The Stork Club: Unmasking New York City's Most Iconic Nightclub of the 20th Century

Manhattans Stork Club was one of the most famous watering holes in the long history of American night clubbing,  from it’s opening at the peak of Prohibition in 1929, to it’s demise in 1965,  the place to see and be seen in the Big Apple.

From hosting New York’s high society to setting the tone for nightlife across the globe, it was more than a club, it was a cultural beacon,  the source of the term Society Cafe.

During the 30s and 40’s,  the best and brightest American culture-makers gathered at the Stork Club.

The czars of New York society, government figures, royalty, songwriters, poets, actors, journalists, military men and showgirls.

It counted among its guests,  the Kennedy’s and Roosevelt families, as well as the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.

The brainchild of Sherman Billingsley (1896- 1966), a former bootlegger from Oklahoma that owned a chain of drug stores.

Billingsley was born for the role of nightclub Big Shot, rarely a night went by when he wasn’t on the floor, shaking hands, slapping backs,  greeting movie stars, musicians, powerful pals and famous athletes, keeping the booze flowing, playing cards with the clientele and in short,  running an upscale saloon like a well-oiled (and highly profitable) machine.

After an incident when Billingsley was kidnapped and held ransom by Mad Dog Coll,  a rival of his mobster partners, he became sole owner of the Stork Club.

Billingsley was a marketing genius, always promoting the Stork Club.   He had the name on everything,  including ashtrays so it would appear in all of the pictures taken by his staff photographer. Flashbulbs were always popping.

He was well known by his extravagant gifts presented to his favorite patrons, spending an average of $100,000 a year on them.   They included compacts studded with diamonds and rubies, French perfumes, champagne, liquor and even automobiles.

Guests we’re expected to dress to high standards, with men wearing suits and neckties and the women wearing gowns with long gloves reaching the elbow.

They dined on only the finest wines and cuisine and the Stork was known for its champagne and caviar.

Billingsley was a fascinating character and he realized the reason people came to the club was to watch people, so a live band was provided in the main dining room for dancing.

The cash register rang to music, as he had long since discovered the peppier the sound, the more customers drank and ate.

By 1936 the Stork was doing well enough that year,  to have a million dollar gross for the first time.

Above the bar stretched a long mirror that allowed Billingsley to look up to keep an eye on everything and for patrons to admire themselves and one another under flattering lights.

Fresh flowers were everywhere and lots of beautiful girls.

Billingsley being a hands-on guy, maintained order through a series of discrete hand signals.   Without saying a word he could order complementary drinks and gifts for a party at any given table or summon the clubs private limousine to whisk his favorite customers away to a theater date or ball game.

There were over 200 employees to serve the 374 guests that could be seated at one time.

The famous newspaper gossip columnist Walter Winchell helped the club to take off through mentions in his columns and his radio show,  which for many years he actually broadcast from his table 50 in the club’s Cub Room, which was reserved for the most important Stork guests.

Billingsley’s long-standing relationship with Ethel Merman, which began in 1939, brought the theater crowd to the Stork, where she had a waiter assigned to her whose job was to just like her cigarettes.

The news of Grace Kelly’s engagement to Prince Rainier of Monaco broke while the couple were visiting the Stork.

Ernest Hemingway was able to cash his $100,000 check for the film rights “For Whom the Bell Tolls” at the Stork to settle his bill.

The guest list for the Stork Club was a remarkable who’s who’s of the time that included Carl Sandburg, Mary Pickford, Joan Crawford, Irving Berlin, J Edgar Hoover, Orson Welles, Fred Astaire, Bing Crosby, JFK, Rita Hayworth, Alfred Hitchcock, Lawrence Olivier, Jack Dempsey, Groucho Marx, John Wayne, Gene Kelly,  Roy Rogers, Jayne Mansfield, Gary Cooper, Ed Sullivan, Jimmy Durante, Frank Costello, Desi Arnaz, Lucille Ball, Tallulah Bankhead, Charlie Chaplin, Jackie Gleason, Cary Grant, Ava Gardner, Milton Berle, Frank Sinatra, Carmen Miranda, Judy Garland, Jack Benny, Judy Holliday,  Arthur Godfrey, Dorothy Lamour, Henry Ford, Shirley Temple, Clark Gable, Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Gloria Vanderbilt, Vincent Price, JD Salinger, Elizabeth Taylor, Lana Turner, Arthur Godfrey and others.

There was also the Stork Club movie in 1945 starring Betty Hutton and a TV series from 1950 to 1955 televised live from the club with Billingsley as the host, 15 minutes per week.

There’s a sensational website at storkclub.com.