Pete's Tavern
One of many competing claims to be the oldest continually operating bar/saloon/restaurant in New York, Pete's Tavern (founded during the presidency of Abraham Lincoln) is a cozy, battered old antique, a serviceable Italian and American restaurant and a more than capable bar, one of only a few watering holes that manage to give glitzy Gramercy some real down-home grit. Once much-celebrated, now much less so, the short-storyist O. Henry often wrote here, including his Christmas story "The Gift of the Magi." Pete's using his patronage as a kind of calling-card shorthand for its ample nineteenth century charm, but, O. Henry or no Henry, the place is a comfort.
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