Anthony's Pier 4

Restaurateur Anthony Athanas opened Anthony's Pier 4 in 1963, and lived in an apartment above it. It served traditional American food with an emphasis on locally caught seafood; the dining room, with seating for 500, overlooked Boston Harbor on three sides.[1][2] In 1968, Athanas bought a 1927 former Hudson River cruise ship, the SS Peter Stuyvesant, and brought it from New York to Boston, where a specially built concrete and steel cradle held it in place adjacent to the restaurant; it served as a private bar and dining room and held a wine cellar as well as art works and mementoes collected by Athanas. The ship broke free, turned turtle, and sank during the Blizzard of February 1978; after unsuccessful efforts to salvage it, in 1979 all but the hull was removed.[3][4]

The restaurant shot to prominence when Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton ate there in 1964 while Richard Burton's Hamlet was at the Shubert Theatre.[2] It was a prominent restaurant throughout its first two decades, attracting both out-of-town celebrities and Boston politicians.[1][5] By the early 1980s, it was grossing about $12 million annually, making it one of the five highest-grossing restaurants in the United States.[1][5][6]

Anthony's Pier 4

Athanas died in 2005;[1][7] the restaurant closed in 2013.[2][5] A condominium tower was erected on the site of the parking lot,[5] and in 2016–17 the restaurant building was demolished and the remains of the Stuyvesant were dredged up for scrap in early 2017.[3] A multi-use complex on the site including offices and condominiums opened in 2018.[8][9]