By Kati Neiheisel***Intrigued by NLE’s Who Was Who!, I want to know who was where. I want to know about the hot and happening clubs and piano bars of previous decades. Perhaps the past can inspire new paths forward for today’s New York City nightlife.
Welcome to the Paradise Room at Reno Sweeney’s! “Sweeney, damn it, not Sweeney’s,” muttered Lewis Friedman, founder of Reno Sweeney, as quoted in the New York Times. Friedman associate Eliot Hubbard named the club after a character played by Ethel Merman in Cole Porter’s 1934 musical Anything Goes. The club was modeled on Bon Soir, 
a Greenwich Village nightclub popular in the 1950s and 60s, where Barbra Streisand made her singing debut. In the tradition of the sophisticated Bon Soir, Friedman wanted to create an intimate space where people could listen to live music and actually hear the lyrics of the song.
Located at 126 W. 13th Street, Reno Sweeney opened in October 1972, with singer Alaina Reed in the front room, accompanied by Friedman himself on piano. In December, the entertainment moved to the Art Deco-inspired back room where two tall palm trees flanked a checkerboard stage. A neon sign with a palm tree, crescent moon, and waves announced, “The Paradise Room.” Singer Jimmie Daniels, formerly of Bon Soir, was the host. Pianist Sammy Benskin, who played with Tiger Haynes’s Three Flames at Bon Soir, was a featured regular.
Performer Marilyn Sokol made her nightclub debut at Reno Sweeney in 1973. “It was the most wonderful entree into that world. It was classy in every way,” she enthuses. “It spoiled us all. Fresh cut flowers, black and white tiles, a state-of-the-art sound system. Lewis Friedman made sure everything was elegantly done. It attracted all kinds of people, including powerful people in the industry. And the posters! So beautiful.” The distinctive Eliot Hubbard-designed posters would feature illustrations by Robert W. Richards or photographs by Toshi, Jack Mitchell, Peter Gert, and other top photographers of the day.
Eric Stephen Jacobs photographed Judith Cohen and Nell Carter for their respective posters. As a regular patron of Reno Sweeney, Jacobs remembers it as a real community. He often hung out at the bar or had dinner in the front room where closed-circuit television allowed one to watch the shows as they were performed live in the back room. One night, Jacobs spent the evening with his client David Bowie and Mick Jagger in a corner booth of the Paradise Room. “I think Cherry Vanilla and Holly Woodlawn performed that night,” he says, “but I saw so many amazing performers there: Peter Allen before he was famous; Nell Carter; Baby Jane Dexter; Michael Federal, Leslie Gore just before the resurgence of her career; Ellen Greene; Lee Horwin; Melissa Manchester; Andrea Marcovicci accompanying herself on guitar; Novella Nelson; Anita O’Day; Marilyn Sokol; and Gotham, a wonderful, zany vocal trio.” Other notable performers included Meat Loaf, Odetta, Jane Olivor and Patti Smith. Diane Keaton and Geraldine Fitzgerald also made their nightclub debuts there.
Monday nights were reserved as a showcase for performers trying out new material or looking for bookings. Singer-songwriter Julie Gold would drive in from Philadelphia for a chance to perform two or three songs. “I was fearless! But when I’d be waiting in the wings and see the talent on that stage, I was scared,” Gold remembers. “This was the big leagues! Pure, unadulterated talent, really and truly. Marsha Malamet at the
piano was great! David Lasley and Don Paul Yowell were outstanding! They were songwriters. That’s what interested me. If you believed in miracles, music, and magic and walked through that door, anything was possible. I got my first management deal from playing a few songs at Reno Sweeney!”
Raun MacKinnon was offered her first opening spot following positive audience response on a showcase night. “I think the bill was with the Manhattan Transfer. I also opened for Marc Allen Trujillo, Stephane Grappelli, Peter Yarrow and Mike Reid,” she says. “I headlined once with Michael Federal as the opener.” She remembers the Paradise Room as intimate and surprisingly quiet. “The management ran it to favor the performer. The grand piano was always newly tuned, and the sound system and acoustics were very good. The one setback of the room was you could not have drums there because of the city cabaret ordinances so we had a conga player friend come in to provide the rhythm.”
After 3½ years, Friedman sold the club to three men from New Orleans, who planned no changes besides adding New Orleans dishes to the menu. In the next and final 3½ years, performers included Maxene Andrews of the Andrew Sisters; Edith Beale of “Grey Gardens” fame;
Cab Calloway; Barbara Cook; Blossom Dearie, who recorded her 1979 live album Needlepoint Magic at the club; Cissy Houston; Butterfly McQueen in her nightclub debut; and Marta Sanders.
“We went from A-Z! Alaina Reed opened Reno Sweeney and I closed it,” says Zora Rasmussen. “It really was the premier of all the cabarets. Terrific people and a great hang out. I got in at the very end of it. My show on Saturday nights was called Midnight Madness at Reno Sweeney. Ron Lieberman made a poster of a moon with my face on it, with a fly on my nose! My opening song was “Going to a Go-Go.” I did a Desmond Child song and a David Lasley song—my musical director, Marc Shaiman was, 18 years old. Bette Midler wanted him to work with her, but he said, ‘I can’t right now, I’m working with Zora.’ I can’t believe he said that, but Bette came to my show!”
Kati Neiheisel is a 2018 MAC Award nominee for her New York debut, Among the Stars, performed at Don’t Tell Mama with musical director Gregory Toroian and directed by Deb Berman. Her most recent show, Yesterday…Once More, performed at Pangea with the Gregory Toroian Trio and directed by Lina Koutrakos, celebrates the musical legacy of the Carpenters.
