The Oriental Club, New York, 1920s

Sadly the Oriental Club is a fiction, created for the 1960 film The Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond, a bio-pic of the life and times of the Irish-American gangster Jack “Legs” Diamond. As well as being a gangster and a thief Diamond was an accomplished dancer, as well as having several mistresses associated with the Ziegfeld Follies. In the movie version of his life (which is not entirely accurate) Diamond, played by Ray Danton, and his girlfriend Alice, played by Karen Steele, enter a dance competition in 1920s Manhattan at a place called the Oriental Club. Though, in reality, Diamond did participate in such events none of his biographies record the Oriental Club so I’m assuming it’s fictitious (though dancehalls called the Oriental did exist at the time, most notably in New Orleans). Anyway, here’s some stills of the place, that didn’t exist, but would have been fun to visit if it did….

The real Jack “Legs” Diamond

Jack’s real life dancing partner – Ziegfeld Follie girl Marion “Kiki” Roberts