The illuminated sign for Rector’s cabaret rose seventy feet above the entrance on Broadway at Forty-eighth Street. At night, keen crowds pressed against the doors: “They jammed, fought, and tore to get inside.” Those with reservations squeezed past the crush into the lobby. Coats and hats were tossed away; eager feet flew forward, through the French doors, into the main dining room—and chaos. “Bedlam was nothing. This was a twin Bedlam.” People who had worked for decades in the city’s kitchens had never seen anything like the 1914 class of patron: “Nobody went into Rector’s to dine,” the owner recalled. “All they wanted to do was dance.” To placate them, four bands played in relay, beginning with afternoon thés dansants and carrying on almost till dawn. “The diners would drop their knives and napkins the minute the orchestra broke loose, and stampede for the dancing area.” Chefs abandoned the stoves; waiters paired up with coatroom girls. Guests swirled together until “the couples were jammed back to back, elbow to elbow, and cheek to neck.”
Boasting “the finest ball-room in America,” Rector’s was more infamous than Jack’s, the scene of many a scandal, and more profitable than Delmonico’s. The Girl from Rector’s, a 1909 sex farce, had been so outrageous that it took three rewrites before it could be performed in Boston. And a 1913 Ziegfeld hit had only added allure with its prophecy that
A lot of men would pony up a lot of alimony
If a table at Rector’s could talk.
Sarah Bernhardt and Enrico Caruso were favored guests, but anyone was welcome who could spend $7.50—the equivalent of a tenement family’s weekly rent—on a quart of Pol Roget 1900. It was the premier restaurant in the Tenderloin, “the spot where Broadway and Fifth Avenue met.”
On April 21, advertisements in all the major newspapers touted the evening’s entertainment, which included a “Spectacular Sword Dance” and “many other superb attractions.” Cocktails and tango kept the patrons enthralled until the last ones staggered through the doors to find a taxi at 3:30 in the morning. Outside, an undercover policeman noted the exact moment—which was two and a half hours after the legally mandated closing time for cabarets in New York City.
EVERYONE KNEW THAT restaurants brazenly flouted the curfew law. “Poor Old Father Nick is supposed to stop eating, dancing and drinking at 1 A.M.,” a columnist for the World observed, and yet “more people are to be found after that hour in restaurants … that are legally closed than in the streets, which are legally open.” But it was equally notorious that the statute, as it stood, was in need of reform. One in the morning was just too early, especially in the theater district. If a show ran late, audience members were left with scant time for supper. “A man gets into a restaurant after midnight and must get out by 1 o’clock,” a cabaret owner complained. “What chance has he to masticate his food?”
The previous mayor had been in his sixties, and in poor health, and such arguments had failed to engender his sympathy. He had put “the lid” on tight, ordering police to drag patrons from their tables, if necessary, so that the last guest would be in a taxi home by the stroke of one. But Mitchel was only thirty-four, and an eminent practitioner of the tango to boot, and he was convinced that his predecessor’s “stringent measures” had gone too far. “I don’t believe in taking any diner by the shoulder and shoving him into the street,” he explained. “It is one extreme to put people out of restaurants at 1 A.M. It is another extreme to let the restaurants run wild.” Understanding that “all rules must be enforced with common sense,” his administration hoped to chart a middle course.
Back in January, Mitchel had assigned Arthur Woods the task of finding a satisfactory solution. Woods had then spent weeks consulting with department commissioners, the district attorney, magistrates and aldermen, temperance advocates and cabaret owners. In March he presented his conclusion: that the curfew for cabarets should be extended by one hour, to two A.M., “for the purpose of giving plenty of time for persons after the theatre to get a comfortable supper without being hurried.”
An array of clamoring citizens, with various complaints, hurried to voice their opposition to the plan. “This proposed extension is not for good morals,” a leader of the Church Temperance Society remonstrated, “not for good order and the quiet of the city, but in the interests of undesirable things and undesirable persons.” The waiters union testified that shifts already stretched sixteen or seventeen hours, and later closing times would only mean longer and more inhumane workdays. Proprietors of Bowery dives complained that the mayor was unjustly favoring the wealthy entrepreneurs of Broadway. “There are hundreds of strangers who come to this city who can’t afford to pay $3 for a meal,” an East Sider argued, “and if only the big restaurants are allowed to keep open, it isn’t fair. I’d call it class legislation.”
Cabaret owners kept quiet while the opposition railed, confident their interests would be protected in the end. The clientele they served made their status sacrosanct. For years they had enjoyed special privileges—violating the liquor laws, affronting public decency—and hardly any action had been taken against them. While high society blithely gambled thousands of dollars in their private back rooms, police had busied themselves elsewhere, “raiding corner saloons and arresting sailors for shaking dice for five-cent beers.” As the restaurateurs expected, the administration spent two weeks listening to all objections, and then proceeded to ignore them, officially confirming the two A.M. extension. “The vote showed that the hotel and restaurant men got nearly everything that they asked for,” the Times concluded. “The objections of church representatives, reformers, and temperance workers did not figure in any compromise.”
The government then began vetting applicants for the extended licenses. Each prospective restaurant would be “investigated in two separate ways,” Arthur Woods explained, “one by the Inspector in command of the district and the other by the Special Squad under the command of the First Deputy Commissioner.” Beginning in early April, the detectives began their clandestine visits.
At 10:30 P.M. on April 7, an investigator entered the Marlborough-Blenheim, on Thirty-sixth Street. “The patrons … appear to be respectable people,” he observed. “There were no unaccompanied women present and no drunkenness or disorder.” That same week, an inspector visited the Kaiserhof, a German restaurant on Thirty-ninth Street. “The place is well managed,” he observed. “The food is good and prices reasonable.” He was especially impressed by the “very good string orchestra.”
Most restaurants fell short of these standards. At Café Regent, the entertainment was not in good taste. “A female with transparent drapings and her hair down her back performed a dance that consisted mostly of kicking,” an inspector complained. “Another female sang a tiresome ballad.” In Bustanoby’s, the patrons consisted of “a respectable class, mingled with showgirls and prostitutes.” At the Princess, on Twenty-ninth Street, an agent griped that one of the coat-check girls “flirts with patrons.”
But the worst evaluations went to eateries that catered to working people. Schulz Café, on Fiftieth Street, was “frequented by many women of questionable character.” The Circle Hotel was dismissed as “a typical corner saloon.” At the Whip, a rathskeller in Brooklyn, the inspectors observed that “the patronage is not high-class.” Six sailors and two soldiers were present, and though “all were well behaved,” he nevertheless urged denial of a permit.
Then, one night in early April, the official made his quiet entrance into Rector’s. It was a relief to be back amongst “wealthy and respectable people,” even if they were enjoying themselves a little freely. “While no persons were present who could properly be said to be drunk, there were a number that were mellow and happy,” he observed. While he watched, one young couple almost fell down the stairs. The entertainment was “high class vaudeville.” Dancing was close but not particularly indecent. “The food and drink is of the best and the prices while moderately high are not prohibitive.” On the whole, the investigator concluded, “This is a desirable and high class place.”
Rector’s was granted its extended license, and policemen were detailed to ensure it honored its commitment to close at 2:00 A.M. Officers waited outside to record the minute when the final patrons departed: 5:00 A.M., 5:15 A.M., 3:30 A.M., 2:45 A.M., 2:25 A.M. Again and again, Rector’s was among the last cabarets to close. In September, despite “friendly admonishings and warnings,” it defied the curfew on eighteen out of thirty nights. “Some of the other restaurants have violated their agreement in this respect but none so bad as Rector’s,” a detective reported. “It is the most flagrant violator of the two o’clock stipulation.” Chief Inspector Max Schmittberger recommended to Arthur Woods that the restaurant’s extension “BE REVOKED, for the reason that said provision has been persistently violated.”
But even the most senior policeman in the city could not prevail against the tango gang. Rather than closing down, Rector’s expanded. On September 28, nearly a thousand celebrities and socialites attended the grand opening of the restaurant’s new colossal “Ballroom de Luxe.” The walls were decorated in gaudy pink and gold; distinguished and eminent guests waltzed beneath “a maze of colored lights,” while bartenders distributed slingers and manhattans.
It was six in the morning when the last patron left.