Photo of the day: NOT YOUR AVERAGE NIGHT AT CARNEGIE HALL
Photo of the day: NOT YOUR AVERAGE NIGHT AT CARNEGIE HALL – So you thought Carnegie Hall is quiet and reserved for it’s classical music concerts…well you’re wrong. This sell out house was cheering on the Detroit Symphony Orchestra with their red state colors and were there to see one of the most exciting singers around Storm Large. Having front row center seats added to my excitement!
Storm sang Kurt Weill’s “The Seven Deadly Sins” made famous by Weill’s wife Lotte Lenya. Storm was in top form singing and acting the part with her trademark deep gut passion. The concert broadcast live over classical music station WQXR consisted of
- RACHMANINOFF Caprice bohémien, Op. 12
- RACHMANINOFF Isle of the Dead
- WEILL The Seven Deadly Sins with Storm Large
- RAVEL La valse
Storm Large takes her bow to thunderous applause with conductor Leonard Slatkin.
Carnegie Hall built by Andrew Carnegie for his wife in 1891 because she said she had no decent place to listen to music in New York, is one of the few concert halls in the world that is acoustically perfect. It has had some of the greatest voices of all time and some of the most iconic concerts have been recorded here. Imagine sitting where Benny Goodman, Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday, the Dave Brubeck Quartet, Marlene Dietrich, Judy Garland, Harry Belafonte, Nina Simone, Shirley Bassey, James Gang, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Jessye Norman, Maria Callas, Edith Piaf have appeared! It is one of the musical treasures of the world.
Photo of the day: NOVEMBER 29, 1974 THE PERSIAN ROOM AT THE PLAZA HOTEL
THE PERSIAN ROOM AT THE PLAZA HOTEL, 1974: Where were you 38 years ago on November 29, Friday night, 1974? I was 18 years old and took my friend Amy Hernandez to see a drag revue at the Plaza Hotel’s Persian Room, one of the most magical places within the Plaza. For more than forty years, from 1934 to 1975, the Persian Room was the place to be in New York City. An unparalleled array of performers graced its stage—everyone from the incomparable Hildegarde Shirley Bassey, Ethel Merman, The Mills Brothers, Kay Thompson (mother to Eloise), Eartha Kitt, Bob Hope, Liberace, Diahann Carroll, Julie Wilson, Andy Williams, Josephine Baker, my dear Celeste Holm and Marlene Dietrich’s last New York appearance.
It was done in high Persian style in deep iridescent tones of blues, greens and purples – nowadays we would view the decor as high camp/kitsch, but it was divine! The entrance looked like a golden gate to a palace. Today it is where the main lobby of the hotel is on the left side as you enter the Plaza Hotel, with sadly not a hint of it’s decadent past.
Amy Hernandez’s mother owned an east side townhouse bar and restaurant called ‘The Beef & Bourbon’ and the bourbon, her mom’s (and Amy’s) favorite drink of choice, flowed freely. Amy had an uppity twin sister named Carol who never liked anything I had to say and would just say “Oh Hans…”.
‘Manhattan Follies’ was the talk of the nightclub world and I just had to go! Impersonated that night were the then staples: Dietrich, Garland, Ross, Channing, Marilyn and Mae and that new sensation Bette Midler. The headliner was up and coming drag star Craig Russell who would go on to make the hit 1977 film called “Outrageous!”
The room still had a ‘cigar & cigarette girl’, a shapely woman with a tray strapped under her bosom selling smokes for high prices (Lena Horne started out as one). A Weegee-like man went from table to table with a huge old fashioned flash camera an offered souvenir photographs.
Some of the photo’s fun details: I am wearing a black and white polyester Marilyn Monroe print dress shirt with an awfully huge white poly tie. The suit is black velvet bell bottomed and huge platform shoes (that you can’t see here) that had silver stars on them. The program pictured here on the right, is next to me by my seat. Amy’s polyester print blouse was black and white to match me. Note my index finger is extended on my lap because I am trying to show off a silver ring in the shape of a man’s head wearing a turban which I felt was appropriate for the evening’s occasion. Amy and I didn’t know we were partaking in history because sadly the ‘Manhattan Follies’ was the last and final show to play at The Persian Room.
The 1970’s was a glorious era. My era. A decadent era of nightclubbing, dancing, glitz and glamour. Studio 54, Xenon, 12 West, Ice Palace and the Paradise Garage. Huge shoes, hair sprayed hair, big eye glasses, bell bottoms and that wonderful disco music.
Where where you November 29, Friday night 1974?…
NEW YORK CITY - IN THE WIT OF AN EYE 