The United States experienced 13 years of Prohibition, from 1920 to 1933. During that relatively short period, speakeasies sprung up across the country, particularly in the nation’s largest city, New York.
Speakeasies were hidden hideaways where the nation’s pleasure-seekers could discreetly imbibe.
The vision of such establishments run by well-dressed gangsters has been immortalized in films from ‘Once Upon a Time in America’ to ‘Some Like it Hot’.
Clients drink in an illegal bar in New York City in 1932. Prohibition lasted in the United States from 1920 until 1933. During that time so-called speakeasies, or underground drinking dens, flourished across the country
Male and female clients are pictured at a New York speakeasy around 1930. The vision of such establishments run by well-dressed gangsters has been immortalized in films from ‘Once Upon a Time in America’ to ‘Some Like it Hot’
Documentary photographer Margaret Bourke-White created a photo series of New York City speakeasies for the June 1933 edition of FORTUNE. Pictured are patrons at an unidentified speakeasy
The piece reads: ‘In New York alone has the speakeasy become the instrument of a civilized social life, something between a pre-prohibition restaurant and a coeducational club.’ Pictured are patrons at an unidentified speakeasy in 1933
Even though Prohibition formally ended with the ratification of the 21st Amendment, speakeasies have endured to today, with modern takes on such historical establishments capitalizing on their throwback allure and bygone romance.
And today, the 84th anniversary of the repeal of Prohibition, such ‘speakeasies’ can be found from London to Hong Kong.
Photographs from LIFE documentary photographer Margaret Bourke-White (1904-1971) show a handful of speakeasies she photographed for the June 1933 issue of Fortune, part of Time Inc.
The piece, simply titled ‘Speakeasies of New York,’ reads in part: ‘In New York alone has the speakeasy become the instrument of a civilized social life, something between a pre-prohibition restaurant and a coeducational club.
‘There are, therefore, in New York, speakeasies for every taste and purse.’
The anonymously penned story foretells: ‘It is for a future that will want to know how New Yorkers of the ’20s lived that FORTUNE presents this portfolio of Margaret Bourke-White’s pictures.’
In this Bourke-White photograph, waiters serve food and drink to patrons where champagne bottles of every size including half nip, nip, pint, imperial pint, quart, magnum, jeroboam, rehoboam, methuselah, salamanzar and balthazar champagne sit on a mantle at right above diners’ heads
The piece reads: ‘There are, therefore, in New York, speakeasies for every taste and purse.’ Pictured are patrons at an unidentified speakeasy in 1933
Patrons enjoy drinks at the Hunt Club, a speakeasy with a filing system listing their 23,000 eligible customers which is checked before a customer gets through the door. The venue was protected prohibition raids
The piece reads: ‘It is for a future that will want to know how New Yorkers of the ’20s lived that FORTUNE presents this portfolio of Margaret Bourke-White’s pictures.’ Pictured are patrons at an unidentified speakeasy in 1933
In Prohibition-era New York, cards such as the four pictured came from well-known speakeasies in good standing. Most of these speakeasies were found in present-day Midtown Manhattan
Revenue agents pose for a photograph after raiding a speakeasy in Washington on April 25, 1923
Before and after photographs show two Federal agents in disguise in order to try to fight the underground sale of alcohol at a Prohibition-era speakeasy
Pictured is another interior of a speakeasy during Prohibition