Café Central, Vienna

Café Central is a Viennese coffeehouse occupying the ground floor of the former Bank and Stockmarket Building, now called Palais Ferstel after its architect, Heinrich von Ferstel. The building rose from 1856 to 1860 in the Tuscan Neorenaissance style, while the café opened in 1876. By the late 19th century, it had become a meeting place for Vienna’s intellectual life, drawing writers and thinkers including Peter Altenberg, Sigmund Freud, Stefan Zweig, and Leon Trotsky.

Newspapers were available here in 22 languages, and chess players gave the café its old nickname, “the Chess school.” As local legend has it, Trotsky’s presence inspired a political remark about “Mr. Bronstein from Café Central.” The café closed in 1943 after part of its columned hall was destroyed, then reopened in 1975 after the Palais Ferstel was renovated.