Peppermint Lounge

Overview

A 178-capacity gay hustler bar in the Theater District that became ground zero for the 1961 Twist craze, house band Joey Dee and the Starliters, Genovese-family ownership underneath the front men, the Ronettes' professional debut, then ran as the Hollywood discotheque and G. G. Barnum's Room before Rudolf Pieper and Jim Fouratt revived the name in November 1980 as a premier new-wave and hip-hop showcase that survived until 1985.

The Peppermint Lounge opened in 1958 in the ground floor of the Knickerbocker Hotel building at 128 West 45th Street, operating quietly as a gay hustler bar, a small room with a long mahogany bar, mirrors, and a tiny stage and dancefloor with a stated capacity of 178. Behind the front man Ralph Saggese (a retired NYPD lieutenant whose name appeared on official records) and manager Sam Kornweisser, the club was effectively owned by Johnny Biello, a caporegime of the Genovese crime family, who had purchased it as a low-key front for loan-sharking and gambling rackets run from the back room. The Twist craze transformed it overnight: in October 1961, a few socialites sheltering from the rain discovered sailors and young locals doing the Twist to house band Joey Dee and the Starliters, columnist Cholly Knickerbocker wrote about it the next morning, and within days all of Jet Set New York descended. Audrey Hepburn, Frank Sinatra, Marilyn Monroe, Judy Garland, Truman Capote, Greta Garbo, Jackie Kennedy (who reportedly had a temporary version installed at the White House), and eventually the Beatles on their 1964 U.S. visit all passed through a room that could hold fewer than 200 people. Joey Dee co-wrote 'Peppermint Twist' with producer Henry Glover; it debuted in late 1961 and held the Billboard #1 for three weeks in January 1962. The Ronettes made their professional debut here: three teenagers (Ronnie and Estelle Bennett and their cousin Nedra Talley) were reportedly mistaken for the dancers the manager had hired, ushered onto the stage, and hired on the spot. The original venue lost its liquor license on December 28, 1965; Genovese captain Matty 'The Horse' Ianniello ultimately inherited control of the real estate and cycled it through two successor clubs, Hollywood (mid-1960s through 1977, a gay discotheque where Richie Kaczor developed the beat-mixing techniques he would later deploy at Studio 54) and G. G. Barnum's Room (July 20, 1978–November 1980, a circus-themed disco with aerialists performing on trapeze nets above the floor, an explicitly trans, drag, and gay clientele, and a cameo in the origin story of Nile Rodgers's 'I'm Coming Out', Rodgers has said he saw Diana Ross impersonators here and wrote the song soon after). In November 1980, after G. G. Barnum's lost its liquor license, Rudolf Pieper and Jim Fouratt sparked a revival at the same 45th Street address, with Frank Roccio and Tom Goodkind running day-to-day operations and David Azarc as resident DJ. This second Peppermint Lounge pivoted entirely from the original name's Twist nostalgia, booking a cross-pollinated program of new wave, post-punk, hardcore, and early hip-hop: the Cramps, X, the Raybeats, the Go-Gos, Duran Duran, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, Big Country, Billy Idol, Afrika Bambaataa, the Bangles, Joan Jett, the Waitresses, Black Flag (March 1981, their first East Coast show, attended by Adam Yauch, Mike D, and Thurston Moore), and Public Image Ltd. In March 1981, Yoko Ono visited in one of her first public appearances after John Lennon's death and personally delivered a copy of 'Walking on Thin Ice.' David Bowie and Mick Jagger were documented VIP visitors. In summer 1982 the club relocated to 100 Fifth Avenue (at 15th Street), with Pete Shelley playing opening night and a continuing run through 1985, with reported dates including R.E.M. (October 1983), Echo and the Bunnymen, Madonna (May 1983), Iggy Pop and Sonic Youth (July 1985). In 1986, Judge Edward Weinfeld sentenced Ianniello to six years for racketeering, including skimming over $2 million from the 45th Street address and other Manhattan establishments. The building at 128 West 45th Street was demolished in the mid-1980s. Joel Selvin, John Johnson Jr., and Dick Cami's 'Peppermint Twist: The Mob, the Music, and the Most Famous Dance Club of the '60s' (Thomas Dunne Books, 2012) — co-authored by Cami, who was present in the original era — is the only book-length treatment of the Twist incarnation and the primary sourced account of the Biello/Saggese/Ianniello ownership chain. Fouratt had booked Hurrah before the revival and co-founded Danceteria with Pieper in 1980; the three rooms shared bookings across the same post-punk and early hip-hop circuit.