historic preservation protections. The designation was lifted in 1904 when the Sons of the Revolution in the State of New York purchased the building and undertook a conjectural reconstruction project that shaped the Fraunces Tavern you see today (there is no definitive record of the tavern’s original appearance; the 1904-07 reconstruction took cues from the surviving structure and extant period buildings).

In 1975, it was the site of the Fraunces Tavern bombing, when an extremist Puerto Rican separatist group set off an explosive device, killing four and injuring 50.