A requirement for admission to the bistro was evening clothes.
Now, it is a fact that those who like to dress will not do so under compulsion. Even the stockholders stayed away.
When it went broke, Ferry raised new capital and operated under a less rigorous policy. But the seed had been sown and had taken root.
The real estate firm operating the property decided to take a flyer in the saloon business itself, putting Sam Salvin, son of a successful night club operator of a generation ago, and Dick Flanagan, a happy character with a load of friends, in charge.
The policy was quickly changed. Instead of pitching for the trade of debutantes and scions, notoriously poor spenders, Monte Carlo publicized its herring and wooed the rich dress manufacturers and their ladies. When this fizzled out, another switch was tried—quiet refinement.
Once one of the five top money-making cabarets of the world, it is now shuttered. Its patrons now visit Monte Proser's La Vie En Rose.
William Zeckendorf, president of the firm which owned the defunct Monte Carlo, swung the deal to bring the United Nations to New York over cocktails at one of its corner tables.
Another East Side restaurant patronized by those who know is El Boraccho (The Drunkard), strictly a dining and wining place, fronted and partly owned by Nicky Quattrociocchi, one of New York's odd characters. The money to open the place was put up by Gracie Fields, the English screen star, and Monte Banks, her husband.
Nicky, a handsome immigrant who barged in 25 years ago from Italy, is a living example of how you can get by in Gotham on wits, nerve and connections.
After a short and desultory career in Hollywood as Theda Bara's leading man in silents, Nicky gravitated to New York, where he was classified a playboy.