There is the world-famed Stork, owned by the sui generis Sherman Billingsley, a smooth ex-speak proprietor and former partner of Owney "The Killer" Madden, prohibition vice king, which caters to internationally distinguished literary people, personages high in government, newspapermen, industrialists, stars, financiers, Fair Dealers, labor overlords and millionaire left-wing movie stars, writers, crooners and do-gooders.
There is also the far-famed El Morocco, owned by John Perona, another fabulous ex-speak proprietor, which serves much of the Hollywood and international society glamor set. Rules for admission into its zebra-striped confines are tougher than those for the Union League Club. No man wearing a sport jacket, or sport shirt, or sans tie, has ever been permitted to patronize El Morocco, regardless of his worldly rank or the size of gratuity pressed on Carino, the dour visaged maître d'. This Cerberus of the door is unimpressed by royalty, nobility, blue blood or Hollywood fame. He bars mobsters and those who look like them; tough guys and babes; noisy ones and pugnacious ones; those overdressed or overplastered. There are no exceptions. When Humphrey Bogart punched a dame who tried to walk off with his toy panda, in El Morocco, he was put on its louse list forever.
But there are clubs in the East Side that get most of their trade from perverts. Models, out-of-work chorines and loafers of both sexes play near by. A few still cater to what is left of the "mob," notably the Copacabana, where Frank Costello throws his lavish parties.
Park Avenue—beautiful, stately and broad boulevard built over the New York Central tracks—has taken up where Riverside Drive left off, as the place to hole up your "keptie."
Oh, yes, there are respectable people on Park—many of them. The per capita wealth of its residents is probably the highest in the world.
If you are an out-of-towner, and you have been slipped a phone number to call by a friend, for a charming companion to keep you company during your stay—at $20, $50 or $100 a night—you will note that the phone exchange is ELdorado, volunteer or REgent, all East Side numbers.
When your guide points out a building as the scene of a particularly gory sex crime, you will invariably find it is on the East Side, probably near the East River.
For Gotham's Tenderloin has moved and changed.
No longer are the rich, lush pickings and pick-ups around noisy, flamboyant Broadway clubs.
New York has grown up, it seeks its pet pastimes amid surroundings of class, taste and luxury, of which these is plenty in the East Side.