[2] In 1955, the Cedar Tavern was purchased by Sam Diliberto, a butcher, and his brother in law, John Bodnar, a window washer, from Joe Provenzano.

Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Mark Rothko, Franz Kline, Michael Goldberg, Landes Lewitin, Aristodimos Kaldis, Lynne Drexler, Phillip Guston, Knute Stiles, Ted Joans, James Brooks, Charles Cajori, Mercedes Matter, Howard Kanovitz, Al Leslie, Stanley Twardowicz, Morton Feldman, John Cage, and others of the New York School all patronized the bar in the 1950s when many lived in or near Greenwich Village.

[2][4] It was also popular with writers Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Gregory Corso, Frank O'Hara, George Plimpton, Jean Stein, Harold "Doc" Humes, Alex Trocchi, and LeRoi Jones.

Pollock was eventually banned from the establishment for tearing the bathroom door off its hinges and hurling it across the room at Franz Kline,[5] as was Kerouac, who allegedly urinated in an ashtray.

After a year they bought the building at 82 University Place, which had been occupied by an antique store, and built the new bar in a more upscale pub style.

Its owners had pledged to reopen in six months, but an opinion piece in the December 3, 2006, edition of The New York Times speculated that it was closed for good.

[8] When the Cedar Tavern closed in 2006, its century-old, 50 foot mahogany bar was sold to Austin businessmen, John M. Scott and Eddy Patterson.