Greenwich Village



I was going through the TV guide looking at movies coming up and I saw that one of my favorites ""The Bad & The Beautiful" was scheduled for Saturday and for some reason I started having flashbacks to the 50s and 60s in NYC--come along for the ride.

Mary's bar--a gay bar--on 8th Street in the Village--across the street was the Bon Soir nightclub where Streisand and Carol Burnett started out--Washington Square Park on the south end of 5th Avenue with the cruisey fountain in the middle and the 'meat racks' where the boys lined up at night--the rumors that the mafia owned all the gay bars and if they didn't pay off the cops a raid would take place--the 'bird circuit' bars in mid-town my favorite being the Faison D'or with a back room--no, not for sex but for dancing as man weren't allowed to dance together--if the bartender, in front, thought a customer that just walked in was vice he would flash the lights in back and everyone would separate.

Going to the Paramount Theatre before 1 PM and seeing a movie plus a BIG act such as Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin & Jerry Lewis, Tony Bennett for 55 cents!!! And further up (47th Street) was the Warner Brother's Strand theatre where I saw Josephine Baker and her 'banana act' censored for the States--Radio City Music Hall with a spectacular stage show always featuring the Rockettes and a new movie from M-G-M and a couple of blocks away the Roxy.

The theatre district where I saw plays/musicals by Rodgers & Hammerstein, Jerome Robbins, Leonard Bernstein, Arther Miller, Tennessee Williams, Bill Inge, Eugene O'Neil and many others starring Ethel Merman, Mary Martin, Helen Hayes, Laurence Olivier, Jessica Tandy, Noel Coward, Gertrude Lawrence, Lynn Fonatine, Kim Stanly, Geraldine Page and many other stars. And in the 60s stars like Gwen Verdon, Barbra Streisand, Carol Channing, etc. singing, dancing and lighting up the sky with their sheer star power.

Going to the famous/infamous Everod Baths, supposedly owned by the Police Athletic League and signs were put up 3 days before the place would be raided.

The jazz clubs like Birdland and Basin Street East where you could watch and hear Ella Fitzgerald, Peggy Lee, Carmen McCrae, Sarah Vaughn, George Shearing, Stan Kenton, Nat King Cole and his trio and all the greats while having a drink at the bar.

Let's not forget the restaurants: Lindy's famous for their cheesecake and all the headlining comics sitting and kibuttzing or the delis like the Stage or the Carnegie where even I had a hard time getting my mouth open to bite into the sandwich--The Slate, on 11th Avenue, where for $12.95 you got a 36 ounce, bone in, Prime Rib with a baked potato, salad and Yorkshire pudding--Longchamps, Patricia Murphey's and, of course, the Horn & Hardette cafaterias where you put nickles and dimes in slots and out came food--the 4 Seasons and the Brassiere and Momma Leone's just to name a few.

And back to the Village to the 5 Oaks restaurant, primarily gay, with a piano bar which had guest stars from Broadway or going to Julius's and The Ninth Circle--then back to mid town and going to Downey's where many of the stars ate after their show was over or Joe Allen's for second tier stars and the chorus boys and girls.

The neon signs like the Camel cigarette man blowing smoke rings over Times Square along with the very tall Peanut Man wearing his monocle.

And let's not forget the world famous Astor Hotel in Times Square and their infamous large square bar where one side was gay and the other straight. Bryant Park, where today they hold fashion shows and the days of yesterday when all the cruising took place in the row of bushes behind the library.

The museums like no other city has from the Museum of Modern Art, to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Guggenheim. Then there was the City Center (and old Masonic Temple) was converted into a theatre and Judy Holiday did a 2-3 week run in Dream Girl and Tallulah starred as Blanche Dubois.

And what would NYC be without Central Park and the boat house, the carousel, the ice rink, the zoo and the bramble also known as vaseline alley! :O)

Now if I had a few more hours I'd revisit MY old New York and other places that made it so special in the 50s and 60s including the sleaze!