Elaine Kaufman, the brassy, legendary Upper East Side saloon-keeper whose eponymous watering hole became an eclectic meeting place for top New York authors, journalists, cops and celebrities, died today. She was 81.
The proprietress of Elaine’s, who had been in failing health, died at 12:20 p.m. at Lenox Hill Hospital, said Cindy Carway, a spokeswoman for the Second Avenue restaurant.
“Elaine was a New York institution,” said Mayor Bloomberg.
Kaufman died from complications stemming from emphysema.
“Writers have never come to my place to talk about literature,” Elaine told Vanity Fair magazine last year in an article about her and her bar, which became memorialized in print and in Billy Joel’s hit “Big Shot.”
SEE PHOTOS OF ELAINE WITH HER FAMED CLIENTELE
“They come to escape writing.”
A memorial service was expected to take place sometime next year, although no date has been set.
Writer Gay Talese, a regular at the restaurant since 1964, a year after she opened it, said, “What she did that stood out was — she stood out. She was there in italics.”
He said her generosity to writers was unique.
“No sane restaurant in New York is friendly to writers because they don;t have money or if they do they don’t spend it on restaurants,” he said. “She cultivated writers because she was the only restaurant owner in New York who finished (reading) a book.”
Dominic Chianese said long before he became famous in the cast of the HBO hit “The Sopranos,” Kaufman “was like an older sister to me, someone I could confide in.”
“She was always trying to help me out, asking if working, introducing me to people,” he added.
Domestic diva Martha Stewart also had fond memories of Kaufman.
“After my divorce, having drinks and dinner at Elaine’s with the literati of New York was the best cure for a new divorce,” she said. “Elaine was always in residence and a interesting as any of her guest.'”
Longtime friend the Rev. Peter Colapietro of Holly Cross Church in Midtown said, “We lost a great lady, a great friend. She was a magnolia of steel.”
“Father Pete,” as he’s known, said he was saying noon Mass today when he had a premonition.
“Just about 20 minutes after 12, I got this feeling. Not a bad feeling, not a good feeling — just something passed over me,” he said, choking up. “And I knew she was gone.”
Over the past five years, Kaufman rallied against chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder and pulmonary hypertension.
“Elaine was greatly loved by me and her entire staff. It was an honor and a privilege to have worked with her — one of New York City’s greatest personalities — for 26 years. Most of all, it was a lot of fun,” said Diane Becker, who worked as the manager at Elaine’s restaurant.
“Elaine’s was the big love of her life and the restaurant will continue to be open for business at 1703 Second Avenue with her staff fully intact.”
Journalists across the city took to Twitter this afternoon to mourn Kaufman’s death.
“We waked one of the last great lions in Elaine’s back room. Now she’s gone. My brothers and I bid you peace,” write ESPN.com sportswriter Jeff MacGregor.
Fox 5 anchorwoman Rosanna Scotto reacted with her own tweet: “Sad news. My friend Elaine Kaufman has died. I loved going into Elaine’s restaurant. NY will miss her!”
“I’m sure Elaine Kaufman has a good table and is ordering from off the menu at a restaurant in the sky. RIP,” wrote author Elizabeth Wurtzel.
Publicist Michael Dolan added a funny anecdote, recounting that Kaufman “threw me out of her bar by the neck once.”
Socialite Nikki Haskell called Kaufman’s death “the end of an era.”
“I will miss her madly. NY will never be the same!” she added.
Kaufman, a longtime Yankees fan, even befriended owner George Steinbrenner, who died earlier this year.
“We mourn the loss of Elaine Kaufman. She was a great friend to my father and our family, as well as a tremendous supporter of the New York Yankees,” Hal Steinbrenner said. “She was a special person who contributed so much to the rich fabric of New York City. I extend our deepest sympathies to her family, friends and loved ones.”
Born on February 10, 1929, Kaufman spent her childhood in Times Square, hung out backstage at theatres on- and off-Broadway and devoured the city’s daily newspapers, including The Post.
Kaufman was raised in Queens, graduated from Evander Childs High School in the Bronx and worked at Gimbels department store.
“When I was a child, living in Queens … The New York Post used to print a series of reproductions of famous paintings,” Kaufman said once. “For a few dollars, you could buy good reproductions. And that’s what my sisters brought into the house. They were on all the walls.”
She opened Elaine’s on 88th Street in 1963 with just $12,000 and it instantly became the place where writers loved to down beers.
In a 1970 Washington Post profile, Kaufman said she started out working in cosmetics sales and began her restaurant career to help out a friend.
“It was the best thing I’d ever done; it combined all the things that were easy for me,” she said at the time. “I have a feeling for people.”
The 5-foot-5 Kaufman took care of a group of writers and reporters who would come to define their generation — including Norman Mailer, Kurt Vonnegut, Gay Talese, Nora Ephron and David Halberstam — serving them dinner and listening to their stories during all-night poker games.
Kaufman, an avid art collector, also appeared as herself in a number of films and Elaine’s was featured in the opening scene of Woody Allen’s classic film, “Manhattan.” Most recently, she made a cameo appearance in “Morning Glory,” starring Diane Keaton, Harrison Ford and Rachel McAdams.
Until she was hospitalized last month, Kaufman worked every day of the week, greeting patrons at the door and leaving at closing time in the wee hours of the morning.
“I live at the restaurant, I entertain at the restaurant,” Kaufman told The Post in a 2009 interview. “I come [home] just for myself. This is where I unwind, where I read and watch my favorite Western movies on TV.”
Kaufman was named a New York “Living Landmark” by the New York Landmarks Conservancy in 2003. Her life was chronicled in the 2004 book, “Everybody Comes to Elaine’s.”
Bobby Zarem, a public relations guru who has worked with actors Dustin Hoffman, Clint Eastwood and Michael Douglas, had been close friends with Kaufman for 47 years.
Zarem was working for a large PR agency in New York when he walked into Elaine’s three weeks after it opened. The two became friends immediately.
“We were great, great friends,” he said of Kaufman, who began going to the restaurant “three weeks after she opened it and probably averaged two days a week ever since.”
Kaufman was also “extremely supportive to a lot of writers, when they couldn’t afford a meal,” Zarem recalled. “She helped a lot of them, even some famous writers, through writer’s block.”