John Perona El Morocco Menu Monday, October 17, 1938
$1,200
13 1/2" x 10"
Concubine by JP on cover
*w/ horizontal folded crease*
John Perona, a king of the New York nightclub scene for over 30 years, helmed the legendary Midtown party locale El Morocco. In its heyday, the clientele included Errol Flynn, Marlene Dietrich, Clark Gable, and many more.
The supper club was originally opened as a speakeasy in 1931 on East 54th Street in Manhattan. Its famously eccentric and opulent décor designed by Vernon McFarlane was a novelty at the time with zebra-print upholstery, white-painted cacti, Moroccan grilles, dreamy palm trees made of clear cellophane, and a VIP Champagne room bedecked with Rococo mirrors. “Where smart New Yorkers welcome the elite of the world,” read one advertisement for the club.
“John Perona was the first night club proprietor to discover that guests would rather be the floor show than see one and dispensed with everything except music and celebrities, with the result that Morocco is a nightly and glittering parade of who’s who in the town,” wrote columnist Lucius Beebe at the time.