Description
Book SynopsisThis dark and dazzling history of New York City nightclub life in the 1920s and '30s explores the complex relationships among urban politicians, social reformers, and the business of vice.
Trade Review"
Nightclub City tells the behind-the-scenes story of Manhattan's glamorous nightlife at its peak. Packed with colorful characters, terrific original research, and an unusually accessible writing style,
Nightclub City is a gritty social history of America's most glitzy fantasies." * Debby Applegate, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of
The Most Famous Man in America: The Biography of Henry Ward Beecher *
"Meticulously researched. . . . Peretti builds on previous studies of urban nightlife and entertainment, and his contribution is to look at institutions of commercial night life not from the perspective of consumers but from that of the reformer or official trying to tax, control, prohibit, or criminalize the purveyors of pleasure." *
Journal of American History *
"Peretti convincingly argues that nightclubs, at the peak of their popularity, played a small but highly significant role in redefining the relationship between America's government and its citizenry. . . . He skillfully wields illustrative quotes, cogent analysis, and an impressive body of archival evidence." *
Journal of Urban History *
Table of ContentsPreface
1. The 1920s New York Nightclub, a Modern Institution
2. "The Hostess Evil"
3. Tammany Nights
4. "War on the Nightclubs"
5. Bargain-Counter Broadway
6. "Where Fleshpots and Politics Together Meet"
7. Nightlife in the La Guardia Era
8. A New Deal for Nightclubs
9. Billy Rose and Nightclubs for the Masses
Conclusion: The Nightclub in Retrospect
Notes
Index
Acknowledgments
