This was the upscale part of the evening. For the price of a drink at the bar you gained entree to the plush Cub Room for a rhumba played by Payson Re’s orchestra. He famously gifted samples of Sortilege, his signature perfume, and winked if your companion stashed a Stork Club ashtray into her handbag. Sherman Billingsley, a former prohibition bootlegger, was saloon keeper and arbiter of Cafe Society. On holiday weekends it took on the appearance of a freshman mixer in Northampton.Ī couple of blocks away, social climbers patronized the Stork Club. The Palm Court was next to the hotel lobby and served convenient cocktails along with Emory Deutch and his violin, who serenaded a conspicuous and well groomed college crowd. The hub was Under the Clock at the Biltmore, where everybody poured through the tunnel from Grand Central. Here are some memories from those days of my misspent youth. The legal drinking age was 18, the bars stayed open until four in the morning, and the Biltmore Hotel advertised special student rates for Seven Sisters and Ivy Leaguers.
During the Eisenhower years, Manhattan was an island of social, economic and cultural equanimity.
