Café Central

The Café Central is a coffeehouse in Vienna. It is located in the Herrngasse 14 in the First District in the former Bank and Stock Exchange Building, which is now named after its architect Heinrich von Ferstel Ferstel ( a built in Tuscan Renaissance Revival -style building ).

History

The café was opened in 1876 by ​​the brothers Pach; in the late 19th century, it was, by the demolition of the Griensteidl to the meeting point of the spiritual life in Vienna. Among the regulars included, among others, Peter Altenberg, Alfred Adler, Egon Friedell, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Anton Kuh, Adolf Loos ( the Café Museum designed ), Leo Perutz and Alfred Polgar.

The restaurant closed after the end of World War II. 1975, the year of monument protection, Palais Ferstel was renovated and reopened in the Central - but not as before in the courtyard of the palace, but in the offices of former banking hall of a bank. In 1986 the premises were again extensively renovated. Today, the Café Central is both an attraction for tourists, on the other hand a Residential café that thrives on the reputation of his literary embossed past.

Anecdotal

A well-known anecdote has it that the Austrian politician Heinrich Count Clam - Martinic, addressed the possibility of a revolution in Russia, reported to have said: " Who's going to have to make a revolution? Perhaps Mr. Bronstein from the Café Central? "This was Leon Trotsky, bourgeois Bronstein, meant, who lived from October 1907 until the outbreak of World War II in exile in Vienna and played regularly at the Central Chess. Until 1938 it was called Café jokingly Chess Academy.

The writer Alfred Polgar wrote in The Theory of the Café Central:

" The Central is namely not a coffee house like other coffee houses, but a belief [ ... ] Its inhabitants are mostly people whose enmity is as violent as their desire for people who want to be alone, but to society need [ ... ] Guests of the Central know, love and despise one another [ ... ] There are creators, which I can not think only in Central, everywhere else, much less [ ... ]. "

Television show

Austria width became famous for the house through the ORF - discussion program Café Central. This was broadcast from 1982 to 1991 under the direction of Ernst Wolfram Marboe from the Central.