THE JOHN DAY INTIMATE GUIDES NIGHTLIFE • BY CHARLES G. SHAW DINING IN NEW YORK • BY RIAN JAMES ALL ABOUT NEW YORK • BY RIAN JAMES DINING IN CHICAGO • BY JOHN DRURY THE BON VOYAGE BOOK • BY "OLD SALT" OTHER VOLUMES IN PREPARATION NIGHTLIFE BY CHARLES G. SHAW DECORATED BY RAYMOND BRET-KOCH VANITY FAIR'S INTIMATE GUIDE TO NEW YORK AFTER DARK NEW YORK THE JOHN DAY COMPANY COPYRIGHT, 1931, BY CHARLES G. SHAW ALL RIGHTS RESERVED MANUFACTURED IN THE U. S. A. FOR THE JOHN DAY COMPANY, INC., NEW YORK BY THE STRATFORD .PRESS, INC., NEW YORK CONTENTS PAGE Foreword • • • • • • • • • • • • • 3 The Gentle Art of Doing the Town • • • 3 Panorama • • • • • • • • • • • • • 4 Peeping Backward • • • • • • • • • 7 In Memoriam . • • • • • • • • • 9 Around Town at Night • • • • • • • • 10 A Few Night Life Don'ts • • • • • • • 11 As to Certain Nights • • • • • • • • • 12 Some Tips on Tipping • • • • • • • • 12 A Slice of New York Night Life • • • • • 13 Speakeasies • • • • • • • • • • • • 18 Cab Joints. • • • • • • • • • • • • 20 Lest We Forget • • • • • • • • • • • 21 The Great White Way • • • • • • • • • 22 Night Clubs • . • . • • • • • • • • 23 A Few All-Night Druggists • • • • • • • 24 On and About Broadway • • • • • • • 25 V PAGE Pour le Sport • • • • • • • • • • • 35 Still More Diversion • • • • • • • • • 45 Dance Halls and Ballrooms • • • • • • 53 All Night Chow • • • • • • • • • • • 63 Harlem • • • • • • • • • • • • • 71 Greenwich Village • • • • • • • • • • 81 With That Park Avenue Air • • • • • • 91 Luxury Restaurants • • • • • • • • • 97 The Lower East Side • • • • • • • • • 105 Foreign Restaurants • • • • • • • • • 111 The Russians • • • • • • • • • • • • 121 Chop Suey With Dancing • • • • • • • 127 Chop Suey Without Dancing • • • • • • 133 Yorkville • • • • • • • • • • • • • 137 Roof Gardens • • • • • • • • • • • 145 Chophouses • • • • • • • • • • • • 151 General Restaurants • • • • • • • • • 157 Grill Rooms • • • • • • • • • • • • 163 Roadhouses • • • • • • • • • • • • 171 Index • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 177 • Vl FOREWORD I have sought in the following pages to sketch a picture of night life in and around New York-a picture embracing the high and the low as it cur­ rently exists. That much remains still untold I readily confess. What is more, I have named spe- cifically onl) the distinctive types, the brighter spots in each of their special fields. Which, of course, in all cases, is one of diversion, of pastime ~~ in one of its forms. Halls of terpsichore, cabarets, and night clubs form the greater part of these. Roof gardens, road houses, dancing grill rooms are somewhat more lightly discussed. But nothing his­ toric I warn you, nothing the least educational. No museums, night schools, or galleries. None of these worthier halls. Perhaps you will find hy the time these pages reach you, that a few of the places mentioned have changed quarters or names. The management, further, may not he the same. The orchestra may have departed long since. The building itself may he gone. For all this is part of the night scheme of things, which, at best, is kalei­ doscopic. Especially when the town is New York and the year Nineteen Hundred Thirty-one. THE GENTLE ART OF DOING THE TOWN Unlike its European equivalent, New York night life must he planned, which means investigation, 3 scheming, organization. If the place in point is popular, you had best reserve a table. Popular or not, he sure to find out its attitude toward alcohol; discover if evening togs are demanded and the hour to arrive. But above all, he particular. Be choosy. That is the main thing. Select your ren­ dezvous with the care you would use in selecting a wife. Discrimination is essential; in brief, you must know the ropes. As we view it to-day, night life underwent its first great change in the autumn of 1911. With the advent of the fox trot, which not merely revolu­ tionized Terpsichore hut the entire world of whoop-it-up. When, for the first time, joy dens (led hy the Brothers Bustanohy) introduced dancing with supper. When belles and beaux pranced away the night to "Waiting for the Robert E. Lee." The second, and still more drastic change followed with Prohibition, which slashed right and left at the old-time favorites and gave us in­ stead the speakeasy. But a truce to the whys and where£ores. Already the sun sinks fast. Dim shadows streak the city's streets. Traffic lights blaze through the dusk. Restaurants cram to bursting. The theatres begin to fill. Broadway crowds throng thicker and faster; avenues choke with cars. A million :flashes wink and dance and twinkle overhead. For things are happening. Everywhere. The city is waking up. PANORAMA In all the world I know no city offering the noc­ turnal diversion to be had in New York. I believe this metropolis to be wider open now than ever 4 he£ore. I have found that rainy nights, nine times in ten, make more for adventure than fine ones. I believe that N. T. Granlund is the town's best floor show stager and the Messrs. O'Keefe and Joe Lewis the top ceremonial masters. I regard Texas Guinan as the Queen of all night clubs. I deplore the Yorkville trick of forcing you to sit with strangers, even though the room he :filled with empty tables. I cannot help feeling that nearly all orchestras play twice as loudly as they should. I consider Charlie Journal a perfect maitre d'hotel and regret the passing of the Club Montmartre more than words can tell. I know of few taxi drivers possessing the courtesy of James Rivais, whose license is 51742 and whose hangout is Jungle Alley. I am fetched hy the offerings of Hubert's Mu­ seum hut can say nothing in praise of Sixth Ave­ nue's penny peep-shows. I am always filled with memories when visiting the Cafe des Beaux Arts. I believe that Lee "Harlemania" Posner knows his Harlem as no other white man. I believe the minimum check will, in time, supplant the cover charge. I consider the Central Park Casino a breath­ taking piece of decor. I believe that New York boasts almost as many great food halls as Paris. I know of no single :first rate night club that graces upper Broadway. I often wonder what has happened to Walter Sweeney who ran the Cohasset Club. I like the comfort of Luchow's with its excellent German fare, the pace of th~ Hollywood's :floor show, and the chicken at Tillie's Inn. I believe that nine 5 times out of ten, the better the hand, the worse the food. I do not believe that the town to-day offers an equal to Jack's Oyster House. I am convinced that the Irish make the best waiters, the French the be£t chefs, the I tali ans the best bootleggers. I believe that a night club's most exciting hours are between 1 :00 and 3 A.M. I am pleased by the vast improvement in liquor during the past six months. I have usually found the gayest exteriors to harbour the dullest hangouts. I do not believe there has ever been a ca£ e-bar equal to Forty-fourth Street Sherry's. I know few orchestras in any land that compare with Emil Coleman's, Leo Reisman's, or Guy Lombardo's. I pin the blue ribbon for flower girls on Mavis King of the late Argonaut. I believe that the next change in night life will centre around the dance. I consider Broadway fully as diverting as Mont• martre. I believe that where one innovation clicks, over a hundred flop. I deplore the passing of Maennerchor Hall that once graced East Fifty­ sixth Street. I believe that from 1911 to 1915 New York hit its top night stride. I prefer a sawdust-floored sa­ loon to a batik-curtained tea-room. I believe the Provincetown Playhouse to he the town's most un­ comfortable theatre. I am sorry that the bronze owls that winked their electric-lighted eyes on the Herald Building are no more. I consider more than four cocktails before din­ ner excessive. I regard dancing without some kind of heart interest as the near-beer of diversion. I am unable to appreciate the charm of any open-faced 6 restaurant. I prefer Italian to German opera and silent films to the talkies. I do not like the foyer of the Forrest Theatre, the pretentiousness of Reuben's, cocktails contain­ ing absinthe, and the bouncer at the Club Elite. I prefer the Colony Restaurant's entrees to the ma­ jority of its patrons. I regret that Columbus Ave­ nue's Old Landmark isn't what it used to he. I consider the burning of the Sherry-Netherland tower New York's most artistic fire. I have never witnessed anything worth a cent at the Cherry Lane Theatre. I admire the divan seats at the Capitol. I don't think there is any such thing as an "average taxi driver.'' I believe Manhattan night life to he gayer than that of London, less genuine than Berlin's, and more amusing than that of Paris. I believe that whether there he speakeasies or not New York will always have night clubs. I regret that some of the spots mentioned in this hook have probably gone out of business. PEEPING BACKWARD The Melodeon, New York's first concert hall, was opened in 1860 • • . It filled the Chinese As­ sembly Rooms, then gracing Broadway . • A few years later "melodeons" were everywhere, com­ plete with "waiter girls" ••• concert saloons, in the course of time, lined Broadway and the Bowery • . serving as assignation houses, as well as hang­ outs for crooks ••• the dance halls which followed were, if possible, even worse ... All wore a cheap and threadbare loo~ and sold atrocious liquor ••• the patrons were chiefly sailors ... the girls were 7 often half drunk • • • John Allen, of lowly Water Street was the "wickedest man in town" • . • he ran a dance house, out of which he made one hun­ dred thousand dollars ••• Whiskey was known as "bingo" and a drunk was a ''bingo hoy" .•.