{"id":1574,"date":"2018-02-05T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-02-04T23:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/staging.newyorkcafe.hu\/100-eves-a-nyugat-bar\/"},"modified":"2026-11-06T13:41:29","modified_gmt":"2026-11-06T12:41:29","slug":"the-nyugat-bar-is-100-years-old","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newyorkcafe.hu\/en\/100-eves-a-nyugat-bar\/","title":{"rendered":"The Nyugat Bar is 100 years old"},"content":{"rendered":"The upstairs bar, bathed in soft lighting, is one of the most pleasant spaces in the New York Palace. From here, you can look out over the Salon Restaurant, part of the New York Caf\u00e9, and the hotel lobby; it\u2019s a lovely spot to take in the view, have a coffee, enjoy a good lunch or dinner, and savour the piano music and the attentive service. However, the Nyugat Bar has endured a great many trials and tribulations to achieve this tranquillity; its trials began as far back as the last century.\n\nAlthough the New York Palace was not primarily built as a caf\u00e9 \u2013 it was originally the headquarters of the New York Life Insurance Company \u2013 it soon became an important venue for public life. The caf\u00e9 area was set up on the ground floor, whilst the insurance company\u2019s offices were located on the upper floor.\n\nAs it turned out, cultural public life needed a central venue. Nothing demonstrated this need more clearly than the fact that the cream of the literary and artistic world of the time practically flocked to the grand opening held on 23 October 1894. The New York had, quite unwittingly, become a literary caf\u00e9.\n<h2>The aim: to impress<\/h2>\nWhilst other caf\u00e9s were converted from existing buildings, the New York Caf\u00e9 was designed for this purpose from the outset. The building was constructed with the clear aim of representing the insurance company in a fitting manner \u2013 that is, to impress those entering the building. This is precisely why the d\u00e9cor was more opulent than usual and the design more sophisticated; the caf\u00e9 became the building\u2019s main attraction, its purpose being to dazzle visitors and demonstrate the company\u2019s boundless wealth. This was an unqualified success. Anyone who attended the opening \u2013 or read the reports on the opening and subsequent descriptions \u2013 would have found them all using superlatives to praise the unrivalled opulence and sophistication of the interior.\n<h2>The Birth of the Bar<\/h2>\nIn 1918, Miksa Acz\u00e9l and his partners took over the management of the caf\u00e9. They carried out a number of controversial alterations, which were criticised mainly by figures from the art and press worlds. A restaurant was established in the \u2018deep water\u2019 area, where the billiards room had been, whilst the rooms behind the upper balcony were converted into a bar. This did not yet make a lasting impression on the guests, but the refurbishment carried out a few years later even gave this cosy nook a name: it became the Mahag\u00f3ni Bar.\n<h2>An exclusive venue for nightlife<\/h2>\nIn the autumn of 1927, major architectural alterations were carried out, and the enlarged restaurant was opened to great acclaim. In 1928, the mahogany bar won the public\u2019s affection and admiration. This was situated symmetrically opposite the marble hall, on the other side of the entrance on Miksa Street. Guests spoke enthusiastically of the unique lighting effects, the hidden play of light, and the alabaster columns glowing with a soft, opalescent light. The exclusive bar soon became the centre of Pest\u2019s nightlife, attracting world-famous guests.\n\nFive years later, changes were made once again: the bar\u2019s d\u00e9cor was replaced, and booths and private boxes were installed; it welcomed Pest\u2019s artistic community with writing desks and furniture suitable for playing rummy.\n<h2>The New York Sz\u00edn\u00e9sz P\u00e1holy (Actors\u2019 Circle)<\/h2>\nCoffee-house life suffered during both the First and Second World Wars, but the final blow came to the New York when, in the 1950s \u2013 albeit only for a short time \u2013 the coffee-house section was converted into a sports shop. The caf\u00e9, renamed the Hung\u00e1ria, rose from the ashes in 1954. However, the New York\u2019s true revival was still to come, at least until the fall of communism.","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The upstairs bar, bathed in soft lighting, is one of the most pleasant spaces in the New York Palace. From here, you can look out over the Salon Restaurant, part of the New York Caf\u00e9, and the hotel lobby; it\u2019s a lovely spot to take in the view, have a coffee, enjoy a good lunch or dinner, and savour the piano music and the attentive service. However, the Nyugat Bar has endured a great many trials and tribulations to achieve this tranquillity; its trials began as far back as the last century.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1174,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1574","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rolunk"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newyorkcafe.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1574","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newyorkcafe.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newyorkcafe.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newyorkcafe.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newyorkcafe.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1574"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newyorkcafe.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1574\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3925,"href":"https:\/\/newyorkcafe.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1574\/revisions\/3925"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newyorkcafe.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1174"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newyorkcafe.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newyorkcafe.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newyorkcafe.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}