History
Charlie Low opened the Forbidden City in 1938, naming it after the Forbidden City in Beijing. It was the first, and most famous, among approximately 12 Asian-themed cabaret clubs in Chinatown. It thrived during World War II, and throughout the 1940s and 1950s.
In 1957 author C. Y. Yee wrote a best-selling novel, Flower Drum Song, set at the Forbidden City. Rodgers and Hammerstein created a popular musical from the book in 1958, which has had several revivals, the most recent by David Henry Hwang in 2001-2002. In 1961 a Hollywood film was made from the musical. These portrayals did little to help the club, however. By the late 1950s it was facing increasing competition from more explicit shows, such as the Condor Club in North Beach. The club converted briefly to a strip club before closing in 1962. The space was destroyed by a fire in the 1980s, but the building survived and was used as a computer instruction center as of 2000.
An hour-long documentary, Forbidden City, U.S.A, was filmed in the mid-1980s and released in 1989, featuring most of the original cast. The documentary led indirectly to a second singing career for Larry Ching, the club's "Chinese Frank Sinatra."
Read more about this topic: Forbidden City (nightclub)
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“All history becomes subjective; in other words there is properly no history, only biography.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“I am ashamed to see what a shallow village tale our so-called History is. How many times must we say Rome, and Paris, and Constantinople! What does Rome know of rat and lizard? What are Olympiads and Consulates to these neighboring systems of being? Nay, what food or experience or succor have they for the Esquimaux seal-hunter, or the Kanaka in his canoe, for the fisherman, the stevedore, the porter?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“To summarize the contentions of this paper then. Firstly, the phrase ‘the meaning of a word’ is a spurious phrase. Secondly and consequently, a re-examination is needed of phrases like the two which I discuss, ‘being a part of the meaning of’ and ‘having the same meaning.’ On these matters, dogmatists require prodding: although history indeed suggests that it may sometimes be better to let sleeping dogmatists lie.”
—J.L. (John Langshaw)