Introduction
From 1929 until 1965 famed New York City establishment, The Stork Club was one of the premier nightclubs in the world. Here movie stars mingled with royalty and showgirls canoodled with aristocrats. The club was so popular it appeared in several movies. These included All About Eve (1950), The Wrong Man (1957), and the titular musical The Stork Club (1945). This is the story of this storied club.
Origin
Sherman Billingsley was an entrepreneur from Enid, Oklahoma. making his bones in the bootlegging game throughout the 1920s, by the decade’s end, Billingsley had put down roots in the Big Apple on West 58th Street.
Billingsley, who in 1929 was thirty-three years old, was approached by a couple of big-time gamblers he knew from Oklahoma about opening up a restaurant together. He agreed and The Stork Club was born two blocks block from Billingsley’s apartment on 132 West 58th Street.
“Don’t ask me how or why I picked the name, because I just don’t remember.”
– Sherman Billingsley
Since Prohibition was still in effect for several more years The Stork Club was a speakeasy during its early years. Despite this, business was essentially non-existent during its earliest days.
Success and the Mob
Success for The Stork Club happened by accident. One day newspaper scribe Heywood Broun stumbled upon The Stork Club when he got the address mixed up with a funeral home he was going to for a story.
Broun ended up staying at the Club for a great deal of time that day, and many days after. He invited his celebrity friends and soon word of mouth made The Stork Club one of the most popular nightspots in New York City.
In 1930, the popularity of the Club reached the stratosphere. This was because Billingsley’s friend, speakeasy owner, and actress Mary Louise Cecilia “Texas” Guinan, recommended The Stork Club to her friend, columnist Walter Winchell. The newspaper legend fell in love with the Club and became a fixture there.
Winchell described the Club as “New York’s New Yorkiest place on W. 58th” in a September 30 article in his New York Daily Mirror column. As a result, the popularity of the Club increased even more. Because of this article, singer-actress Helen Morgan, who had just finished filming a movie on Long Island, decided to hold a cast party at the Stork Club. She paid the tab with two $1,000 bills.
When The Stork Club grew in popularity because of Broun’s and Winchell’s influence, Billingsley’s Oklahoma-based partners soon sold their stake in the Club to New York “businessman” Ted Healy. It soon became apparent that Healy was actually a “front” for local mobsters.
Billingsley was unhappy with the situation, which grew in stature after a botched kidnapping attempt by a rival mob put his life at risk. He negotiated with his mob partners and ended up buying out their interest for a cool thirty grand in cash.
Location Changes
On December 22, 1931 Prohibition agents closed the original Stork Club. Not to be deterred Billingsley opened a new Stork Club on East 51st Street. This location was raided by the NYPD on August 29, 1932. The raid occurred because an irate customer complained to police that he had lost a quarter in a vending machine at a speakeasy. It would reopen soon after.
In 1934, The Stork Club moved for the final time to East 53rd Street. The building it occupied was also the Physicians and Surgeons Building. The medical tenants were none too pleased that a nightclub was moving in, even though Prohibition had ended the previous year.
During World War II, Billingsley added a new room – the Cub Room (Walter Winchell came up with the name). This room was originally supposed to be a secret room for him and his buddies to play gin rummy but soon became an exclusive dining area.
Celebrity Stories
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Humphrey Bogart was banned from the Club after a prolonged shouting match with Billingsley.
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The news of the engagement of Grace Kelly to Prince Rainier of Monaco broke while the couple were visiting the Stork Club.
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Ernest Hemingway was able to cash his $100,000 check for the sale of the film rights of For Whom the Bell Tolls at the Stork Club to settle his tab.
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Although African Americans were not officially banned, they weren’t exactly welcome there. One such case involved Josephine Baker who received uncommonly poor service. She approached Walter Winchell for assistance but her pleas were ignored. This incident soon appeared in the newspapers tarnishing Winchell’s reputation in the process. After the NAACP protest and bomb threat Winchell spoke out in defense of The Stork Club and his behavior stating “The Stork Club discriminates against everybody. White, black, and pink. The Stork bars all kinds of people for all kinds of reasons. But if your skin is green and you’re rich and famous or you’re syndicated, you’ll be welcome at the club.” Baker filed a lawsuit against Winchell but it was eventually dismissed.
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Warren Oates once worked at the club as a dishwasher.
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One evening Johnny Weissmuller accused a Navy lieutenant of using a lit cigarette to burn the clothing of dancers as they passed by his table. A fight ensued and Weissmuller gave the serviceman two back eyes.
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Jackie Gleason was a frequent customer, usually taking his two daughters there for a night on the town. In 1957 Gleason was banned from the club for life for alleged loud and drunken behavior, which the comedian disputed believing his ban was because of his belonging to the Musician’s Union which Billingsely was in dispute with.
Business Problems
In early 1944 the mayor of New York City, Fiorello H. La Guardia requested an audit of the books of all the prominent nightclubs in the city. Auditors found evidence that The Stork Club was committing fraud by overcharging customers on sales tax, sending the correct amount into the city, and pocketing the difference. The overcharge amount totaled $181,000. Billensgley fought the charges in court. It was a fight that lasted for five years. Even though the charges were eventually dropped, the club owner spent approximately $100,000 in legal fees in the process.
Around this time the employees attempted to unionize. However, this failed as Billingsley bribed his employees with lavish gifts for them to stay out of the effort. By 1957, all of the nightclubs except for The Stork Club were unionized.
Soon employees began to leave the Club for greener, unionized pastures. Meanwhile, unionization efforts returned to The Stork Club. However, Billingsley never gave in to picket lines which occurred daily for the next eight years.
This union conflict had a serious impact on business and eventually, The Stork Club’s customer base stopped showing up. By 1963 business was so bad that they began to advertise a hamburger and French fries for $1.99 in The New York Times.
On October 4, 1965, The Stork Club closed its doors for the final time. Only three customers came in that evening. At the height of its popularity in the 1940s, an average of 2,500 people would go to the Club on any given night.
Billingsley sold the building to CBS, which tore it down and turned it into Paley Park in 1967. On October 4, 1966, exactly one year to the day that the legendary club closed, Sherman Billingsley died of a heart attack. His plans to reopen a new version of the Stork Club were never realized.
