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Fraunces Tavern
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Fraunces Tavern is a restaurant and museum in lower Manhattan, New York City, housed in a conjectural reconstruction of a building that played a prominent role in pre-Revolutionary activities, a tavern owned and run by Samuel Fraunces. On 4 December 1783, the original Fraunce's Tavern was the site where General George Washington bade farewell to his officers at the end of the Revolution before returning to his Mount Vernon, Virginia, home.
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Encyclopedia
Fraunces Tavern is a restaurant and museum in lower Manhattan, New York City, housed in a conjectural reconstruction of a building that played a prominent role in pre-Revolutionary activities, a tavern owned and run by Samuel Fraunces. On 4 December 1783, the original Fraunce's Tavern was the site where General George Washington bade farewell to his officers at the end of the Revolution before returning to his Mount Vernon, Virginia, home. The building was made a New York City landmark in 1965; the Fraunces Tavern Block, bounded by Pearl, Water, Broad Streets and Coenties Slip, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1977, and the Fraunces Tavern building was added separately in 2008.
The building
The landmark building housing Fraunces Tavern, located at 54 Pearl Street at the corner of Broad Street, near South Ferry, is considered by the museum to be Manhattan's oldest surviving building. However, an extensive renovation was completed in 1907 by the Sons of the Revolution under the supervision of William Mersereau. The result has been characterized as "a highly conjectural reconstruction—not a restoration—based on 'typical' buildings of 'the period', parts of remaining walls, and a lot of guesswork."
Neighborhood historian Randall Gabrielan writes of the reconstruction:
Mersereau claimed his remodeling of Fraunces Tavern was faithful to the original, but the design was controversial in his time. There was no argument over removing the upper stories, which were known to have been added during the building’s 19th-century commercial use, but adding the hipped roof was questioned. He used the Phillipse Manor House in Yonkers as a style guide and claimed to follow the roof line of the original, as found during construction, traced on the bricks of an adjoining building.
Early history
In 1700 Colonel Steven Van Cortlandt gave this property to Etienne DeLancey, a French Huguenot who had married his daughter, Anne van Courtlandt. The colonel had built his home there in 1671 but was retiring to his manor on the Hudson. DeLancey, a member of the Delancey family that contended with the Livingstons for leadership in colonial New York, built the original Fraunces Tavern as a house in 1719. The small, yellow bricks used in its construction were imported from Holland and the sizable mansion ranked highly in the colony for its quality.
DeLancey's heirs sold the house to Samuel Fraunces in 1762, who turned it into a popular tavern. It was one of the meeting places of the Sons of Liberty in the years leading up the American Revolution.
During the tea crisis of 1765, a British captain who tried to bring tea into New York was forced to give an apology to the public at Fraunces Tavern. The patriots, dressed as Indians (like the participants in the subsequent Boston Tea Party) then dumped his tea into the harbor.
In August 1775, Americans took possession of cannons from the Battery at the tip of Manhattan and exchanged fire with the HMS Asia (1764). The British vessel retaliated by firing a 32-gun broadside on the city, sending a cannon ball through the roof of Fraunces Tavern.
When the war was all but won, Fraunces Tavern was used as the site of "Board of Inquiry" meetings, a procedure agreed upon between the withdrawing British commander, Sir Guy Carleton, and the American commander, George Washington, to appease the insistence of the American leadership that no "American property" (meaning former slaves emancipated by the British in return for military service) be allowed to leave with British forces. Every Wednesday, from April to November, 1783, the British-American Board of Inquiry met to review both the paper credentials and oral history given by freed Blacks. British representatives were successful in ensuring all but a handful of the thousands of Loyalist Blacks then in New York, maintaining their liberty was guaranteed under the protection of the British Crown and, thus, preventing their a return to slavery as desired by the Continental Congress.
When the victorious Americans re-occupied the city, Fraunces Tavern hosted Washington and his officers in a victory banquet. Washington used the Long Room at the tavern to say farewell to his officers.
After the War
After the war, the tavern housed some offices of the Continental Congress as the country struggled under the Articles of Confederation. With the establishment of the Constitution and the inauguration of Washington as president in 1789, the building housed the departments of Foreign Affairs, Treasury and War. The offices were moved when the location of the U.S. capital shifted from New York to Philadelphia.
The tavern operated throughout much of the 19th century, but suffered several serious fires beginning in 1832. Having been rebuilt several times, the structure's appearance has changed to the extent that it is not reliably known what the original 18th century restaurant looked like. In 1890, the first floor exterior was remodeled and the original timbers sold as souvenirs.
Reconstruction
The much-changed original building was threatened in 1900 with demolition by its owners, who wanted to tear it down in favor of using the space for a parking lot. A number of organizations, notably the Daughters of the American Revolution, worked to preserve it. The City of New York used its power of eminent domain and designated the building as a park. This designation was rescinded when the title was acquired by the Sons of the Revolution in the State of New York in 1904. An extensive reconstruction took place soon afterward.
1975 Bombing
On January 24, 1975 a bomb exploded in the building, killing four and injuring more than 50. The Puerto Rican nationalist group FALN, which had set off other bombs in New York City, claimed responsibility. No one was ever prosecuted for the bombing.
Fraunces Tavern today
Today Fraunces Tavern is a tourist site, housing a restaurant and museum, and is part of the American Whiskey Trail. The buildings that are home to the museum and restaurant include four 19th-century buildings in addition to the 18th-century Fraunces Tavern building.
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