Douglas Thompson - Shall We Dance? The True Story of the Couple Who Taught The World to Dance

Ten cents a dance

Thats what they pay me

All that you need is a ticket

Come on, big boy, ten cents a dance.

Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart, Ten Cents A Dance,1930

T he decor was raving Nebuchadnezzar, a gorgeously vulgar rainbow of abandon, and, winking for attention with the fledgling and blinking electricity, was the most razzmatazz attraction in New York City. Between 43rd and 44th Streets on Broadway, close to a patch of properties which wasnt yet called Times Square, this latest palace of amusement was all about the desperate haste to be new. Rectors had its grand opening in New York on 23 September 1899. It was what was called a lobster palace, a venue for providing extravagant everything but principally eating and drinking pleasure.

Charles Rector had enjoyed success easing the frontier from Chicago with his restaurant, the Caf Marine. He aimed to please, and for sophistication. It wasnt always understood. On an official visit to the Worlds Fair held in the city in 1893, Princess Mara Eulalia, the youngest daughter of Queen Isabella II of Spain, had been an honoured guest. On hearing the Caf Marine served American whiskey to ladies in porcelain cups, she naughtily ordered her whiskey in soup bowls and lubricated her way through the fourteen-course menu of the day. She provided the stagger du jour.

Now, as the twentieth century also tippled forward, Charles Rector was opening the faux, if imposing, Greco doors to his emporium of excess. He had spent close to one quarter of a million dollars on dimension-daring, mirrored interiors of gold and a deep green; the walls cornered the 175 tables, which were dressed in sharply ironed Irish linen and personalised, handstencilled silver cutlery. The chief chef was Emil Lederer, whose terrapin la Maryland had amused Queen Victoria. So much so, she wrote him a note of appreciation he so treasured he kept it snapped in his hat like a newspaperman. It was most appropriate: his glutton-friendly food was devoured in scoops.

As the Spanish princess had discovered, this New World was, indeed, the land of milk and honey if only a breakfast appetiser. On the opening evening the menu was international: English pheasant, Egyptian quail, mounds of African peaches and Italian strawberries, towers of French pastries. Along the aromatic way were hors doeuvres comprising palmettes, mousselines, croustades, bouches, and timbales; Lynnhaven oysters, lobster, terrapin, frogs, shrimps, crabs, canvasback ducks, chicken, beef, pork and lamb: whatever could be cooked had been; minced, chopped, sliced and carved, it had been poached and steamed, sauted and grilled, broiled, braised, boiled and blanched, roasted and simmered and fried, dressed and anointed with the work of the renowned saucier Charles Parrandin, who himself was delicately poached from rivals Delmonicos for the first night. All about were more delights: from the figs and nectarines under glass to the champagne bottles lined up like a surrounding army on the sideboards.

Yet the celebrity crowd, led by recent world heavyweight boxing champion James J. Gentleman Jim Corbett, almost didnt get to start on the clear turtle soup.

The evenings hurdle was Charles Rectors lust for the new: for opening night he had installed a revolving door at the entrance, the first such contraption in New York. The guests didnt want to get out. They whirled around and around, giddy with the fun of it and the sensation, a carnival ride of, seemingly, ever-revolving joy. It was only when Gentleman Jim was spun out, as if to the canvas, with his wife in his arms that the cavalcade got on and festivities began.

Charles Rector beamed brighter than his lighting. What more could even the most demanding customer want?

There was the Yacht Club table for Americas richest family, the Vanderbilts, and their wet-set cronies and the four private dining rooms, which kept the gossip columns and Fifth Avenue parlours in licentious speculation.

Yet, soon enough, a dance floor installed at Rectors was deemed the necessity. It was swiftly a talk of the town, a basic but powerful pull for the crowds of new devotees greedily seeking fun. By the time Rectors had moved to Broadway at 48th, next door to Times Square, and the twentieth century became a teenager, its legend had stretched to the heel of Italy.