Photo of the Day: New York’s ’21,’ Outfitted for the Holidays

I took this photo of 21 Club—or, as it’s generally known in New York, simply “21”—the week before Thanksgiving, by which time the entrance to this former speakeasy sported holiday décor. Its famous balcony (a portion seen here) features 35 multi-colored ornamental jockeys, donated by some of the best-known stables in American thoroughbred racing, owned by the likes of the Vanderbilt, Mellon and Ogden Mills Phipps families.

I wonder how many people who’ve dined here since the turn of the millennium have had even a clue of the famous people who have dined in this legendary dining and entertainment spot—people like feared columnist Walter Winchell, Ernest Hemingway, Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall (on their first date), Alfred Hitchcock, and every President since FDR except George W. Bush. 

A huge part of the business history of the 1980s took place here, too: It became so inextricably associated with the “power lunch” that it was only natural that part of Oliver Stone’s film Wall Street would be filmed here.