Harlem had its own clubs including the Cotton Club. Texas Guinan opened and ran many, and had many padlocked by the cops. These nightclubs featured big bands.ĭuring America's Prohibition, new speakeasies and nightclubs appeared on a weekly basis. With the repeal of Prohibition in February 1933, nightclubs were revived, such as New York's 21 Club, Copacabana, El Morocco, and the Stork Club. Webster Hall stayed open, with rumors circulating of Al Capone's involvement and police bribery.įrom about 1900 to 1920, working class Americans would gather at honky tonks or juke joints to dance to music played on a piano or a jukebox. The advent of the jukebox fueled the Prohibition-era boom in underground illegal speakeasy bars, which needed music but could not afford a live band and needed precious space for paying customers. The first was installed at the Palais Royale Saloon, San Francisco on November 23, 1889, becoming an overnight sensation. The jukebox (a coin-operated record-player) was invented by the Pacific Phonograph Company in 1889 by its managers Louis Glass and his partner William S. Reisenweber's Cafe is credited for introducing jazz and cabaret to New Yorkers. Webster Hall is credited as the first modern nightclub, being built in 1886 and starting off as a "social hall", originally functioning as a home for dance and political activism events. It catered to a downscale clientele and besides the usual illegal liquor, gambling, and prostitution, it featured nightly fistfights and occasional shootings, stabbings, and police raids. By contrast, Owney Geoghegan ran the toughest nightclub in New York from 1880 to 1883. Timothy Gilfoyle called them "the first nightclubs". Prices were high and they were patronized by an upscale audience. Practically all gambling was illegal in the city (except upscale horseracing tracks), and regular payoffs to political and police leadership was necessary. They tolerated unlicensed liquor, commercial sex, and gambling cards, chiefly Faro. They enjoyed a national reputation for vaudeville, live music, and dance. The first nightclubs appeared in New York City in the 1840s and 1850s, including McGlory's, and the Haymarket. Prostitutes served a wide variety of clientele, from sailors on leave to playboys. Stars such as Edwin Booth and Lillian Russell were among the early Broadway performers. New York's theater district gradually moved northward during this half century, from The Bowery up Broadway through Union Square and Madison Square, settling around Times Square at the end of the 19th century. Grand hotels were built for upscale visitors. In the United States, New York increasingly became the national capital for tourism and entertainment. "The Cave" in the basement of the Gruenwald (later Roosevelt) Hotel, New Orleans opened in 1912 said by some to be one of the first nightclubs in the United States
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