Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)"Stork Club" is a pleasant surprise. It is the remarkably well- researched story of a one-time bootlegger from Oklahoma, by way of Washington and Detroit, named Sherman Billingsley. The author had the obvious cooperation of Billingley's daughter. Mr. B ran Manhattan's Stork Club from the mid- 30s to the mid -60s. Located on East 53rd Street, it was arguably the world's most famous nightclub, when there were such things. "SC" deals relatively briefly with the glamorous café society clientele such as Ethel Merman, Humphrey Bogart or the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. It concentrates on the harder edges of Mr. Bs life; the bootlegging days in the Midwest, his (successful?) fight to free himself from the mobsters like Dutch Schultz and Owney Madden, needless run ins with Civil Rights activists and the ultimately ruinous struggles with local unions. Mr. B was always fighting something including internal theft, a fickle public and disloyal employees who left him to start their own nightclubs. He appears to have been his own worst enemy. "SC" ends on an unsurprisingly depressive note. This reviewer would definitely recommend "SC" to any native New Yorker of a "certain age" or those curious about an earlier, VASTLY more gracious, more livable and more desirable New York than the current yuppie playground it has become. ...Mr. B had the well-deserved reputation of being kind to young people and servicemen. My two visits to the Stork, just prior to its demise bore this out. They were nice to my date and me. ... This must have been a high-class place in its day, a "day" that is gone for good. "SC" is your chance to at least read about it and imagine.
Click Here to see more reviews about: Stork Club: America's Most Famous Nightspot and the Lost World of Cafe Society
Get 13% OFF
0 comments:
Post a Comment