{"id":134546,"date":"2020-12-16T03:36:26","date_gmt":"2020-12-16T00:36:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/sinatra-trump-and-other-tales-from-nycs-21-club\/"},"modified":"2020-12-16T03:36:26","modified_gmt":"2020-12-16T00:36:26","slug":"sinatra-trump-and-other-tales-from-nycs-21-club","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/sinatra-trump-and-other-tales-from-nycs-21-club\/","title":{"rendered":"#Sinatra, Trump and other tales from NYC’s ’21’ Club"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#Sinatra, Trump and other tales from NYC’s ’21’ Club<\/strong>”<\/p>\n

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The \u201821\u2019 Club has spent the last 90 years as a magnet for the rich, louche, beautiful and powerful. Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton both stashed bottles of pricey wine in the West 52nd Street restaurant\u2019s cellar (and some are said to still be there). Ernest Hemingway made love to a girlfriend of gangster Legs Diamond on a kitchen staircase. (Luckily, Legs was gunned down before he could seek his promised retribution.) Novelist John O\u2019Hara routinely got blind-drunk and was liable to throw punches at anyone within proximity, while a sad and solo-dining Jackie Gleason insisted on swapp<\/a>ing his pool cue from \u201cThe Hustler\u201d (which remains on display) for a model train encased behind the bar.<\/p>\n

Novelist Jay McInerney wed social<\/a>ite Anne Hearst there in 2006, with former Mayor Rudy Giuliani officiating. Recalling the meal afterward, McInerney told The Post, \u201cPrince Edward stopped by the table to say hello. In retrospect, it was quite a lunch.\u201d<\/p>\n

For the last 30 or so years, McInerney has enjoyed an annual boozy Christmas lunch at \u201821\u2019 with publishing-world cronies \u2014 but no longer. Last week, The Post reported that the restaurant, New York\u2019s last remaining eatery that once served as a Prohibition-era speakeasy, is closed indefinitely and may shut down for good in March. \u201cI find it incredibly tragic,\u201d McInerney said, acknowledging that the real sadness is for suddenly unemployed workers there. \u201cIt is a loss to New York. There is so much history ensconced in that place.\u201d<\/p>\n

Back in the 1960s when \u201821\u2019 reigned as the city\u2019s It destination for food and booze \u2014 where men were made to wear jackets, slacks on women were verboten and unescorted ladies were not allowed to drink at the bar \u2014 agent Swifty Lazar smashed a water glass into the head of Otto Preminger during a lunchtime dust-up over the movie rights to \u201cIn Cold Blood.\u201d Preminger required stitches and pressed charges; the 5-foot-3 Lazar was arrested in his office. <\/p>\n

Then there was the eccentric artist Salvador Dal\u00ed. He was allowed to flout health department rules and bring in his ocelot, Babou. \u201cA man named Captain Moore, I think, came with Mr. Dal\u00ed to look after this wild animal, so to speak,\u201d said Bruce Snyder, who managed \u201821\u2019 from 1969 until 2005 and was famous for his dapper French cuffs and Bergdorf Goodman suits. \u201cWe had a place where Babou would get tied up. My only regret is that I never asked Mr. Dal\u00ed to sign a book for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Elizabeth
Elizabeth Taylor with longtime manager Bruce Snyder and Debbie Reynolds at \u201921\u2019 just days after the 9\/11 attacks in 2001.<\/figcaption>
Courtesy of Bruce Snyder<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Of course, that would have broken a sacred tenet of \u201821\u2019 that Snyder himself helped to maintain: \u201cIt was a safe haven. When you ate there, nobody got near you or asked for autographs,\u201d he said, recalling the time a young teenager approached Nancy Reagan. Snyder took the girl aside and scolded her. \u201cI think I made her cry,\u201d he told The Post.<\/p>\n

That tight-lipped policy helped attract security-conscious high-flyers such as Robert De Niro, Jackie Kennedy and her son John Jr., and a century\u2019s worth of presidents. Donald Trump \u2014 whose father Fred routinely took the family to \u201821\u2019 for Sunday-night dinners \u2014 has a long history of ordering well-done hamburgers and Diet Cokes at \u201821\u2032 and even chose it to celebrate his 2016 election win.<\/p>\n
\n
\"Larry
Larry King and Trump pow wow at King\u2019s book party in 1998.<\/figcaption>
Richard Corkery\/NY Daily News<\/a> Archive via Getty Images<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

The Donald somehow convinced management to allow TV cameras into the restaurant to film a dinner scene for the first season of \u201cThe Apprentice.\u201d Referring to Omarosa Manigault Newman and her crew, Diana Biederman, the former publicist of \u201821,\u2019 told The Post, \u201cThe number of times they ran into the loo, for whatever reason, was a tad disruptive.\u201d<\/p>\n

No stranger to star turns, \u201821\u2019 recently served as a scene-setter in Sofia Coppola\u2019s love letter to Manhattan, \u201cOn the Rocks.\u201d Over the years, \u201821\u2019 has also turned up in films such as \u201cSweet Smell of Success,\u201d \u201cAll About Eve\u201d and \u201cWall Street\u201d\u2014 in which Charlie Sheen\u2019s hapless Bud Fox eats the restaurant\u2019s classic steak tartare soon after Michael Douglas\u2019 Gordon Gekko admonished, \u201cLunch is for wimps.\u201d In 1954, Marilyn Monroe turned heads while drinking at the bar during a press party for \u201cThe Seven Year Itch.\u201d<\/p>\n

Underscoring the fact that nobody went to \u201821\u2019 for the food, Carol Channing used to bring her own dinner \u2014 carried in by her husband \u2014 and Trump\u2019s former fixer, the attorney Roy Cohn, demanded that the kitchen serve him off-menu tuna salad for lunch made with fish from the can. <\/p>\n

\"Marilyn
Marilyn Monroe celebrated her film \u201cThe Seven Year Itch\u201d at the \u201921\u2019 club in 1954.<\/figcaption>
Sam Shaw\/Shaw Family Archives\/Getty Images<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cWe kept a jar of Hellmann\u2019s mayonnaise in the kitchen,\u201d Snyder told The Post, adding that Cohn was not the only one who required d\u00e9class\u00e9 ingredients. \u201cFrank Sinatra liked these red cherry peppers that came in a jar at the supermarket. We left [them] in the refrigerator for him. He enjoyed drinking Sambuca Originale, which was not the best sambuca. You couldn\u2019t find it in the Manhattan liquor stores. So we had to bring it in from New Jersey.\u201d<\/p>\n

Apparently, the Chairman got whatever he wanted at \u201821\u2019: \u201cMr. Sinatra handed out money like crazy. I once held the door as he exited. He tipped me 20 bucks and I said I couldn\u2019t take it. I was management. He said, \u2018Take it!\u2019 I took it. You did what he said.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Jackie
Jackie Kennedy Onassis (from left), Frank Sinatra and bodyguard Jilly Rizzo stopped by \u201921\u2019 after one of Sinatra\u2019s concerts in 1975.<\/figcaption>
PL Gould\/IMAGES\/Getty Images<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
It really did feel like a bit of a club \u2014 with a few dozen iron lawn jockeys standing guard outside 21 West 52nd St. They were donated by restaurant regulars in the 1930s, many of whom owned race-horse stables, in a tradition said to be started by the sportsman J. Blan van Urk.<\/p>\n
\n
\"The
The iron lawn jockeys outside the club were donated by race-horse owning regulars in the 1930s.<\/figcaption>
NYPost\/Brian Zak<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Inside, items donated by the boldface names who dined there hung from the ceiling. They included a baseball bat signed by Willie Mays and a smashed tennis racquet from John McEnroe. On one memorable night, as reported in Page Six, Monica Lewinsky unwittingly sat beneath the model replica of Air Force One that came courtesy of Bill Clinton. Remembering that staffers scurried to provide an \u201cextra wide chair for [broadly haunched oil mogul] Marvin Davis,\u201d McInerney described \u201821\u2019 as \u201can amazing diorama of a certain class of New Yorker.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not bad for a restaurant that began as a Greenwich Village speakeasy called the Red Head, moved up to West 49th Street as the Puncheon Club (it got pushed out to make room for Rockefeller Center) and relocated to 21 West 52nd St. in 1930, in the midst of Prohibition. Originally known as Jack and Charlie\u2019s \u201821,\u2019 the place was named for owners Jack Kriendler and Charlie Berns. Ensuring that their restaurant would not be evicted to make room for another new construction project, the partners bought the building where \u201821\u2019 remains situated \u2014 at least for the time being.<\/p>\n

Kriendler and Berns also made sure that their customers could enjoy the then-illegal liquor they loved. Despite being politically connected \u2014 NYC Mayor Jimmy Walker was a regular in the early 1930s and once closed off the street when word came that a raid was in the offing \u2014 the owners took additional precautions.<\/p>\n

\"An
An interior shot of the \u201921\u2019 Club.<\/figcaption>
Brian Zak\/NYPost<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cLiquor was on a shelf that could collapse with the push of a button; that was in case the Feds came,\u201d said Snyder. \u201cBottles would then go down a stone chute with spikes on it. Glass shattered and liquor sank into a pile of sand at the bottom. The evidence was destroyed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Later, in 1962, just as Cuban cigars were about to be deemed contraband in the US, Kriendler and Burns bought 750,000 Havana stogies, stashed them in a warehouse humidor on West 52nd Street and made the smokes available to their best customers.<\/p>\n

Post-Prohibition, \u201821\u2019 became known for its top-shelf cocktails \u2014 the gin-driven Southside was supposedly created there \u2014 and its so-called \u201csecret cellar\u201d (a leftover from Prohibition), long ranked among the best wine repositories in the United States. <\/p>\n
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\"The
The iconic club wine cellar houses a bottle of wine from 1870.<\/figcaption>
George Karger\/Pix\/Michael Ochs Archives\/Getty Images<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

It stands behind a brick door that is said to weigh some 2,500 pounds and is opened by sticking a thin wire through one of several pockmarked holes in front. <\/p>\n

According to Kriendler\u2019s memoir, \u201c\u201921\u2019: Everyday Was New Year\u2019s Eve<\/a>,\u201d the cellar\u2019s rarities have included an 1804 Madeira and a bottle of Ch\u00e2teau Margaux that dates back to 1870. The most expensive bottle of wine is said to be a $22,000 Domaine de la Roman\u00e9e-Conti.<\/p>\n

The original owners eventually sold \u201921\u2019 in the 1980s, and today it is owned by luxury hospitality company Belmond Ltd., which says the restaurant cannot survive in its \u201ccurrent form.\u201d<\/p>\n

With high-priced imbibing currently on hold at \u201821,\u2019 McInerney and his gang \u2014 who include publishing pals Gary Fisketjon and Morgan Entrekin, along with former \u2018SNL\u2019 segment producer James Signorelli \u2014 have done the sensible thing. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re suspending our lunch this year,\u201d said the author. Then his voice turned hopeful as he echoed a Christmas wish of many a New Yorker: \u201cMaybe \u201821\u2019 will reopen in 2021 and we\u2019ll be there next Christmas.\u201d\n <\/p><\/div>\n

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“#Sinatra, Trump and other tales from NYC’s ’21’ Club” The \u201821\u2019 Club has spent the last 90 years as a magnet for the rich, louche, beautiful and powerful. Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton both stashed bottles of pricey wine in the West 52nd Street restaurant\u2019s cellar (and some are said to still be there). Ernest…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":134547,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2020\/12\/21-marilyn-monroe-frank-sinatra-trump-21-club-1.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=1200","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[70897],"tags":[85440,83515,73511,83626,86491],"class_list":["post-134546","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-12-15-20","tag-21-club","tag-drinking","tag-frank-sinatra","tag-jay-mcinerney"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134546","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=134546"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134546\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/134547"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=134546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=134546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=134546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}