The Club
The club, a former speakeasy, was located at 17 Piedmont Street, which today is a parking lot in Boston's Bay Village neighborhood. Originally a garage and warehouse complex, the building had been converted to a one-and-a-half-story meandering complex of dining rooms, bars, and lounges. The club offered its patrons dining and dancing in a South Seas-like "tropical paradise" created by artificial palm trees, rattan and bamboo, heavy draperies, and swanky satin canopies suspended from the ceilings, and a roof that could be rolled back in summer for dancing under the stars. The building had acquired a reputation as being a criminal hangout, and this image was enhanced by the murder of its former owner, gangland boss and bootlegger Charles "King" Solomon, also known as "Boston Charlie". He had been gunned down in the men's room of Roxbury's Cotton Club nightclub nearly a decade before, just after the end of Prohibition.
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Famous quotes containing the word club:
“The creation of “strong-minded” women, so-called, is due to the individualism of men, to the modern selfish and speculative spirit which absorbs everything within itself and leaves women nothing but self-assertion for their protection and support.”
—“Jennie June” Croly 1829–1901, U.S. founder of the woman’s club movement, journalist, author, editor. Demorest’s Illustrated Monthly and Mirror of Fashions, p. 44 (February 1870)
“The barriers of conventionality have been raised so high, and so strangely cemented by long existence, that the only hope of overthrowing them exists in the union of numbers linked together by common opinion and effort ... the united watchword of thousands would strike at the foundation of the false system and annihilate it.”
—Mme. Ellen Louise Demorest 1824–1898, U.S. women’s magazine editor and woman’s club movement pioneer. Demorest’s Illustrated Monthly and Mirror of Fashions, p. 203 (January 1870)