A Complete History of the Campbell Apartment
At the end of this month, one of the chicest places to get a drink in the city will close. Grand Central Terminal opted not to renew the lease of the Campbell Apartment, the cocktail bar hidden within its walls, whose history dates to the Jazz Age.
The above photo shows the 3,500-square-foot space when it served as the private office of John W. Campbell, a financier who leased the section of Grand Central Terminal starting in 1923.
Campbell, a member of board of the New York Central Railroad, who reportedly resembled Warren G. Harding, transformed the space into "the galleried hall of a 13th-century Florentine palace," according to Grand Central, a history of the station published in 1946.
He imported Italian furniture and a Persian rug that cost $300,000 ($4.2 million in today's dollars). Not content with just a piano, Campbell installed "a fine pipe organ and a finer piano" and invited up to 60 guests for private recitals. A butler named Stackhouse oversaw the arrangements.
Campbell's eccentricities were legendary. He liked his trousers to remain crisp, so he would sit at his desk in just his underwear while his pants hung in a humidor.
While there was a small kitchen and bathroom, Campbell didn't stay overnight in the space; he and his wife had an apartment nearby at 270 Park Avenue and a house in the suburbs. And lest you think the mogul used that wooden desk for anything other than work activity, historian Allyn Freeman told the New York Times that there is no record of any dalliance.
Campbell died in 1957, at which point the space took a strange turn. It served as a jail, a storage room for transit police guns, and a signalman's office. Water damage set in.
Then in 1999, Mark Grossich and his company, Hospitality Holdings, took over the space. "It was basically a room of ground-up sawdust," he tells T&C. Hospitality Holdings, which operates other high-end bars and restaurants in the city, spent $2.5 million renovating the space, transforming it into the civilized cocktail den it is today. Grossich began serving what he dubbed "cocktails from another era" to those who would abide by the dress code he installed: "Proper Attire Required: Absolutely no Athletic Shoes, T‑shirts, Sweatshirts, Baseball Caps, Shorts or Torn Jeans."
The Campbell Apartment quickly became a New York institution, as beloved for its history and anachronistic insistence on a dress code as its delicious cocktails. Then last year the Metropolitan Transit Authority began shopping the space around.
In late December, Grossich, who'd been paying $350,000 a year on his year-to-year leases, learned that his offer to pay $800,000 a year on a new 10-year lease had been outbid. The MTA had settled on the Gerber Group, the nightlife organization known for hot New York bars like the Roof and Mr. Purple. They had offered $1.1 million.
"I told them I'd pay whatever the highest bid was, plus 2.5 percent," Grossich told the New York Post. As the holder of the lease, he believed he was allowed to make a final offer. "Oh no," he told the paper of the MTA's response. "They said, 'They way overbid you. We can't do that.' Now after 17 years and all we've done to help rebuild the terminal, you can't do that? Are you kidding me?"
"It was a situation where we should have been given the opportunity to sit and present our case," Grossich said in an interview with T&C. But "the railroad is probably in debt about a trillion dollars at this point. They just have no money. And what started out as a focus on New York City-centric retail operations has clearly gotten to a point where it's about how much you can pay as opposed to how appropriate you are."
Grossich sued the MTA to keep them from transferring the lease to Gerber, but last week a judge opted not to extend his stay of eviction. Last Friday, the MTA gave Grossich 30 days to get out.
"I've been fortunate to run it all these years, and I'm delighted that it's become a world-class iconic venue that will probably outlive all of us," Grossich said, in a tone that reflects the venue he created.
Gerber reportedly plans to ditch the dress code and install a marble bar and new lighting. "If you're going to a black-tie event at the Hyatt in Grand Central, you go in [to the Campbell Apartment] for a drink. That's OK, you can be in a tuxedo," Gerber told the Post. "But it's also OK for a guy or a girl to be in jeans or a T-shirt. That's okay too. That's the way people live."
Perhaps, but some of us didn't mind the dress code. It was a rare excuse to dress up and have a drink like a member of a bygone generation.
