She managed to purvey both her talents in a dive-y East Village “jazz supper club,” where she often answered the buzzer herself. Photo by xnatedawgx via Wikimedia Commons Princess Pamela’s Little KitchenĪ great cook who had written an admired recipe book, Pamela Strobel (which is thought to be her real name) was also an entertainer. West 46th Street and Broadway, Times Square And so did Gaiety Burlesque, the adjacent men’s strip club, where older guys ordered a plate of proverbial chicken.
The brightly lit glorified diner/chain restaurant lasted from 1955 to 2005, hanging on long after Times Square had been shined up and revamped to favor Disney characters instead of film noir rejects.
Here are eight places that reeked of it.īefore tourists flooding into New York were much slicker-looking, there was a time when ladies with frosted and shellacked hair puffed away on cigs and downed the fried clams special at HoJo’s. Perhaps they should have researched New York City's glory days of that very aesthetic-starting in the 1960s and continuing for decades-when camp was basically our middle name. Vogue editor in chief Anna Wintour’s annual Met Gala was themed to the museum's current exhibition “Camp: Notes on Style” and brought out scads of celebrities trying to outdo themselves in over-the-top looks.
