Whitman in the Village: The Poet’s Third Space
Greenwich Village, the East Village, and NoHo sit at the heart of New York’s LGBTQ+ history and culture, which as some might be surprised to hear, stretches back to the earliest days of New York. Perhaps most prominently, well over a century before the Stonewall Inn, Julius’ Bar, The Pyramid Club, and many other important establishments of the latter half of the 20th century dedicated to the open and free expression of individual identity, there was Pfaff’s.
In the mid-19th century, Greenwich Village was a burgeoning center for writers, artists, and Bohemians. One of the most iconic centers for them to gather was Pfaff’s, a German-style ‘beer cellar’ (Rathskeller in German). The space was underground — not just figuratively, but literally— accessed by descending a set of stairs located at 647/653 Broadway. Similar to what the area’s large German immigrant community had known back in Europe, its founder, Charles Ignatious Pfaff, also sought to make the space welcoming to a growing and diverse literary and artistic clientele also drawn to the area.
Within a couple of years of its founding, Pfaff’s became as the writer Allan Gurganus described it, “the Andy Warhol factory, the Studio 54, the Algonquin Round Table all rolled into one.” One of the most well-known clients of Pfaff’s was Walt Whitman. Pfaff’s offered an environment for Whitman to explore his sexuality and further develop his literary prowess more deeply. Whitman mingled with a crowd that included Henry Clapp, Jr., Ada Clare, Adah Isaacs Menken, John Brougham, Elihu Vedder, Louis Moreau Gottschalk, Edwin Booth, Fitz Hugh Ludlow, and Artemus Ward.
While frequenting Pfaff’s, Whitman wrote a series of poems we know as the “Calamus” cluster in an unpublished manuscript, “Live Oak With Moss,” sometime in 1859. These were eventually included in the 1860 edition of Leaves of Grass, but the poems are in a different order. In the third poem of the “Calamus” cluster, Whitman beautifully wrote,
“Here to put your lips upon mine I permit you,
With the comrade’s long-dwelling kiss, or the new husband’s kiss,
For I am the new husband, and I am the comrade.
Or, if you will, thrusting me beneath your clothing,
Where I may feel the throbs of your heart, or rest upon your hip,
Carry me when you go forth over land or sea;
For thus, merely touching you, is enough—is best,
And thus, touching you, would I silently sleep and be carried eternally.”
Whitman’s birthday, May 31, 1819, wonderfully, is the eve of Pride Month. This icon of 19th-century America is also symbolic of the long and important place our neighborhoods have played in the LGBTQ+ history of our city and country.
Village Preservation offers a swath of resources to explore this incredible history and culture, more recent and long past. Hear contemporary LGBTQ+ voices from our selection of oral histories. We recently expanded our Village Civil Rights & Social Justice Map to include more important sites of LGBTQ+ history. Throughout the year and to mark Pride Month, we host numerous events highlighting our neighborhoods’ LGBTQ+ legacy.