The Indianapolis Star from Indianapolis, Indiana • Page 74

New York's Strange Night Life' The Indianapolis Sunday Star, November 1936. Girls to Rent for a Nickel a Minute! (Th Regliter nd Trfbun SyndlcaU Photonrvlc. i j- lit :) 5 These Beauties Sometime Dance 10 Miles in a Single Night That 1b not a watch the young woman is wearing on her ankle above her sandaled foot. It is a pedometer. It counts every step she makes during an evening of taxi dancing.

With the total number of steps counted, it is easy to estimate the distance the girl dances. An extremely popular girl may daace as far as ten miles fn an evening. However, the girls are not paid according to the distance they dance. They receive a nickel of the 12 cents paid for each ticket. These pedometers are not worn regularly, but the management uses them occasionally to check which girls are working.

it I .11 Broadway's Most Beautiful Girls Work in This Famous Taxi Dance Hall. 7 This makes their pretty feminine companions cost 5 cents a minute. For $1 you may give one of the This In the entrance the Orpheuni most taxi dance ballroom on Droadway. To work here a girl niUBt be beautiful, refined girls eight tickets and dance or talk with her for and an excellent dancer. Men who go there to dance twenty nilnutPM, pay.

121 cents a ticket. Dances lust two affd a half minutes. Dancing Is carefully chaperoned. Men who get "fresh," or who are drunk, are promptly "bounced" from the Orpheum. fit 9r fv 1 A cV 7 0 'i I) 1 Tji.

These Taxi Dancers Often Wed Millionaires' Sons. Redheads, Brunettes and Blondes Take Your Choice. of the Orpheum. Many are known as "clip joints" where girls use all sorts of ruses to separate customers from their money. In some dance halls bars are operated.

Men are inveigled into buying drinks after every dance. The girl gets a commission on each drink. The customer gets liquor, but the amber fluid given to the girl is usually a soft drink. Such tactics are not permitted at the Orpheum, which has operated continuously for eighteen years and is probably the oldest taxi dance hall in the world. In evening gowns these taxi dancers are waiting for patrons who will pay a nickel a ininute to dance with them.

Pictured with them Is the manager. Sons of Park avenue millionaires come often to dance with these beauties of Broadway. Frequently romance develops and a taxi dancer marries into the Social Register. But the dancers are not permitted to leave tha Orphoum with patrons. Some of these taxi dancers are married, but they never disclose this secret to dance partners.

Not all taxi dance halls have the strict regulations Most of these? girls work at other Jobs during the day. A popular girl can earn from 2.50 to 3.50 an evening at the Orpheum, Some of these girls are paying their way through college as taxi dancers. Hundreds of pretty girls seek jobs at the Orpheum. The management tries to keep all types of beautiful girls on hand (o suit the customers' tastes. Though there are more brunettes employed, there is always a liberal sprinkling of blondes and redheads available..