Madison blogs - All that jazz

Ever since I can remember, I’ve been obsessed with the 1920s. I blame my great-grandmother, who was in her twenties during the '20s. As a kid, I was enthralled by her stories of coming of age in Sydney and traveling the world.

Now, luckily for me, the '20s are having a moment. Pretty beaded dresses are back on the catwalks, brogues are back in fashion, and I can buy a wool cloche hat that doesn’t smell like mothballs from sitting in a vintage shop for decades.

But once you’re all dressed up, you need somewhere to go. New York is taking care of that for me, too. The Chatwal Hotel, which just opened on a street off Times Square, is a nod to the jazz age from top to bottom. Just walking into the red Art Deco lobby makes me want to slip into a slinky silk gown, bob and crimp my hair and throw back a Manhattan—or maybe a Cherry Fix or an Old Fashioned. At the hotel’s Lambs Club bar I can do just that.

Prohibition is the star of the new HBO show Boardwalk Empire (set in Atlantic City waaaay before Snooki ever set foot on the beach there), and prohibition cocktails are everywhere. I love the 75 Smash at Andaz Wall Street’s Bar Seven Five, but it’s not the only place in town to get drunk on strong, boozy drinks made from rum and rye. The Royalton Hotel just opened a new lounge called Forty Four that’s all about classic cocktails, and Milk & Honey on the Lower East Side has been onto this olde cocktail trend for a few years now.

Bad news for my beauty sleep (and, dare I say, my liver)—there’s even a Prohibition-style speakeasy right around the corner from my apartment in Brooklyn. It’s called Weather Up, and it’s so cool it doesn’t even have a sign on the door. Once inside, you’re served Dark & Stormies by gents sporting beards and waistcoats under a pretty tiled ceiling. It feels decadent and a little bit risque—the bar doesn’t get going until the wee hours—but I suppose that’s just what sneaking booze during Prohibition was all about. Swell!