5 Historic Nightclubs That Shaped American Culture

Known as the “Aristocrat of Harlem,” the Cotton Club was a premier entertainment destination for the well-to-do and fashionable in 1920s and 1930s New York. The club put on elaborate variety shows that showcased leggy dancers and top jazz talent in a high-class environment.

The Cotton Club was opened in 1923 by mob figure Owney Madden, in part to have a venue for alcohol sales during Prohibition. It quickly became New York’s hottest destination and an exemplar of the Black cultural growth and talent associated with the Harlem Renaissance.

Performers like Ethel Waters, Lena Horne and the Nicholas Brothers all performed at the club in its heyday. Its most notable bandleaders included Duke Ellington and Cab Calloway. While the Cotton Club served as a platform to elevate Black entertainers, the club only permitted white audiences. The club also perpetuated harmful stereotypes through jungle and plantation-themed décor, as well as colorist casting practices. Though successor clubs have used the name, the original venue closed in the aftermath of the 1935 Harlem race riots.

The Fillmore club started its life as a dance hall in San Francisco in 1912. Named for the historic Fillmore cultural district (aka “Harlem of the West”), the space was transformed by promoter Bill Graham in 1966. He turned the venue into a club for the nascent psychedelic rock movement.

Graham booked up-and-coming acts like Janis Joplin’s Big Brother and the Holding Company, Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead and paired their performances with colorful psychedelic poster art. Encouraged by the growth of late-1960s hippie culture, Graham then opened the Fillmore East on New York’s Second Avenue in a former vaudeville theater. He promoted shows there from 1968-71.

In 1968, Graham moved his San Francisco operation to a larger location he called “Fillmore West." Headliners like Grand Funk Railroad, Miles Davis and Fleetwood Mac reinforced the club’s reputation as a preeminent rock venue before it closed in 1971.

The Sunset Strip is the nickname for a short section of Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles, between Hollywood and Beverly Hills. Historically, the area was home to the music business’s corporate operations, including talent scouts and record labels. But at night, it was known to transform into “Hollywood’s playground” with see-and-be-seen nightlife all around.

In 1964, the Whisky a Go Go opened at the corner of Sunset and Clark Avenue. It welcomed patrons in to see rock shows and stare at the go-go dancers in their miniskirts, dancing in a glass-encased booth over the crowd. By the mid-1960s, the rock band the Doors effectively became the venue’s house band.

As time rolled on and music tastes changed, the Whisky held onto its status as the coolest club in town. In the 1970s, you could see Led Zeppelin or the Ramones onstage. In the 1980s, it was the epicenter for hair bands and the sort of rock-excess escapades that would fuel entire seasons of “Behind the Music.” Fans and critics largely agree that Guns n’ Roses’ series of performances at the Whisky in 1986—at which they debuted songs like “Sweet Child o’ Mine”—were responsible for bringing the band to wider attention and eventual superstardom. The club still operates today.

Called CBGB & OMFUG (that’s “Country, Bluegrass, Blues & Other Music For Uplifting Gormandizers"), the New York icon of punk and art rock opened in 1973 in the space of a former biker bar and 19th-century saloon. Deliberately grungy, the club crowned itself the “home of underground rock.”

It was the go-to club in lower Manhattan for new-wave weirdos, punks and arthouse rockers. Owners Hilly and Karen Kristal insisted that bands play original music, and the club hosted a wide variety of performers. New Wave bands like Blondie and Talking Heads played the venue, as did art punks like Richard Hell and Patti Smith. In the 1980s, it was not uncommon to run across the Ramones or Beastie Boys, or a marathon hardcore bill that could feature anyone from Bad Brains to Acoustic Front.

Despite its fame and iconic status, the club could not keep up with increasingly expensive city life. Lease issues forced the club to close in 2006, with Patti Smith giving its final performance. It still sells a lot of t-shirts.

The most famous New York club of the disco era originally opened in 1927 as the Gallo Opera House. Over the coming decades, it would serve as a theater, nightclub and television studio. But the spot on West 54th Street had its liveliest times when it premiered as Studio 54 in 1977.

Leveraging the energy of the gay nightclub scene and the patronage of many of New York’s hottest stars and creatives, Studio 54 became the place to see and be seen. With a carefully curated PR operation and a strict velvet rope policy, the club attracted celebrities from Elton John and Truman Capote to Andy Warhol, Liza Minnelli and Grace Jones.

It operated for only three years, but made such a cultural impression that its name continues as a shorthand for celebrity cool. The site remained vacant until Roundabout Theater Company took over the space in the late 1990s.