An elegy for a long-gone, cobweb-covered bar opened in a downtown alley before the Civil War
New York has always had its legendary bars—from the rough-and-tumble roadhouses of the colonial era like Cato’s to the late 20th century Blarney Stone pubs, which served as retreats for working-class Irish men (and any other stragglers) fond of ale and corned beef.
The passings of these notorious watering holes became milestones in city history. And so it was with Cobweb Hall—a decrepit Manhattan saloon that got its start on Duane Street before the Civil War and met its end by 1920, at the dawn of Prohibition.
It’s been over a century since the proprietors of Cobweb Hall poured the last drink. But it’s never too late to honor a tavern that for decades was a place of rendezvous for businessmen, politicians, intellectuals, bohemians, and “other celebrities,” as the New York Herald put it.
The Cobweb operated at an ancient house at 80 Duane Street, just east of Broadway and behind a long-defunct street called Manhattan Place.
Who was the original owner? It might be lost to history. One story has it that it was started in 1848 by someone named F. Ramel, a former saloonkeeper on lower Broadway whose reputation for serving “good whiskey,” according to an 1898 World article, brought in politicos like Boss Tweed and presidents Grant and Arthur.
Most news stories, however, credit an “eccentric Scotsman” named David Patullo as the founder, opening in 1840. “The whiskies he imported from Scotland and Ireland were the best to be obtained in the city, and whoever was desirous of sipping a genuine ‘hot scotch’ resorted to his place,” wrote the Brooklyn Daily Times in an 1886 story on Gotham’s infamous taverns.
Patullo reportedly was superstitious about killing spiders—and the name of the bar spoke to the many cobwebs that “hung in festoons from the barrels and clung in dusty masses to the bottles on the shelves,” stated the Brooklyn newspaper.
Patullo died in 1868, and newspapers reported that a fight ensued over his estate, as he had no heirs. Other reports stated that Patullo sold Cobwell Hall in 1864 to an Irish immigrant named Hugh Ferrigan, who “made it a resort for politicians,” reported the Sun in 1890.
Its proximity to City Hall made it a favorite of a secession of city mayors. “Mayor Hugh Grant and Mayor Gilroy used to drop in, as did many other men prominent in the city’s affairs,” noted a later Sun article.
Women, of course, were not welcome; bars were the preserve of men only in the 19th century city.
There was nothing fancy about Cobweb Hall, even as more hospitable bars and clubs opened through the late 19th century. “It is a primitive sort of saloon, the barroom is a little cobwebby place 9 feet by 12,” stated the World. “The same little old coal stove that warmed the place in 1848, with its crooked, smoky pipe, warms it today.”
Cobweb Hall’s end began after the turn of the century. A 1902 fire damaged the bar, a mortgage dispute threatened its closure in 1912, and by 1920 it had been sold at auction and slated for a tear-down—a victim of many fators, including Prohibition.
City newspapers penned emotional elegies to this fabled bar, and then it was forgotten…until this post dredged up its story and the famous and notorious New Yorkers who made it such a legend.
[Top photo: George Ritter/MCNY; X2010.11.1876; second image: New York Tribune; third image: Brooklyn Daily Times; fourth image: New York Times; fifth image: NYPL Digital Collections;]
