1920s New York Speakeasies Magnets

Hell’s Kitchen mobster Larry Fay ran a bootlegging racket running whiskey from Canada to New York in his fleet of city cabs. He opened El Fay on 45th Street to help unload the booze fresh from the north, and hired once-customer Texas Guinan as the boisterous hostess of the club.

Vintage Cotton Club Defunct New York City Nightclub 1920s

Following the repeal of Prohibition in 1933, 52nd Street replaced 133rd street as “Swing Street” of the city. The blocks of 52nd Street between Fifth Avenue and Seventh Avenue became renowned for the abundance of jazz clubs and lively street life. The street was convenient to musicians playing on Broadway and the ‘legitimate’ nightclubs and was also the site of a CBS studio. Musicians who played for others in the early evening played for themselves on 52nd Street.

This pre-tiki bar and nightclub in the midst of "The Street" in New York was decked out in South Pacific style with bamboo and painted island murals, but the big draw were the three shows nightly of burlesque dancers. TV producer Bernie Brillstein recalls Club Samoa in 1955 as "a bust-out joint on Fifty-second Street where guys could pick up broads. We'd eat club sandwiches and drink Cokes, and be treated like kings while the girls jerked off their other customers under the table. The girls would pretend they wanted to meet these losers later, but they never did."

The Onyx Club was a jazz club located on West 52nd Street in New York City. The Onyx Club opened in 1927 at 35 West 52nd Street as a speakeasy under bootlegger Joe Helbock (né Joseph Jerome Helbock; 1896–1973). In February of 1934, after the end of prohibition, the Onyx Club became an authorized club in a new location — 72 West 52nd Street. The Onyx featured musicians including the Spirits of Rhythm and Art Tatum, who then was the regular intermission pianist. It burned down in 1935. Helbock rebuilt it and reopened it July 13, 1935, and reopened with Red McKenzie, Stuff Smith, Jonah Jones, John Kirby, Maxine Sullivan, and others.

A scene of a New York street in the 1920s.

Kelly’s Stables, also referred to as Kelly’s Stable, was a jazz club on Manhattan's 52nd Street in New York City, opened by jazz band leader Bert Kelly. Following the success of his Chicago nightclub, Kelly's Stables, in Tower Town, one of the jazz hotspots of the 1920s, Kelly opened a second venue in New York. The original Kelly's Stable(s) was located on 51st Street, near 7th Avenue. Arthur Jarwood, who was a part owner in the 51st Street location, had also built O'Leary's Barn on West 52nd Street, which he sold to Ralph Watkins (1907–1979) and George Lynch, and in March of 1940, O'Leary's Barn became Kelly's Stable(s) — at 137 W 52nd Street.

The first version of the club opened in Greenwich Village in 1922, run by cousins Jack Kriendler and Charlie Berns. It was originally a small speakeasy known as the Red Head. In 1925 the location was moved to a basement on Washington Place and its name was changed to Frontón. The following year it moved uptown to 42 West 49th Street, changed its name to the Puncheon Club, and became much more exclusive.[3] In late 1929, to make way for the construction of Rockefeller Center, the club moved to its current location and changed its name to "Jack and Charlie's 21".

Cotton Club, legendary nightspot in the Harlem district of New York City that for years featured prominent Black entertainers who performed for white audiences. The club served as the springboard to fame for Duke Ellington, Cab Calloway, and many others. Jack Johnson, the first African American heavyweight boxing champion, opened the Club Deluxe, a 400-seat nightclub at the corner of 142nd Street and Lenox Avenue, in 1920. In 1922 the club was taken over by Owen (“Owney”) Madden, a well-known Manhattan underworld figure.

Vogue cover from the early 1900s. The perfect gift for a lover of all things fashion, beauty and design.

Heritage New York - The Great Gatsby

The skyline of lower Manhattan as seen from the harbor. New York, 1920.

Detailed vector image of a classic New York City skyline from the 1920s,

The eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg are blue and gigantic—their retinas are one yard high. They look out of no face, but, instead, from a pair of enormous yellow spectacles which pass over a non-existent nose. Evidently some wag of an oculist set them there to fatten his practice in the borough of Queens, and then sank down himself into eternal blindness, or forgot them and moved away. Now, any literature enthusiast can allow these ominous oculars to peer out from their shirt or household item.

Print from the International Philatelic exhibition held in New York City during October, 1926

Original New Yorker Cover, April, 1925

The Gift by Man Ray

Original New Yorker Cover, May, 1925

Original New Yorker Cover, August, 1925

Original New Yorker Cover, November, 1926

Where the cool chicks and roosters hung on

The Brooklyn Bridge and New York skyline seen from Brooklyn. 1920.

Chumley's was a historic pub and former speakeasy at 86 Bedford Street, between Grove and Barrow Streets, in the West Village neighborhood of Greenwich Village, Manhattan, New York City. It was established in 1922 by the socialist activist Leland Stanford Chumley, who converted a former blacksmith's shop near the corner of Bedford and Barrow Streets into a Prohibition-era drinking establishment. The speakeasy became a favorite spot for influential writers, poets, playwrights, journalists, and activists, including members of the Lost Generation and the Beat Generation movements.

A new look for the classic road sign.

Do you like my hat? Does it remind you of that most upright and odiferous of veggies? Well, I'm wearing it regardless of what you think. Modified from a public domain original in the NYPL.

A portrait of a young lady wearing the lastest in flapper fashion. New York, 1922.

A battleship in the dry dock for repairs at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. 1920.

A portrait of the Brox sisters, a trio of singing sisters that performed in musicals on Broadway. New York, 1924.

A lady mechanic working under a vehicle. New York, 1920.

Florin House in Charterhouse Square, Clerkenwell just near the Barbican is an Art Nouveau architectural masterpiece

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Original New Yorker Cover, February 1, 1925

1923 poster advertising a Chemical Industry Exposition held at the Grand Central Palace in New York City.

There's something magical about the "L". We all have stories of our first time riding it, or waiting anxiously on a platform. It's a part of the Chicago fabric. This is your chance to bring that magic home. Keep yourself focused on your work with this poster, beautifully capturing the best that Chicago has to offer.

A stuntman performs a balancing act high above the streets of New York City. 1910.

The Harlem Renaissance, was a cultural movement of African Americans in the 1920s Cotton Club Show Girl Digital Art