In defiance of police regulations, two lines of sleek and fancy limousines are parked nightly outside Jack and Charlie's famed 21 Club in 52nd Street.
One reason why the cops close their eyes while pounding that beat is that the cars, with liveried chauffeurs, are owned by the rich and prominent townsfolk. Another is that many of the machines carry burnished seals, signifying they belong to, or at least are assigned to, high city, state and national officials.
West of Fifth Avenue, 52nd Street was long a street of wealth. Today, the 21 Club is wealth's last outpost.
This was a baronial thoroughfare, lined on both sides by fancy brownstone and brick residences of solid and superior citizens.
But the northward encroachment of business, culminating in the late 20's and early 30's with the construction of Rockefeller Center only a block south, drove the householders elsewhere.
Many of the luxurious brownstones were converted into rooming houses and made over into one- and two-room apartments; but the chief industry in the block was speakeasies. The street was a natural—it ran in the right direction, i.e., its one-way traffic was routed from west to east, which in midtown New York is important, because the bulk and the best of aftertheatre traffic goes that way.
Repeal brought new problems. Drinkers wanted more room and more air. A dozen years of small, smoky dives caused claustrophobia.