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The Pelham Café was a misnomer; the place was actually a dance hall and bar designed to cater to the tourist trade slumming through Chinatown. Gang members occasionally dropped in at the café, but it was obvious that the clientele consisted primarily of tourists and locals rather than lords of vice. Not that the establishment was entirely innocent; the upstairs housed a brothel run by an “opium fiend” who went by the name of Chinatown Gertie.
As Thousands Cheer: The Life of Irving Berlin, by Laurence Bergreen
Above
The infamous Pelham Cafe in its heyday.
Right
Antique painted toy car made of lead, perhaps a Model T. Salter collection.
