How do you get into Room 52?
We have not confirmed it. Room 52 is in the directory because it calls itself a speakeasy, and that is the whole of what we can stand behind about its door.
Drinks of the era
We have not seen this venue’s own list, so what follows is the period rather than the bar: French 75, Clover Club, and Aviation are all drinks of this era, and each links to its origin and its build.
The building
Documented — Room 52 occupies the Greenacre Park, a property listed on the National Register of Historic Places under reference number 100002076. The listing is a federal record maintained by the National Park Service, and the nomination document is the primary source for the building’s architectural and social history.
National Register reference 100002076 · NPS nomination document
Where Room 52 sits
Room 52 is in New York, New York, in the county of the same name, in the Mid-Atlantic of the United States.
Our directory currently lists 66 speakeasies and hidden bars in New York. The full list is on our guide to hidden bars in New York.
Measured from the map pins, the closest of those to Room 52 are yakuni, a few doors away, Sugar East, about 900 m away, and Lantern’s Keep, about 1.1 km away.
New York holds 101 listed venues in this directory. See them all on our New York speakeasy guide.
Prohibition in New York
New York came under national prohibition on 17 January 1920, when the Eighteenth Amendment took effect and the Volstead Act defined an intoxicating beverage as anything above one half of one per cent alcohol — a threshold strict enough to close breweries that had expected to survive.
More on the period in our history of Prohibition in New York.
What the newspapers recorded in New York
Searching the Library of Congress run of New York newspapers for speakeasy, blind pig and bootlegger across 1920 to 1933 returns dated pages anyone can open. These are from New York:
- The daily worker, December 15, 1931 — read the page at the Library of Congress
- The daily worker, July 14, 1927 — read the page at the Library of Congress
- The daily worker, August 5, 1927 — read the page at the Library of Congress
- The daily worker, October 16, 1930 — read the page at the Library of Congress
Planning a visit
You can reach Room 52 by phone on (551) 449-0708 and on Facebook.
The address is 212 E 52nd St, New York, NY 10022. Open in Google Maps.
What we have confirmed
For Room 52 we hold street address, telephone number, social accounts, and a listed-building record. We do not yet hold official website, opening hours, a published drinks list, or an online booking link.
It is in the directory because its own name calls it a room rather than a bar and the description in the source data describes it as a speakeasy.
Overture Maps carries this venue; OpenStreetMap has no matching record.
The source data classifies the premises as a bar.