“The Place to Dine Well.”
Shanley’s Restaurant
1890–1923/1925*
Lobster Palace
Alternate Names:
Shanley Bros. Oyster Houses and Grill Room (c. 1900)
Shanley’s Oyster Houses and Grill Room (c. 1900)
Ownership:
Shanley Brothers (1890–1923):
-
- Thomas J. Shanley (1890–1923; President; Manager, 42nd and Broadway branch)
- Bernard “Barney” Frances Shanley (1890–1901)
- Patrick J. Shanley (c. 1895–1910; Manager, 30th Street branch) [Ran rival Shanley’s at 117 West 42nd Street, 1910–1925.]
- Michael J. Shanley
- Peter F. Shanley (c. 1892–?)
- James Louis Shanley (c. 1896–1906)
- Andrew E. Shanley (c. ?–1919)
Location:
117 West 42nd Street (December 1, 1910–1925)*
Putnam Building, 207 West 43rd Street (November 1910–March 26, 1923)
1476-1478 Broadway, between West 42nd and 43rd Streets (1896–May 7, 1911)
1212 Broadway, between 29th and 30th Streets (1896–?)
383 Sixth Avenue at 23rd Street (1890–?)
Literature:
Jennifer Egan, Manhattan Beach (2017):
“As a boy, he’d fished with his father to supply the lobster palaces, Rector’s and Café Martin, Shanley’s, the fishermen entertaining one another with gossip about the outsize appetites of Diamond Jim Brady and Lillian Russell: fourteen lobsters between them one night, and the lady had to remove her corset” (Corsair, 2017: 360).
T.R. Ybarra, Young Man of the World (1942):
“The office boy fetched them—being an office boy steeped in a precocious knowledge of early twentieth-century New York journalism. He found them just across Broadway, on Shanley’s backstairs, all happily cemented together. As they came trooping into the city room, Fred Birchall, pulling at his beard until it almost came out by the roots, thundered: ‘Gentlemen, I wish you to understand once and for all that the New York Times is not an annex of Shanley’s bar!'” (Ives Washburn, 1942: 112).
John Dos Passos, The Big Money (1933):
“He handed out a half a dollar to the doorman who had whispered ‘Shanley’s‘ to the taxi-driver in a serious careful flunkey’s voice. The taxi was purring smoothly downtown between the tall square buildings. Charley was a little dizzy….” (Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1936: 11)
“When they got up to the room they kissed each other in a hurry and washed up to go out to a show. First they went to Shanley’s to dinner. Tony ordered expensive champagne and they both got to giggling on it” (ibid.: 147-148).
F. Scott Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise (1920):
“‘Like som’n solid. We go get some—some salad.’ He settled his coat with an attempt at nonchalance, but letting go of the bar was too much for him, and he slumped against a chair. ‘We’ll go over to Shanley’s,’ suggested Claring, offering his elbow. With his assistance Amory managed to get his legs in motion enough to propel him across Forty-second Street. Shanley’s was very dim…” (Barnes and Noble Classics, 2007: 188; a Yonkers location is mentioned p. 190).
Publications:
Goldman, Jonathan. “How New Yorkers Celebrated New Year’s Eve 100 Years Ago.” Gothamist.com, December 31, 2019.
“Old New York in Photos #45.” Stuff Nobody Cares About. Blog, December 23, 2014 (illustrated, street view).
Bloom, Ken. Broadway: An Encyclopedia. New York: Routledge, 2012: xi, xvi, 32, 43, 44, 236, 400, 557.
Grimes, William. Appetite City: A Culinary History of New York. New York: North Point Press, 2009: 143-144 (illustrated), 164, 179, 199, 310.
The Recorder: The Journal of the American Irish Historical Society 15, 1 (Spring 2000): 157.
Shanley, Leo J. “The Shanleys of Broadway.” New York Irish History 5 (1990-1991): 16-20.
Groce, Nancy. New York: Songs of the City. New York: Watson-Guptill Publications, 1999: 60, 80.
“P.J. Shanley Dies; Restaurateur, 78.” New York Times, August 20, 1947: 22.
Hill, Edwin C. “Ghosts of a Gayer Broadway.” The North American Review 229,5 (May 1930): 546-547.
“Shanley’s Closes Its Doors, Bankrupt.” New York Times, March 27, 1923: 23.
“Ten Dry Agents Raid Shanley’s; Find 4 Quarts.” New York Tribune, August 20, 1922: 1.
“New York Florists’ Club Dinner.” The American Florist 36 (January 28-July 22, 1911): 407 (illustrated).
“One Shanley’s to Close: Business of Old Times Square Restaurant to Be Transferred to the New.” New York Times, May 6, 1911: 1.
“Brother to Start a Rival Shanley’s.” New York Times, May 10, 1910: 7.
Where and How to Dine in New York. New York: Lewis, Scribner & Co., 1903: 59-62.
“Lively Fracas in Shanley’s: Customer Smites Another with a Champagne Glass—Conflicting Testimony in Court.” New York Times, March 4, 1901: 12.
“Ate While Fire Burned: Patrons of Shanley’s Reassured by the Manager and They Remained.” New York Times, October 13, 1897: 7.
Notable Guests:
John Barrymore (Actor)
Ethel Barrymore (Actress)
David Belasco (Theatrical Producer & Impresario)
Diamond Jim Brady (Businessman)
George M. Cohan (Entertainer, Playwright, & Composer): “He was inclined to be surly with waiters and had the irritating habit of writing his musical ideas with indelible pencil on the tablecloths as he dined. Michael Shanley was outraged at this. Tom tolerated until the mountain of ruined double-damask Belfast linen continued to grow. Tom…offered to supply him with any number of pads. George M. became very angry at this [and]…left the store in a deep snit and did not return for two years.” (1)
Richard Croker (Former New York City Fire Commissioner)
Charles “Young Charley” Delmonico (Restaurateur)
F. Scott Fitzgerald (Writer): Removed from the restaurant one notable night for being “hopelessly drunk and totally obnoxious.” (2)
Nat Goodwin (Actor)
Mark Hanna (United States Senator)
William Randolph Hearst (Businessman)
Victor Herbert (Composer): “He was a constant, loyal patron of Shanley’s, but an uncomfortable one. If his entree, or the entree of his guest didn’t quite look right to him, back it would go to the kitchen. He despised carrots. Should any one of his guests order them he would counter-mand the guest’s request and follow with a short diatribe on carrots which near-by diners could also hear.” (3)
John T. Kelly (Actor)
Richard Mansfield (Actor)
John McCormack (Singer)
J. P. Morgan (Financier)
Thomas B. Reed (Speaker of the United States House of Representatives)
Theodore Roosevelt (26th President of the United States)
Gene Tunney (Professional Boxer)
Notes:
Credited with introducing modern cabaret to New York City, Shanley’s also indirectly played another role in the music world. In 1914, composer and conductor Victor Herbert was dining at Shanley’s with the visiting Italian composer Giacomo Puccini when he heard the orchestra play one of his operettas. Puccini made a joke about royalties—at the time paid out to European composers when their songs were performed by others but unheard of in America—prompting Herbert to call a meeting of leading composers and publishers at Lüchow’s. Attendees established the American Society for Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP), and determined that Herbert would sue Shanley’s. In 1917, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously in favor of Herbert and ASCAP, validating the organization’s right to collect performance royalties from establishments like Shanley’s and to issue membership licenses. (4)
The restaurant is mentioned in George Johnson’s 1905 song, “Give My Regards to the Bowery”:
You may sing out in praise of old Broadway,
Of its splendor, its glitter, its glare.
Grand old opera and dining at Shanley’s
And friends around old Herald Square (5)
In addition to the ground floor restaurant, Shanley’s featured a ladies’ restaurant on the second floor, and a themed banquet hall called the Roman Court on the third floor.
The service bar at the back of the restaurant’s ground floor became a popular hangout for staff of the New York Times. As the bar was intended for waiters transporting drinks to tables, there were no seats, so Times staff members took to crowding onto the back staircase leading up to the Roman Court. (6)
On October 13, 1897, the 42nd and Broadway restaurant had an electrical fire in the boiler room. Thomas Shanley had the orchestra play “There’ll Be a Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight” to mark the arrival of the firemen and encourage guests to remain in their seats. (7)
In 1906, James Shanley left the restaurant to purchase the Colonial Hotel in Napanoch, New York. The hotel remains open today, as the Haunted Shanley Hotel.
Patrick Shanley surprised his brothers in 1910 by opening his own restaurant at 117 West 42nd Street. Patrick commissioned a new five story building for the rival restaurant, which also took the name Shanley’s. (8)
Shanley’s largest and final* space, in the Putnam Building spanning West 43rd to 44th Street, was torn down shortly after the restaurant’s closure and replaced by the Paramount Building (1927), today home to the Hard Rock Cafe. (9)
Menu:
Dinner, Friday, November 16, 1917 (New York Public Library)
New Year’s Eve, December 31, 1913 (New York Public Library)
Luncheon, Thursday, June 15, 1905 (New York Public Library)
Breakfast, Tuesday, February 13, 1900 (New York Public Library)
*Patrick Shanley’s rival Shanley’s Restaurant at 117 West 42nd Street closed in 1925, making it the last remaining Shanley’s, though not officially part of the original Shanley’s chain.
(1) Shanley, 1991: 19.
(2) ibid.: 20.
(3) ibid.: 19.
(4) Groce, 1999.
(5) ibid.
(6) Ybarra, 1942.
(7) “New York City Shanley Bros. from Leitrim, Ireland.” Leitrim-Roscommon Genealogy Bulletin Board. Posted June 19, 2002. [As of April 2024, the bulletin board appears to have been removed from the Leitrim-Roscommon Genealogy website.]
(8) New York Times, 1910.
(9) Bloom, 2013.
Cover photo: Postcard. Ebay. Accessed April 30, 2021.
The New York City Restaurant Archive 