History
In 1931, John Perona (born Eriane Giovanni Perona in Chiaverano in the Province of Turin, Italy), an Italian immigrant, with Martín de Alzaga opened El Morocco as a speakeasy at 154 East 54th Street, on the south side of 54th Street in the middle of the block between Lexington Avenue and Third Avenue, where the Citigroup Center now stands.
After prohibition was repealed, it became one of the most popular establishments in New York City. Its regular clientele consisted of fashionable society, politicians, and entertainers. Part of what made the club the 'place to be' was the photographs taken by Jerome Zerbe which were always in the news the next day. Everyone always knew from the background zebra stripes on the banquettes where the celebrities had been.
The neighborhood started changing after World War II, and eventually Perona moved El Morocco to a four-storey townhouse at 307 East 54th Street, on the north side of the street near the corner of Second Avenue in 1960.
Perona died in 1961, and his son, Edwin took over the proprietorship. Later that year, Edwin Perona sold the club to John Mills, who owned it for three years. It was then owned by Maurice Uchitel (1964–70) and Sheldon Hazeltine. Before taking over El Morocco, Uchitel owned the Eden Roc Hotel in Miami Beach for several years. In 1981, the Second Avenue wing operated briefly as a steakhouse. In 1992, it operated as a topless bar. In 1997, Desmond Wootton bought the property and opened the Night Owls nightclub. The site is now occupied by the Milan Condominium.
Read more about this topic: El Morocco
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“We are told that men protect us; that they are generous, even chivalric in their protection. Gentlemen, if your protectors were women, and they took all your property and your children, and paid you half as much for your work, though as well or better done than your own, would you think much of the chivalry which permitted you to sit in street-cars and picked up your pocket- handkerchief?”
—Mary B. Clay, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 3, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)
“Three million of such stones would be needed before the work was done. Three million stones of an average weight of 5,000 pounds, every stone cut precisely to fit into its destined place in the great pyramid. From the quarries they pulled the stones across the desert to the banks of the Nile. Never in the history of the world had so great a task been performed. Their faith gave them strength, and their joy gave them song.”
—William Faulkner (1897–1962)
“No matter how vital experience might be while you lived it, no sooner was it ended and dead than it became as lifeless as the piles of dry dust in a school history book.”
—Ellen Glasgow (1874–1945)