The Strange Looking Chair

With Valentine's Day right around the corner, it's time for a little history on the strange looking chair outside our front door.

It’s known as a Tête-à-Tête Chair, or a courting chair, a concept dating back to Victorian times where a couple could get “up close and personal” but still have a safe barrier between them. Sounds pretty strange by 2017 standards, not to mention the fact that the chair now resides outside a bar.

Rumor has it that in 1931 Orville Nussbaum proposed to Ethel Pinkerton in that very chair when it resided in another Second Avenue building that met its demise many decades ago. Sadly, Ethel turned Orville down flat and ran off with a young gangster named Waldo Nesbitt that very same night. Ethel and Waldo married and made a career of robbing banks, but never made the history books due to being overshadowed by the notorious Bonnie & Clyde. Their fates are unknown. But what about poor Orville Nussbaum? No one knows…he was never seen or heard from again, however a ghostly image of a young man has been seen on very rare occasions around Second Avenue in the vicinity of Buffalo’s.

Could it be the ghost of the heartbroken Orville? We’ll never know. This is just a rumor and since our sources are usually found sitting around our bar, we’ll just assume the stories have been embellished…if not completely fabricated.