The Street That Never Slept: New York's Fabled 52nd Street

About this book

"Shoddy bawdy and boozy "" 52nd Street between 5th and 6th Avenues before the strip joints and the concrete office buildings was New Yorks answer to Bourbon Street Beale Street Sunset Boulevard and Montparnasse. Shaw songsmith and musicians friend was a devoted habitue who knew the passwords to the speakeasies (the street had 38 during Prohibition); the hot horns from the cool; and who dined with whom at Jack and Charlies 21. From the Onyx to Leon and Eddies to Kellys Stable Jimmy Ryans and the Famous Door he offers a guided tour and brings on former customers proprietors performers -- Johnny Mercer Dizzy Gillespie stripper Sherry Britton Red Norvo Maxine Sullivan and one Gilbert J. Pincus the improbably-named self-appointed doorman who was once elected ""Mayor of 52nd"" talking about legends first-nighters all-nighters gangsters movie stars and the ""tuxedo and ermine crowd"": Eddie Davis the ""Saloon Caruso"" who made em cry with Melancholy Baby and the infamous night that Robert Benchley spotted a herd of elephants -- ""And would you believe it they didnt make a sound!"" -- clumping along outside 21. Shaw takes a brief sidelong glance at the posh establishment ""A Tiffanys Window on Society"" where Jackie and Ari prefer the upstairs dining rooms and George Humphrey (Eisenhowers Treasury Secretary) was asked to please pay cash but he much prefers the smoky dark dives where the Music Goes Round and Around and for a short while (1934 to 1950) ""Fifty-second Street was total friendship."" More rousing than Rudi Bleshs Combo U.S.A. (p. 80) this will bring back memories of a hot time in the old town tonight for the over-40 crowd and it might even administer a salutary musical culture shock to the denizens of Woodstock Nation."