500 Club
The 500 Club
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 500 Club
Location in Atlantic City
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| Former names | 500 Cafe |
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| Address | 6 Missouri Avenue Atlantic City, New Jersey United States |
| Coordinates | 39°21′24″N 74°26′16″W / 39.35667°N 74.43778°WCoordinates: 39°21′24″N 74°26′16″W / 39.35667°N 74.43778°W |
| Owner | Paul "Skinny" D'Amato |
| Type | Nightclub |
| Capacity | 700 |
| Opened | 1930s |
| Closed | 1973 |
The 500 Club, popularly known as The Five, was a nightclub and supper club at 6 Missouri Avenue in Atlantic City, New Jersey, United States. It was owned by racketeer Paul "Skinny" D'Amato, and operated from the 1930s until the building burned down in 1973. It became one of the most popular nightspots on the East Coast, and housed the first illegal casino to be run in the city.
The main bar was large and black, with black and white zebra-patterned wallpaper on the walls of the room. An indoor waterfall surrounded by imitation exotic vegetation stood in the back. The club's main showroom, the Vermilion Room, often featured the likes of Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., and the slapstick comedy duo of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis.
The club and a next-door restaurant and bar were destroyed in an electrical fire in June 1973, resulting in $1.5 million worth of damage. Subsequent plans to rebuild the club or reopen it in one of the megaresort hotels in Atlantic City amounted to nothing in the years leading up to D'Amato's death in 1984.
The 500 Club was originally owned by Phil Barr. In 1942, Paul "Skinny" D'Amato, who was known to have ties to organized crime, assumed ownership. Summers and Swan claim that Amato was in fact a front man for mobster Marco Reginelli. That year, the club was refurbished as a musical bar with a small dance floor and was known as the 500 Cafe. Drink prices started at 40 cents, with a 20 percent discount for men in uniform, and suppers started at one dollar. In June 1946, D'Amato and his partner, Irvin Wolf, were able to buy out the half interest of Marco Di Fozio. They changed the venue's name to the 500 Club and were now the sole owners of the business. D'Amato became the sole owner of the venue shortly before his 1949 marriage.
The names of the celebrities who performed at the club were written in cement on the sidewalk in front of it, similar to Grauman's Chinese Theatre. Celebrities often dropped by the club, including Joe DiMaggio, "who had his own table and his own waitress to serve him free drinks". Like other clubs in Atlantic City, the 500 Club was patronized by both whites and African-Americans. Mobsters and politicians were frequent patrons, with the former "making deals" with the latter; these guests were never presented with a bill.
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Wikipedia