![]() Webster Hall stayed open, with rumors circulating of Al Capone's involvement and police bribery.įrom about 1900 to 1920, working class Americans would gather at honky tonks or juke joints to dance to music played on a piano or a jukebox. The advent of the jukebox fueled the Prohibition-era boom in underground illegal speakeasy bars, which needed music but could not afford a live band and needed precious space for paying customers. The first jukebox was installed in the Palais Royale Saloon, San Francisco on 23 November 1889, becoming an overnight sensation. Arnold, who were both managers of the Pacific Phonograph Co. The jukebox (a coin-operated record-player) was invented in 1889 by Louis Glass and his partner William S. Webster Hall is credited as the first modern nightclub, being built in 1886 and starting off as a "social hall", originally functioning as a home for dance and political activism events. It catered to a downscale clientele and besides the usual illegal liquor, gambling, and prostitution, it featured nightly fistfights, and occasional shootings, stabbings, and police raids. By contrast, Owney Geoghegan ran the toughest nightclub in New York, 1880–83. Timothy Gilfoyle called them "the first nightclubs". ![]() Prices were high and they were patronized by an upscale audience. Practically all gambling was illegal in the city (except upscale horseracing tracks), and regular payoffs to political and police leadership was necessary. They tolerated unlicensed liquor, commercial sex, and gambling cards, chiefly Faro. They enjoyed a national reputation for live music, dance, and vaudeville acts. The first nightclubs appeared in New York City in the 1840s and 1850s, including McGlory's and the Haymarket. Prostitutes served a wide variety of clientele, from sailors on leave to playboys. Edwin Booth and Lillian Russell were among the Broadway stars. New York's theater district gradually moved northward during this half century, from The Bowery up Broadway through Union Square and Madison Square, settling around Times Square at the end of the 19th century. Grand hotels were built for the upscale visitors. In the United States, New York increasingly became the national capital for tourism and entertainment. "The Cave" in the basement of the Gruenwald (later Roosevelt) Hotel, New Orleans opened in 1912 said by some to be one of the first nightclubs in the United States
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