Stork Club

The Stork Club began its life in 1929 as a modest Prohibition-era speakeasy at 132 West 58th Street. Its founder, Sherman Billingsley, was a former bootlegger from Oklahoma who moved to New York to build a new life. Success did not come through a grand plan, but by pure chance when newspaper columnist Heywood Broun accidentally stumbled into the club while trying to find a nearby funeral home. Broun enjoyed his time there so much that he brought his influential friends along, and the club quickly became a destination for the city's elite.