The Campbell Bar New York
Gilded Age descendent
While transiting through Grand Central Station recently, I entered from Vanderbilt Avenue on its west side, rather than 42nd Street on the south.
On the Vanderbilt side is a covered drive for taxis then double doors that lead not into the station, but to the long ago, elegant offices of John Campbell who had the wealth to have installed both a piano and a pipe organ, and which at night he converted into a reception hall for private recitals with 50 or 60 friends.
Following that incarnation, the second was as an MTA police office, a small armoury and jail cell and, following that, a third as the Campbell Bar.
The jail became the location for the actual bar.
Its dramatic elegance comes with a house rule informing patrons that dress ranges from casual to business professional, no shorts are to be worn after 15:00, final admission is at the discernment of the door host and never, at any time, may baseball hats been worn inside the bar.
Further, those under 21 years old must be accompanied until 21:00 by a parent or guardian. Afterwards, they’re to leave.
If inside the station, enter the bar at its west end, rise the marble staircase, pass through the exit, and you will find the bar on your left hand.
Jazzers entertain beautiful strangers inhabiting this moody, elegant space every Friday and Saturday from 21:00 and on Sunday from 18:00.
Grand it is, and well worth visiting, especially if also viewing the Chanin Building across the street.
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