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About the Cotton Club
Within a few years after Prohibition was enacted, a number of prosperous clubs had opened in Harlem.
All followed the same basic formulae: present exotic late night entertainment and, more importantly, sell a lot of bootleg liquor. Each had its own particular flavor and several became nationally famous, the the Cotton Club was “the aristocrat of Harlem”.
Everyone who was anyone went there.
Gangland bosses rubbed elbows with Blue Book socialites; an evening at the Cotton Club was on Mayor Jimmy Walker’s official list of entertainment for visiting dignitaries; Broadway stars came uptown to take in the shows after their own work was done.
In exuberant defiance of the world outside, they danced and they lived and they drank away… and worried about tomorrow later.
At the new Cotton Club those bad old days live again
Jim Haskins – The Cotton Club
Random House