There were two 75th anniversary celebrations this month, each having to do with a booze-related event at a distinguished downtown hotel. The proximity of the events may seem like a coincidence but in a town that is happy to celebrate drinking of any kind, a closer look suggests that one event may have influenced the other and that there was at least one calculating entrepreneur, with a flair for promotions, who at the time had had major political connections.
First of the two events took place Sept. 3, 1949 at the Hotel Monteleone in the French Quarter on Royal Street. On that day, the hotel bar became one of the most unusual anywhere. Some bars are known for making their customers’ heads spin; rarely is it the bar itself that spins. But that began with the debut of the Carousel Bar with its a merry-go-round motif. The drinking area is circular and makes a spin, powered by a one-fourth horsepower motor, every 15 minutes.
Opened on Sept. 3, 1949, the Monteleone is a classic Beaux-Arts style hotel located on the edge of the Quarter close to Canal Street.
It is famous as a literary landmark because of the many prominent authors who have been there including Tennessee Williams, Truman Capote and Eudora Welty.
In 1949, the hotel also became famous for its new bar where many of those writers and tourists would take a spin, many sipping the house specialty drink, the Vieux Carre.
The other 75th anniversary event happened a few blocks down near Canal Street at the grand The Roosevelt Hotel. It was there that on Sept. 26, 1949 an event took place which would be forever known as the “Storming of the Sazerac.”
On that day, a group of women moved through the lobby and headed to the bar where they demanded the house special Sazerac cocktail. What gave this event its social and political significance was that prior to that day women were forbidden from drinking at The Roosevelt’s Sazerac Bar, except on Mardi Gras Day. This event would break the societal glass ceiling, and ladies have been barside ever since. It was a victory for the power of civil liberties and rye whiskey.
It was also a victory for a character named Seymour Weiss who was the hotel’s chief executive.
Weiss was a powerful force. He had been a crony of Huey Long, governor and then senator, to whom The Roosevelt was one of his favorite handouts. Weiss was even Long’s political organization’s treasurer.
By most indications, the “Storming” was a publicity stunt of the sort that a person with political experience would be familiar. With the rival Monteleone getting so much publicity for its new bar, Weiss would have wanted something to draw attention to the Sazerac, named after what was then the city’s most popular cocktail, especially since he had just purchased the naming rights from the Sazerac company. The opening of the Carousel Bar and the “Storming” took place in the same month only 23 days apart.
While it would have taken some time and planning for the Monteleone to build and establish a new bar, the Storming event could have been arranged quickly just by gathering a crowd of ladies and supplying the already established bar with more whiskey. (As a political operative and businessman, Weiss was likely skilled at crowd gathering.)
So, the prevailing question: Did the opening of the Carousel Bar influence the Storming of the Sazerac?
I think yes. In recent years, The Roosevelt has even made an annual ticketed event celebrating the women’s rebellion where there is a fashion show, a luncheon and genteel storming,
And while the original “Storming” did strike a victory for gender integration, we suspect the guys did not mind.
Also, part of the story is the year, 1949. World War II had ended only four years earlier. Nations were still recovering. Folks wanted to have fun again.
In New Orleans there was even newsworthiness in two hotel bars competing for attention. Like the Allies of a few years earlier, both won.
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