Harlem (New York, N.Y.); New York (N.Y.) -- Description and travel; New York (N.Y.) -- Social life and customs
There is the world-famed Stork, owned by the _sui generis_ Sherman
Billingsley, a smooth ex-speak proprietor and former partner of
Owney "The Killer" Madden, prohibition vice king, which caters to
internationally distinguished literary people, personages high in
government, newspapermen, industrialists, stars, financiers, Fair
Dealers, labor overlords and millionaire left-wing movie stars,
writers, crooners and do-gooders.
There is also the far-famed El Morocco, owned by John Perona, another
fabulous ex-speak proprietor, which serves much of the Hollywood
and international society glamor set. Rules for admission into its
zebra-striped confines are tougher than those for the Union League
Club. No man wearing a sport jacket, or sport shirt, or sans tie, has
ever been permitted to patronize El Morocco, regardless of his worldly
rank or the size of gratuity pressed on Carino, the dour visaged maître
d'. This Cerberus of the door is unimpressed by royalty, nobility, blue
blood or Hollywood fame. He bars mobsters and those who look like them;
tough guys and babes; noisy ones and pugnacious ones; those overdressed
or overplastered. There are no exceptions. When Humphrey Bogart punched
a dame who tried to walk off with his toy panda, in El Morocco, he was
put on its louse list forever.
But there are clubs in the East Side that get most of their trade from
perverts. Models, out-of-work chorines and loafers of both sexes play
near by. A few still cater to what is left of the "mob," notably the
Copacabana, where Frank Costello throws his lavish parties.
Park Avenue--beautiful, stately and broad boulevard built over the New
York Central tracks--has taken up where Riverside Drive left off, as
the place to hole up your "keptie."
Oh, yes, there are respectable people on Park--many of them. The per
capita wealth of its residents is probably the highest in the world.
If you are an out-of-towner, and you have been slipped a phone number
to call by a friend, for a charming companion to keep you company
during your stay--at $20, $50 or $100 a night--you will note that the
phone exchange is ELdorado, volunteer or REgent, all East Side numbers.
When your guide points out a building as the scene of a particularly
gory sex crime, you will invariably find it is on the East Side,
probably near the East River.
For Gotham's Tenderloin has moved and changed.
No longer are the rich, lush pickings and pick-ups around noisy,
flamboyant Broadway clubs.
New York has grown up, it seeks its pet pastimes amid surroundings of
class, taste and luxury, of which these is plenty in the East Side.
Its shops contain priceless furs and gems, the screwiest and most
expensive clothes and hats, the rarest and most unobtainable antiques,
furnishings and rugs.
Its well-groomed and deftly made-up and turned-out ladies of leisure
come high.
There is more wealth, more splendor, more finery gathered here than in
any place on the world in any period of history.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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