The Monkey Bar
The Elysée is known for the Monkey Bar, a piano bar just off the lobby. Opened in the depths of the Great Depression, it became known to the cognoscenti as "the place to go where jokes die," especially off-color jokes and double-entendre songs spun by such performers as Johnny Payne (1934-1964), Marion Page (1950-1965) and Mel Martin (1945-1983). Johnny Andrews played the piano at cocktail hour for over 50 years (1936-1990).
Starting out as just another dimly lit hotel piano bar with mirrored paneling, the tiny room was expanded in the early 1950s when the mirrors were replaced by wraparound hand-painted mural by caricaturist Charlie Wala. The mural depicts monkeys with decidedly human features riding elephants, crouching under a Christmas tree, mixing up banana daiquiris for tough-looking monkey-like customers, etc. In successive years, other artists have added to the tableau.
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Famous quotes containing the words monkey and/or bar:
“Poetry, it is often said and loudly so, is life’s true mirror. But a monkey looking into a work of literature looks in vain for Socrates.”
—Franz Grillparzer (1791–1872)
“Think ... before the words—the vows are spoken, which put yet another terrible bar between us.... I call upon you in the name of God ... to be sincere with me—Can you, my Annie, bear to think I am another’s?”
—Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849)