Then & Now: 99 Seventh Avenue South
(l.) 99 Seventh Avenue South ca. 1940 (image via NYPL) and (r.) recently.
The site at 99 Seventh Avenue South in Greenwich Village today houses the Garage restaurant, but seventy-five years ago, it was home to the Nut Club. The building was constructed in 1919 as a garage after the lot was cleared for the southward extension of Seventh Avenue in 1917.
The Nut Club ca. 1940. Image via NYPL.
The garage gave way to The Nut Club — a tourist nightclub that played up its Village location and sometimes ‘zany’ acts, including the rather questionable (for an eating/drinking establishment) cockroach races.
(l.) Nut Club wine list cover; (r.) Cockroach racing.
The Nut Club would eventually close its doors, to be replaced on the site by a long-running off-Broadway theater, the Sheridan Square Playhouse. The theater opened in 1958 and eventually housed the Circle Repertory Company through the 1990s.
Nut Club hostesses in 1932.
Drew was GVSHP's Director of Administration until March 2015.
The Nut Club. Now that’s a name. Great find!
My father and sailor buddies drank there before going to Normady for D-day.