In the Roaring Twenties, New York City nightclubs and speakeasies became hot spots where traditions were flouted and modernity was forged. With powerful patrons in Tammany Hall and a growing customer base, nightclubs flourished in spite of the efforts of civic-minded reformers and federal Prohibition enforcement. This encounter between clubs and government-generated scandals, reform crusades, and regulations helped to redefine the image and reality of urban life in the United States. Ultimately, it took the Great Depression to cool Manhattan's Jazz Age nightclubs, forcing them to adapt and relocate, but not before they left their mark on the future of American leisure. Nightclub City explores the cultural significance of New York City's nightlife between the wars, from Texas Guinan's notorious 300 Club to Billy Rose's nostalgic Diamond Horseshoe. Whether in Harlem, Midtown, or Greenwich Village, raucous nightclub activity tested early twentieth-century social boundaries. Anglo-Saxon novelty seekers, Eastern European impresarios, and African American performers crossed ethnic lines while provocative comediennes and scantily clad chorus dancers challenged and reshaped notions of femininity. These havens of liberated sexuality, as well as prostitution and illicit liquor consumption, allowed their denizens to explore their fantasies and fears of change. The reactions of cultural critics, federal investigators, and reformers such as Fiorello La Guardia exemplify the tension between leisure and order. Peretti's research delves into the symbiotic relationships among urban politicians, social reformers, and the business of vice. Illustrated with archival photographs of the clubs and the characters who frequented them, Nightclub City is a dark and dazzling study of New York's bygone nightlife.

"Hello, Suckers!" Every night she flung that greeting at the Jazz Age flappers and gents who crowded in to see the "Queen of the Nightclubs" work her magic. They came to laugh and drink and forget the world outside - and Texas Guinan kept the party going. She was the wittiest nightclub hostess in New York, and her clubs had the best floor shows, the most elegant decor, and all the bootleg liquor that furtively exchanged dollars could buy. Here is the story of Texas Guinan - nightclub hostess, theater and vaudeville actress, and star of silent westerns. Louise Berliner, a granddaughter of the lawyer who defended Guinan at her notorious "public nuisance" trial in 1929, follows the whole course of Guinan's life (1884-1933), from her childhood in a devout Catholic home in Waco, Texas, to her celebrity funeral and burial with diamonds in one hand and a rosary in the other. Like a female Gatsby, Texas Guinan invented a past appropriate for the character she became. Berliner explores this fascinating process of self-creation, separating fact from the fictions that Guinan wove about her life. In so doing, she illuminates the era of early musical comedies in New York and on the vaudeville circuit, the two-reeler silent westerns in which Guinan starred as a lady gunslinger, and the New York club life that Guinan promoted as "an essential and basic industry". Texas Guinan seemed to know everyone in the Roaring Twenties - the Prince of Wales, Ruby Keeler, George Raft, Rudolph Valentino, Walter Winchell, Mae West, Aimee Semple MacPherson, and even President Harding - and Berliner offers intriguing views of Guinan's relationship with many of these varied personalities. This timely book, the firstfully documented study of Guinan's life, will be important for everyone interested in popular culture, the Jazz Age, and women's studies. It brings to life a woman of amazing vitality and surprising contradictions, as captivating as any character imagined by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

In the last thirty years bouncers have emerged as iconic gatekeepers of contemporary cool, exclusivity, and social capital in urban centres around the world. In this groundbreaking empirical study, Rigakos critiques the supposed liberating and expressive potential of nightclubs by theorizing them within the linked themes of risk, consumption and security in late capitalism. People attend nightclubs to be seen and see others, to consume others as aesthetic objects of desire and to elicit desire in others – the desire to be desired. This 'synoptic frenzy', according to Rigakos, fuses surveillance and aesthetic consumption. It fetishizes bodies and amplifies social capitals, producing optic violence and crises of respect fuelled by alcohol. At closing time, populations flow out of the haze of the nightclub and onto city streets, from private spectacle to public nuissance. Mirroring the general late capitalist compulsion to binge and purge, the nightclub's spectacle of consumption produces a litany of unfulfilled courtiers of the night, staggering out of one spectacle and immediatley into another. In this sense, bouncers are not only prime policing agents in the nighttime economy but are producers of an urban risk market – a site of circumscribed transgression and consumption that begins at the door.

On November 28, 1942, fire roared through Boston's famed Cocoanut Grove nightclub during what was supposed to be a high-spirited Saturday night. By midnight, more than five hundred people were dead, dying, or maimed for life. Local author Stephanie Schorow probes the club's history, the circumstances leading to the fire, and the tragedy's lingering impact. The inferno reached deep into the city's social structure--its politics, medical care, law enforcement, and religious life--and touched nearly everyone in the Boston area, even those who had never set foot in the club. In this newly updated and revised edition, Schorow has added new information, photographs, interviews and insights on the worst nightclub fire in American history.

Antonio the Cat had always loved music and dancing. One day, he stumbled upon a nightclub and was mesmerized by the beats and rhythms that filled the air. Inspired by the DJs, Antonio decided to try his paw at the turntables and soon became a sensation in the club. But being a DJ wasn’t easy – he had to practice, learn new skills and deal with some tough crowds. With the help of his friends, Antonio learned to overcome his fears and become the best cat DJ in town. Join Antonio on his musical.

The Nightclub, Bar and Restaurant Security Handbook is the most comprehensive publication of its kind. This book is a must for anyone who owns or operates a nightclub, bar, restaurant, hotel, casino, or any venue where alcohol is served.