The Bowry Boys Episode 2.04 The Cotton Club, the aristocrat of Harlem.

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Hello there, welcome to the Bowry Boys.

This is Greg Young with the Tale of the Cotton Club.

The most famous nightclub of the prohibition era and a place that almost seems

mythic to many today due to the iconic talent who performed at its two locations,

the first in Harlem and then the second one in Midtown Manhattan.

The Cotton Club wasn't a smoky lounge of the type Billy Holiday would have sung in,

or a traditional performance venue like the Apollo Theater.

The Cotton Club was a big room late night supper club, well dressed socialites and celebrities

sipping from that forbidden champagne, listening to the profound and saucy sounds of jazz,

as beautiful dancing girls and sultry costumes vamped in the background.

But this isn't your standard adoring story of a classic New York landmark as you often

have heard on the show.

The Cotton Club was owned by one of America's most ruthless gangsters and the stark

prejudices of American life of New York life were strictly enforced here.

This is a place where black entertained white, where racial segregation was a selling point

where the luxurious decor very elegantly reminded people of their place in society.

This was high class Harlem during prohibition, where downtowners dabbled in uptown glamour

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