MANNERS & MORALS: It's Back

MANNERS & MORALS

Along New York's Swing Lane (sand Street), where nightclubs in sorry brownstones crowd each other like bums on a breadline, an era was all but over. Swing was still there, but it was more hips than horns. Barrelhouse had declined. Burlesque was back.

No fewer than five clubs had gone in for a touch of Minsky. In place of swing bands they had installed knockabout comedians in baggy pants, and strip-teasers in net brassieres. The town hadn't seen so many strippers since 1942, when Fiorello LaGuardia sent them packing.

The strippers...

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