HauntBound archive · catalog record
Reported phenomena — as catalogued
West Village restaurant in an 1845 building that has been a tavern, brothel, and carriage house — the well-dressed 1920s ghost most often seen in Room 16 has kept company with the dining room since the restaurant first opened.
16 Bank Street, New York, NY 10014
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
$$$
Full-service restaurant. Dinner nightly 5 PM–11 PM; weekend brunch 11 AM–5 PM. Reservations recommended.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Street-level townhouse restaurant
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1845 · 1845 Federal-style townhouse with continuous commercial use · Former tavern, brothel, and carriage house · Two documented fires (1977 and 1997); Room 16 survived both · Long-standing West Village neighborhood institution
The townhouse at 16 Bank Street was built around 1845, one of the Federal-style rowhouses that defined the West Village's residential blocks during the mid-19th century. Before the Waverly Inn opened its doors, the building had functioned in a variety of commercial uses, including a period as a tavern and bordello and later as a carriage house storing the horses and vehicles of the neighborhood's wealthier families.
Ye Waverly Inn was established in the early 20th century by Clarence H. Dettmers, outfitted in a Colonial tavern style and offering home-cooked lunches and dinners at modest prices — luncheon for 65 cents and dinner for 90 cents in its early years. The restaurant developed a following in the West Village community and became a neighborhood institution.
The building has experienced two notable fires. A fire in 1977 gutted much of the structure but left one room — the front smoking room, known as Room 16 — undamaged. A second fire occurred in 1997. The pattern of Room 16 surviving both fires has fed the building's ghost lore.
The Waverly Inn closed and reopened as a private celebrity-friendly supper club in the late 2000s before reverting to more conventional restaurant operation. As of 2026 it operates as a dinner and brunch restaurant at the original Bank Street address.
Sources
The haunting account at the Waverly Inn centers on a single, consistently described figure: a man in formal attire from approximately the 1920s, seen standing or moving through Room 16, the building's front smoking room. The sightings cluster in Room 16, which is notable for being the only space in the building to survive both the 1977 and 1997 fires.
NY Ghosts and the Long Island Paranormal Investigators have both documented the Room 16 account, and both note the candle anomalies: candles that staff have extinguished for the night found burning again without explanation, and fires in the fireplaces relighting after they have been doused and closed. The 1920s figure is associated with these disturbances — the implication being that the ghost prefers the room as it was during his period.
The Waverly Inn's ghost legend is frequently confused in online roundups with the Aaron Burr/Theodosia Burr legend, which actually belongs to One If by Land, Two If by Sea, a restaurant at 17 Barrow Street. That building was a carriage house associated with Burr in the 1790s; his ghost reportedly moves plates, while Theodosia (who vanished at sea in 1813) reportedly pulls earrings. This confusion appears frequently in aggregator articles and should be treated as misattribution.
The Waverly Inn's own ghost has no identified historical person attached to it. The 1920s dress is the only descriptor. The building's early history as a brothel has led some accounts to suggest a Gilded Age or Prohibition-era figure, but no name has been attached.
Notable Entities
Dine in the 1845 building that has served as tavern, brothel, and carriage house. Ask for seating near Room 16 — the smoking room that survived the 1997 fire and where the building's 1920s-era ghost is most frequently reported. Reservations available through the restaurant website.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
New York, NY
Patrick Henry Carley opened the Landmark Tavern in 1868 on the Hudson River waterfront at 11th Avenue and 46th Street, serving dockworkers and merchant sailors in a predominantly Irish immigrant neighborhood. The tavern operated through Prohibition—using its third floor as a speakeasy—and by the 1980s had become a Westies gang hangout before transitioning to its current life as a Hell's Kitchen dining institution.
New York, NY
The White Horse Tavern opened at 567 Hudson Street in 1880, initially serving the West Village's longshoreman community. By the early 1950s it had become a gathering place for New York's literary and bohemian community, with Dylan Thomas as its most famous regular. Thomas drank here on the night of November 9, 1953, then returned to the Chelsea Hotel where he fell into a coma. He died at St. Vincent's Hospital on November 9, 1953.
New York, NY
Leland Stanford Chumley converted a former blacksmith's shop at 86 Bedford Street into a speakeasy in 1922, during Prohibition. The unmarked bar became a favored gathering spot for writers including Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Faulkner, Steinbeck, and O'Neill. Chumley died in 1935; his wife Henrietta ran the bar until her death in 1960. The bar closed after a chimney collapse in 2007 and went through several ownership changes before reopening as The Eighty Six in 2025.