Month: September 2019

White City

Joanne Yeck

Chicago’s White City.

Located at 63rd Street and South Park Avenue on Chicago’s South Side, White City employed hundreds of entertainers, including Dan Blanco, founder of Rush Street’s Club Alabam.

The $1,000,000 pleasure park opened on May 27, 1905, proving a perfect venue for Dan Blanco and his troupe of “Rathskellerians.”  They played the park’s Rathskeller for many summers and, years later, Dan Blanco continue to hire his musical friends at Club Alabam.

White City’s diverse programing included a band concert, gondola rides, a fire show (a three hundred  foot street scene, complete with police, pedestrians, and a burning building, ultimately saved by men from three fire companies!), and thrill rides that “bumped the bump.” The famous and novel infant incubators, fresh from the Saint Louis World’s Fair, were on display. Midget City was a popular feature. There was a photograph gallery, an observation wheel, and a ballroom ready to accommodate 2,400 eager dancers.

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If you enjoy local history, especially the world of entertainment, follow me at joannelyeck.com or on the Facebook page: The Blackest Sheep.

The Blackest Sheep: Dan Blanco, Evelyn Nesbit, Gene Harris and Chicago’s Club Alabam is available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and many other online bookstores.

Evelyn Nesbit

Joanne Yeck

Evelyn Nesbit.

When I first began research about my great uncle Gene Harris and his legendary Chicago nightspot, Club Alabam, I wasn’t confident that there was an audience for his story. Then I discovered that the scandalous beauty Evelyn Nesbit performed at the club, becoming a friend and colleague of Dan Blanco and later Gene Harris.

If you recognize the name Evelyn Nesbit, you were likely introduced to her in the novel Ragtime, which was later made into a movie and, more recently, a Broadway musical. If you are new to Evelyn’s life story, you are bound to find it captivating.

While the details of her early life and her connection to “the crime of the century” (her husband Harry K. Thaw’s cold-blooded murder of her former lover Stanford White) had been told and retold, Evelyn’s long and fascinating life following the 1907 and 1908 trials was treated as anti-climactic.

During and after Prohibition, Evelyn supported herself and her only son, Russell Thaw, by working in cabarets and nightclubs. Criminals and powerful gangsters populated her world. Addiction to narcotics, initially used for pain relief, plagued her for decades. Her roller coaster of successes and failures, in love and in show business, was a wild ride.

My new book, The Blackest Sheep, recounts the “second half” of Evelyn’s biography, revealing her phenomenal inner strength, native intelligence, and ability to survive notoriety that would have destroyed most women.

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If you enjoy local history, especially the world of entertainment, follow me at joannelyeck.com or on the Facebook page: The Blackest Sheep.

The Blackest Sheep: Dan Blanco, Evelyn Nesbit, Gene Harris and Chicago’s Club Alabam is available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and many other online bookstores.

Chicago’s Novelty Night Club: Club Alabam

Joanne Yeck

In 1927, when Dan Blanco opened Club Alabam at 747 Rush Street in downtown Chicago, the Roaring Twenties were going strong and Prohibition still gripped the nation. Establishing a new cabaret-style nightclub without the ability to serve legal liquor was a risky move. Dan Blanco, however, was a seasoned showman who had worked steadily in saloons, amusement parks, cabarets, and on the vaudeville stage. He had mounted shows at the popular Moulin Rouge Café, located in the Loop, and had operated a notorious roadhouse called Northern Lights, frequented by Chicago’s criminal element.

Blanco was connected to the best talent in town and staged popular entertainment night after night at Club Alabam. He offered good food at reasonable prices. And, while Prohibition was still in force, there was a relaxed attitude about liquor. His headwaiter and eventual partner was my great uncle, the effervescent Gene Harris. Together, their personalities made the nightclub a Rush Street institution.

My new book, The Blackest Sheep, tells how these two men managed to juggle the law and booze-selling gangsters. Life on the margins of respectable society could be thrilling as well as dangerous!

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If you enjoy local history, especially the world of entertainment, follow me at joannelyeck.com or on the Facebook page: The Blackest Sheep.

The Blackest Sheep: Dan Blanco, Evelyn Nesbit, Gene Harris and Chicago’s Club Alabam is available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and many other online bookstores.

Dan Blanco: Founder of Chicago’s Club Alabam

Joanne Yeck

Dan Blanco, Center.

Dan Blanco, founder of Chicago’s Club Alabam, was born Daniel Leblang on January 3, 1877, in Mazatlán, Mexico. As a small child, he immigrated with his parents to the U.S. and was naturalized when his father became a citizen in about 1885. A performer, songwriter, satirist, and cabaret host, coming of age at the turn of the twentieth century, Blanco headed an act inspired by French and German cabaret. Ragtime, Honky Tonk, and syncopated rhythms were all the rage and Blanco’s shows pushed the limits of “respectable” middle class entertainment.

During the 1910s, Blanco and his group of “Rathskellerians,” became a longtime favorite act at White City, one of Chicago’s most successful amusement parks. The Rathskeller at White City would be Blanco’s testing ground for new material, where he and his players charmed Midwestern audiences with their titillating songs while mingling with the customers in an intimate setting.

After working in many saloons, cabarets, and nightclubs across Chicago, in 1927, Dan Blanco opened Club Alabam at 747 Rush Street.  A popular nightspot for decades, it was destined to become a Chicago favorite where locals and “visiting firemen” could relax, enjoy good food, song and dance performed by solid talent, and, occasionally, some illicit gambling.

In my new book, The Blackest Sheep, the easy-going Dan Blanco is rediscovered and regains his rightful place in Chicago’s entertainment history.

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If you enjoy local history, especially the world of entertainment, follow me at joannelyeck.com or on the Facebook page: The Blackest Sheep.

The Blackest Sheep: Dan Blanco, Evelyn Nesbit, Gene Harris and Chicago’s Club Alabam is available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and many other online bookstores.