In 1962 — 60 years ago this week — New York’s Playboy Club opened its doors on East 59th Street with a rollicking $100-a-plate benefit for the Parkinson’s Disease Foundation.
“Nothing Stays Those Bunnies,” read the headline in Billboard, accompanied by a photo of Bunny Wanda chiming the call for Playboy Breakfast.
Opening-night talent included a quartet doing vocal impressions of jazz and pop singers — Tony Bennett caught the act of a Tony Bennett impersonator.
The club, complete with mood lights on each floor and “technomated” murals in which lights on buildings actually flashed, was a beacon to a certain kind of “Mad Men”-era businessman or those who sought to live like one.
It also attracted the attention of Gloria Steinem, who went undercover as a Bunny for a 1963 exposé.
By the mid-’80s, the club had closed.
Thanks New York Times!