Butter-Cake Dick's was a Manhattan café in the cellar of the ''

New-York Daily Tribune The ''New-York Tribune'' (from 1914: ''New York Tribune'') was an American newspaper founded in 1841 by editor Horace Greeley. It bore the moniker ''New-York Daily Tribune'' from 1842 to 1866 before returning to its original name. From the 1840s ...

'' building in

Spruce Street Spruce Street is a three-block-long street in the Financial District, Manhattan, Financial District of Lower Manhattan, New York City. It starts at Park Row (Manhattan), Park Row, near the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge, and runs east to Gold Stre ...

. It was named after the proprietor, Richard Marshall, who had been a

newsman A journalist is a person who gathers information in the form of text, audio or pictures, processes it into a newsworthy form and disseminates it to the public. This is called journalism. Roles Journalists can work in broadcast, print, advertis ...

but now sold butter-cakes, also known as sinkers, which were a type of rich biscuit containing a knob of butter. It was open all night and did good business with newsboys and politicians from the nearby

Tammany Hall Tammany Hall, also known as the Society of St. Tammany, the Sons of St. Tammany, or the Columbian Order, was an American political organization founded in 1786 and incorporated on May 12, 1789, as the Tammany Society. It became the main local ...

who would treat journalists to a butter-cake as a form of patronage or bribe. In the 1850s, the price of a butter-cake with a cup of coffee was three cents.

References

Coffeehouses and cafés in Manhattan 19th century in Manhattan Defunct restaurants in Manhattan {{NYC-restaurant-stub