Arts & Culture
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Café Society, located in this building, was the first non-segregated music club in American history. Its founder, Barney Josephson, a shoe salesman, started the club in 1938. Known as “The Wrong Place for the Right People,” it was visited by Eleanor Roosevelt, Charlie Chaplin, and Piet Mondrian. Billie Holiday made her debut there in 1944 with “Strange Fruit,” a song about lynchings in the South. Mondrian was inspired by the jazz club when he created ‘Victory Boogie Woogie,’ described as the most famous modern painting about New York. Both the painting and Café Society stand for freedom.
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New York, New York · United States
