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Then & Now: 99 Seventh Avenue South
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 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.
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.
The Nut Club. Now that’s a name. Great find!
My father and sailor buddies drank there before going to Normady for D-day.
My parents had their picture on matchbooks from the Nut Cub, 1940s
I owned a flier from The Nut Club dating to 1933. Fast talking comic Jack White was the headliner, promising “Mad Hilarity” and “Wild Buffoonery.”
Joe Haymes led one of the first big swing orchestras here, broadcasting over CBS (that’s probably his bandstand back of those waitresses). Joe’s novelty numbers like “Little Nell” added to the merriment.
In the 1950s my sister was a dance act at the nut club. From what I gathered it was a risqué crew and clientele. Like many of the clubs in the Village and 52nd St. Tourist traps.