Peppermint Lounge
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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The Peppermint Lounge was a popular discotheque located at 128 West 45th Street in midtown Manhattan that was open from 1961 to 1965.
Original Peppermint Lounge
The Peppermint Lounge at 128 West 45th Street New York City, New York was an early discotheque where Go-go dancing is reputed to have originated in the early 1960s. The Twist dance craze was closely associated with the club. Women began getting up on tables and dancing the twist.
Many celebrities frequented the Peppermint Lounge, including Jacqueline Kennedy in 1962, and The Beatles during their first U.S. visit in 1964. The lounge was the home base of Joey Dee and the Starliters, who recorded their #1 hit "Peppermint Twist" at the venue in the early 1960s. In the mid 1960s, the house band was The Wild Ones. The Denos, a traveling road house band that performed soul music with a dance beat were featured.
The club was owned by Genovese crime family capo, and controlled by Matthew Ianniello who managed many gay bars and strip clubs in Manhattan. It closed when it lost its liquor license on December 28, 1965.
Later, the property was home to Ianniello's GG Barnum's Room, and then a rock oriented nightclub also called the Peppermint Lounge.
G.G. Barnum's Room
A gay bar called G.G. Barnum's Room opened in the same space at 128 West 45th St. in July 20, 1978, and continued until November 1980. Male go-go dancers dancers performed on trapezes over a net above the dance floor. The room was a popular meeting place for transsexuals, drag queens and homosexuals. The "GG" was a reference to Ianniello's beloved Gilded Grape located at 719 8th Avenue, where reportedly he was fond of flirting with the young drag queens. Ianniello and some associates were convicted of skimming cash from the club.
Second Peppermint Lounge
In November 1980, a rock club nightclub called the Peppermint Lounge opened in the space after G.G. Barnum's closed. It was not a disco. The Peppermint Lounge moved downtown to 100 5th Ave. in 1982, and changed its name to the New Peppermint Lounge before closing in the mid-1980s.
