Grant’s

“Take the children to Grant’s…they may bump into people whose like they may never see elsewhere and may possibly never forget.”

Grant’s Cafeteria
c.1934–1974
American

Ownership:

Grant Lunch Corporation (David Jacobwitz, c.1934–1941; Meyer Jacobwitz)

Location:

202/204 West 42nd Street at 7th Avenue

Artwork:

Richard Estes, Grant’s from Urban Landscapes I, screenprint on Schoeller Parole paper, 1972. Edition of 75 with 25 Artist’s Proofs. Printed by Domberger KG, Stuttgart, published by Parasol Press. [The Urban Landscapes portfolio was Estes’s first printmaking effort (1)].

Publications:

Exhibitions:

      • Op scherp: Fotorealisme nader bekeken / In Focus: A closer look at photorealism. Centraal Museum Utrecht, February 10-June 9, 2024. (Ed. 69/75)

Auction records (all Artist’s Proofs, unless specified):

      • Wright, Editions & Works on Paper. Auction. Chicago: August 8, 2023 [lot 211].
      • Christie’s, Domberger: 65 Years of Screenprinting. Online auction 18956. New York: March 6, 2020 [lot 32].
      • Sotheby’s, Prints & Multiples Online. Online auction N10037. New York: March 15, 2019 [lot 85].
      • Freeman’s, Modern & Contemporary Works of Art. Auction. Philadelphia: November 3, 2013 [lot 158] (Ed. 68/75).

Collections:

      • Ed. 21/75: Rhode Island School of Design Museum of Art, Providence (73.002.8)
      • Ed. 35/75: St. Louis Art Museum (66:1998.1)
      • Ed. 69/75: Centraal Museum Utrecht (28841)
      • Ed. 72/75: National Gallery of Australia, Canberra (77.856.4)
      • Ed. 73/75: Buffalo AKG Art Museum, New York (P1973:4.1)
      • Additional prints (edition number not specified): Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (1975.722.1); David Owsley Museum of Art of Ball State University, Muncie, Indiana (2009.022.000); Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond (74.4.3); De Young, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (1996.74.107)

Literature:

John Clellon Holmes, Go (1952):

“The huge, teeming cafeteria on the corner of Broadway, where even steam tables fouled the air with a wild conflict of smells, and servers, presiding over them like unshaven wizards, imprecated the shuffling crowds indifferently while greasy, beardless busboys, like somnambulists, moved among the littered tables mechanically.” (2)

Jack Kerouac, “New York Scenes” in Lonesome Traveler (1960):

“Let’s go across the street to Grant’s, our favored dining place. For 65 cents you get a huge plate of fried clams, a lot of French fried potatoes, a little portion of cole slaw, some tartar sauce, a little cup of red sauce for fish, a slice of lemon, two slices of fresh rye bread, a pat of butter, another ten cents brings a glass of rare birch beer. – What a ball it is to eat here!” (3)

Publications:

Long, Craig. “Slim Rose” in “Metropolitan Diary: ‘We Walked through the Downpour to the Closest Train Station.” New York Times, May 23, 2021: MB8.

Merrifield, Andy. “Beat City 2 – On the Road and On the Sidewalk.” Andy Merrifield. Blog, March 18, 2020 (illustrated). [Includes Jack Kerouac’s description of Grant’s.]

Feinstein, Harold. “Available Light: Times Square at Night.” Harold Feinstein: The Archive. Blog, April 29th, 2014 (illustrated). [Features photographs by Feinstein of a Grant’s short order cook in 1969 and of the restaurant exterior.]

Morgan, Bill. Beat Generation in New York: A Walking Tour of Jack Kerouac’s City. San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1997: 21-22.

Simon, Kate. New York Places and Pleasures: An Uncommon Guidebook. New York: World Publishing Company, 1959.

“Take the children to Grant’s…they may bump into people whose like they may never see elsewhere and may possibly never forget.” [Quoted in Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities. New York: Modern Library, 1993: 311.]

“David Jacobwitz; Founder of the Grant Chain of Restaurants Dies at 52.” New York Times, October 25, 1941: 17.

“Restaurants Now Factor in Commercial Market: Chain Organization Will Pay $175,000 in 42d Street.” New York Herald Tribune, October 28, 1932: 38.

Notable Guests:

Jack Kerouac (Writer)

Notes:

Opened by the Grant Lunch Corporation, which owned a chain of cafeterias in New Jersey. (4)

Grant’s had been replaced by a KFC by 1974. The site was condemned in the early 1990s as part of the redevelopment of Times Square, but as construction was delayed, the former Grant’s space was briefly leased to Disney for the creation of a Disney Store in 1996.* The building was finally torn down in 1999 and replaced by 38-story 5 Times Square, completed in 2002. (5)

*For a photo of the Disney Store occupying the Grant’s space, see Robert A. M. Stern, David Fishman, and Jacob Tilove, New York 2000: Architecture and Urbanism Between the Bicentennial and the Millennium (New York: Monacelli Press, 2006), p. 705.

(1) “Grant’s, from Urban Landscapes Portfolio.” de Young/Legion of Honor Digital Collections. Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. Accessed April 26, 2024.
(2) Morgan, 1997: 22.
(3) Merrifield, 2020.
(4) New York Herald Tribune, 1932.
(5) Jacobs, Karrie. “Times Square (Finally) Grows Up.” Architect Magazine, December 29, 2015.

Cover photo: Richard Estes, Grant’s from Urban Landscapes I, screenprint on Schoeller Parole paper, 1972. Printed by Domberger KG, Stuttgart, published by Parasol Press, New York. Ed. 21/75. Rhode Island School of Design Museum of Art, Providence. Accessed March 13, 2024.

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