classicladiesofcolor:Entertainer Gladys Bentley at the Ubangi Club in Harlem in the early 1930s. Uba
classicladiesofcolor:Entertainer Gladys Bentley at the Ubangi Club in Harlem in the early 1930s. Ubangi Club, Harlem, New York, 1934-1937“Gay Harlem writes that the once known HarlemClub and the Harlem Tavern, the speakeasy re-opened as the Ubangi Club in (April) 1934. It was located on 131st Street and 7th Avenue.The name of the club was to evoke African roots and “the suggestion of voodooism.” Due to the exotic taste of the club, it attracted a lot of tourists. Gladys Bentley, a popular female butch Blues performer who dressed in male evening attire, headlined in the early 1930s while backed up by a chorus line of “pansies”. She attracted black, white, gay, and straight audiences.The City Room said, She was a renowned singer in the 1920s and ’30s who cut her hair short, dressed in tailcoats and appeared at the Ubangi Club with a troupe of young men. “If these boys were put into dresses they would be indistinguishable from the chorines,” the weekly newspaper, New York Age, told its readers. And from uptown to downtown, the patrons simply adored them.”Read the full piece here -- source link
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