Few writers captured the spirit of New York quite like Walt Whitman. From the Brooklyn waterfront and bustling ferry crossings to the streets filled with ordinary working people, Whitman found poetry in the everyday rhythms of city life. His words transformed nineteenth-century New York into timeless literature, making him not only one of America’s greatest poets but also one of the city’s most enduring literary voices.
Photo: Mathew Brady (Public Domain) see below
For over a century and a half, literary critics and historians have speculated about and debated Walt Whitman’s romantic life. Whatever his preferences were, his love affair with America, most particularly New York, eclipsed all. His passion for New York City, brilliantly reflected in his poems, is shared by many.
Walter Whitman was born in West Hills, Huntington, Long Island, on May 31, 1819. He was the second child in a family of nine born to Walter Whitman and Louisa Whitman. His family in prior generations owned vast tracts of farmland. However, by the time Walter and Louisa started their large family, the family farmland had been sold. Long Island offered few employment prospects, so the family moved to Brooklyn. Walter Whitman’s father was an idealist, much like his poet son, and spent years trying to rebuild the family’s wealth through real estate speculation, carpentry, and a host of other jobs. As plan after plan to recoup the family fortune failed, the father became cynical and world-weary, turning to alcohol for comfort. Walt, his son, adopted his mother’s sunny outlook on life and refused to let anything like a lack of educational opportunity, harsh living conditions, or family responsibilities defeat him.
Walt Whitman’s Early Years
Being the second oldest, Walt was taken out of school at age eleven to work as an office messenger. Walt loved to read and write and found his way literally into the back door of publishing as a printer’s apprentice. At fourteen years old, he became a journeyman printer, which would come in handy for his later foray into self-publishing.
Like many aspiring writers, Walt Whitman did a stint as a schoolteacher in various schools on Long Island. However, Whitman was little more than a substitute, shuffling from school to school. He began his teaching career at seventeen and quit five years later to devote his time to journalism. His first thought was to start his own paper, The Long Islander, which folded quickly due to lack of financial backing. Never a quitter, Walt Whitman returned to Brooklyn and became the editor of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. His stint as a newspaperman lasted only two years due to editorial differences.
Whitman refused to do things the “proper way” or check his eccentric behavior for the sake of a paycheck. Number 28 Old Fulton Street, the site of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, is now The Eagle Warehouse and Storage Company. The area has gone through many incarnations and renovations and is now a condominium complex. The building bears a plaque dedicated to Walt Whitman. New York paranormal buffs claim his ghost still roams the building, although considering that other New York haunts factor more prominently in his story, this is debatable.
Leaves Of Grass And New York
Walt Whitman’s masterpiece, Leaves of Grass, went through many editions with revisions and expansions along the way. Anyone who has picked up a current copy of Leaves of Grass will find it a formidable, yet fascinating read. The first printing in 1855 was a slim pamphlet. In 1856, Whitman brought out a new edition with the addition of “Sun Down Poem,” which we know now as the popular “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry.” This poem says so much about New York during that era. You could not simply stroll across the Brooklyn Bridge into Manhattan; you had to take a ferry ride.
“Crossing Brooklyn Ferry” is a poem for New Yorkers past and present. The poet speaks of the travelers now and hundreds of years in the future. He talks of the surge of humanity, all of us continuing to work and thrive. The ferry becomes, in Whitman’s verse, a metaphor for life’s journey.
During the mid nineteenth century, the world was changing. Transcendentalist thought, the idea that humans should seek to communicate with nature, expand their horizons, and conquer their fears, was in full effect. Railway travel opened new vistas for those with wanderlust. For those living in New York, the ever-changing skyline and endless entertainment were an adventure of their own. Walt Whitman loved to attend the opera, comedy performances, and dramatic plays when he had the price of a ticket in his pocket.
Pfaff’s Café And The Long Table
Walt Whitman subverted the image of the writer sitting alone in a loft, pencil in hand. He was jotting down ideas and observations as he moved among the throngs of New Yorkers. Walt Whitman saw poetry in the women hanging wash, men in suits traveling to work, the old and the new immigrants. He did not move in the company of socialites, nor did he aspire to a great position. After being fired from the Eagle, Whitman in 1858 was a self-published writer struggling to get reviews. To while away the time and make connections, he often frequented Pfaff’s Café at 653 Broadway.
The years 1858 to 1860 were lean years for Walt Whitman. Despite being known as a colorful character, he was quite broke and was living back in Brooklyn with his mother. Pfaff’s Café, and most notably the “Long Table” located in the anteroom of the saloon, was his escape. It was six miles from his home in Brooklyn to Pfaff’s, and Whitman wore out lots of shoe leather while spending untold hours riding back and forth on the ferry. Those two years, which could have led to despondency for another writer, became Whitman’s most prolific period. He would jot notes as he traveled, weaving the sights and sounds of the hurly-burly metropolis into gorgeous verse.
The “barfly years” for Walt Whitman, unemployed and down on his luck, led to connections he would not have made editing news stories. At Pfaff’s Café he hobnobbed with comedians, poets, rebels, singers, and novelists. It was a refuge where he could be his authentic self, read his poetry aloud, and bask in the warmth of fellowship over foaming mugs of beer.
The Civil War Years
Although Walt Whitman was not publishing during those years, he was composing new poems and editing his existing manuscripts. By 1860, Whitman added over 150 poems to Leaves of Grass. During that time, he heard from the Boston publishing firm of William Wilde Thayer and Charles W. Eldridge, asking if he was ready to release the third edition of his poems. With no job and plenty of completed work on hand, Walt Whitman agreed.
Walt Whitman never completely got journalism out of his system, as he covered Abraham Lincoln’s inaugural address and the article was published in several local newspapers.
The Civil War hit close to home for Walt Whitman, as it did nearly every American family at the time. George Whitman, Walt’s brother, enlisted in the 51st New York Volunteer Infantry. He was injured, so Walt traveled to Washington to check on him in person. There he helped the war effort as a nurse, traveling to battlefields to care for the wounded. He also used his literary skills to help wounded soldiers write letters home to loved ones.
Whitman’s Civil War poems, particularly Drum-Taps, captured the fears, hope, and horror of the Civil War. Walt idolized Abraham Lincoln and wrote “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d” and “O Captain! My Captain!” in his honor.
Walt Whitman’s Lasting Legacy
In addition to memorial sites in Brooklyn, Walt Whitman is an icon in his birthplace of West Hills, Long Island, where everything from high schools to shopping centers bears his name. Although Whitman moved to New Jersey for his final years, New York was his true stomping ground. New York is where the flow of city life, ordinary people, and everyday images gave birth to extraordinary poetry that still catches fire in our imagination and moves our hearts today.
In 2011, Pfaff’s reopened at 643 Broadway and Bleecker Street as a vintage-style pub, but it closed again shortly afterward. Still, anywhere in New York where poets, actors, musicians, and dreamers gather re-creates the spirit of the Long Table where Whitman and his friends read verse, sang songs, and contemplated life.
For more literary and cultural New York history, visit our articles on The Manhattan Well Murder, Grand Central Terminal, The New York Public Library, and The Brooklyn Bridge.
Updated June 29, 2026.
Photo Credit: National Archives Series: Mathew Brady Photographs of Civil War-Era Personalities and Scenes, 1921–1940. Record Group 111: Records of the Office of the Chief Signal Officer, 1860–1985. (Public Domain)
