These Democrats and Republicans have something in common. It’s a bar.

It was 10 p.m. on the eve of the governor’s State of the State address, and all of political New York, it seemed, was trying to force its way into two adjacent brick mansions within stumbling distance of the State Capitol.

One housed a restaurant where Letitia James, the attorney general in the midst of a splashy fraud trial with Donald J. Trump, held court at a table steps away from a group of Long Island Republicans toasting their recent electoral defeat .

In the cigar lounge next door, former Manhattan congresswoman Carolyn Maloney hosted a smoky reception to promote the Equal Rights Amendment.

And the bar was packed with lawmakers double-fisting cocktails and legislative pamphlets. That is, until many took a break from the revelry to watch former Governor David A. Paterson strap on a Fender Strat and deliver serious covers of Hendrix and John Lee Hooker.

“This place is a scene and a half,” marveled James E. McMahon, a veteran lobbyist known as Cadillac. “It’s like the House of Dracula. People are coming back that you haven’t heard from for years.”

Every capital has its places of power and watering holes, where the political class comes to smear the government and make deals that could reshape the lives of millions of people. There is Cafe Milano in Washington and the wardrobe in Austin, Texas. Democrats from Brooklyn Claim Junior as their unofficial clubhouse.

Todd Shapiro, a frenetic publicist in Manhattan, sensed a void in Albany and perhaps a quixotic opportunity to recreate the golden days before tribalism and Covid took their toll on the capital’s once vibrant, bipartisan political nightlife.

His answer is the cheek-by-jowl mansions that now do business as the War Room Tavern and its smoke-filled neighbor, Todd’s Back Room. They strive to be a clubhouse not only to serve, but to honor the political group of Albany. Think Planet Hollywood for Planet Albany.

There’s a huge moose head honoring Teddy Roosevelt next to a small museum’s Albany esoterica (Bella Abzug’s hat! Andrew Cuomo’s humidor!) and framed headshots of both governors and obscure backbenchers. Karaoke with politicians is organized in the bar downstairs. (Diane Savino, a former senator and now Mayor Eric Adams’s Albany liaison, is a regular.) Even the menu serves political tributes (a $57 Pataki filet mignon) alongside fresh hand-rolled sushi.

A sign outside tries to reassure wary elected officials: No photos or video allowed.

“It really is a chamber of love,” said Mr. Shapiro, who welcomes Democrats and Republicans with equal enthusiasm. “Politics is about war. It’s about campaigns. But they come to this place and they come together.

Like any political venue, the War Room has quickly inspired its own intrigue, much of it surrounding Mr. Shapiro, 59, and his group of friends.

He once opened a shoe store in a Hamptons nightclub and promoted “probably a thousand restaurants,” but he’s never owned one. He spent most of his career in public relations, where he built a reputation around proximity to the powerful, with little regard for political affiliation.

He has represented socialites, plastic surgeons, Rudolph W. Giuliani and Brock Pierce, the child actor turned cryptocurrency investor. He has helped police unions through scandals. At times, Mr. Shapiro worked on both sides of one of Manhattan’s most famous divorces: serving as a publicist for Ivana Trump and for her ex-husband Donald’s ill-fated Long Island catering hall.

But he always fantasized about his own place. So for about $1.5 million, Mr. Shapiro said, he bought and renovated a pair of 19th-century brownstones that previously housed a bar and a drug rehabilitation center, put out a call for memorabilia and opened a store last January.

Getting into business hasn’t always been easy, especially for a budding restaurateur taking the train from Manhattan. Albany’s nightlife has been in decline for years, hampered by stricter ethics laws that prevent lobbyists from picking up the tab and a social scene in which Republicans and Democrats stick to their own parties. The pandemic has only accelerated the decline, claims the venerable University Club and Pinto & Hobbs Tavern, a karaoke set favorite.

Mr. Shapiro said his restaurant was “profitable for several months” and called Albany “a desert” when lawmakers left town in June. But on the other hand, he often seems more interested in playing host than a conventional businessman, offering free food and drinks to politicians and near-strangers who quickly become his friends.

“Once you’re with him, it’s like family,” said David N. Weinraub, a lobbyist whose clients include DoorDash and New York’s largest health care provider. “I had three dinners there when he started. He insisted on paying. I’m like, ‘Dude, you can’t keep buying me food!’”

Mr. Weinraub has held fundraisers there and signed up for a $2,500 cigar lounge membership so customers could come in for quiet conversations. He drew the line when Mr. Shapiro offered to hang his picture on the wall.

That generosity has led some regulars — and ethics watchdogs — to speculate whether there might be more in it for Mr. Shapiro than the food and drink vouchers. As an owner, he plays host to the kind of powerful decision makers who control budgets and policies, giving his customers an edge or attracting new business. He rejects the suggestion: “Look, it cost me business.”

Either way, it’s hard work. On Monday, as old friends poured in, Mr. Shapiro and his wife Liz (another friend, Rev. Al Sharpton, performed at their wedding)frantically ran up and down the narrow stairs of the mansions, carrying drinks and steaks alongside overwhelmed staff.

“It’s like the opening of the opera,” said Mr. Shapiro, who seemed to enjoy his role as the sloppy maestro.

The evening started around 5 p.m. with a fundraiser in the restaurant’s private event room for Taylor Darling, a Democratic lawmaker running for Senate.

“Is my picture up yet, Todd?” she shouted back as she climbed three flights of stairs. (It was.)

At 8 p.m., the Assembly’s Republican leader was seated at the bar, and Ms. Maloney was next door, talking to Roosevelt’s great-great-grandson, a teenager whom Mr. Shapiro would honor the next day at a ceremony in the War Room. with a former client, Governor George E. Pataki, and Mr. Adams.

“Women should be allowed in every room,” says Ms. Maloney, another former Shapiro client, explaining why she chose a traditionally male space for an ERA event. But that didn’t mean she liked the smoke.

“It’s enough to make you gag,” she said more than once. “You could literally chew the air.”

Minutes later, heads turned as Mrs. James burst through the front door and playfully bellowed, “Where’s Todd?”

Ms. Savino, who accompanied other guests to see the framed memorabilia she had donated, argued that the restaurant filled a significant social gap that had grown in Albany.

“When you see someone singing a tune you like, you look at him or her differently,” she said. “It may not change your ideology, but you start to see the humanity in each other that I think they’ve been missing.”

That became clear Monday night when Mr. Paterson took to a makeshift stage with his band, “Blind Dog Dave and the Pirate Throng,” a reference to the former governor’s limited eyesight. He dedicated a rendition of “My Girl” to Gov. Kathy Hochul, who was cramming out of sight for her own more sedate State of the State performance.

Republicans mostly kept singing along. But they cheered when Ms James introduced Mr Paterson by raising some common points.

“This War Room, this beautiful restaurant, is packed to the rafters, with virtually every politician of all types and races, all political stripes,” she said. “And there’s one thing we can agree on, and that’s: you can’t sing.”