Tuesday Dec 2

Club district

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Matt's Notes

The phrase "club district" almost certainly does not, as it might seem, refer to a New York neighborhood packed with nightclubs and speakeasies. The closest thing to that in Papa's world would have been the stretch of lower Second Avenue known as "The Yiddish Rialto" for its concentration of Yiddish theaters and Jewish hangouts (like Cafe Royale and Kessler's Second Avenue Theatre, and the Second Avenue Baths) but I think what he means here is the Downtown Zionist Centre on St. Marks Place.

As I've mentioned before, I think he referred to the Centre as "the district" or, when he was in a hurry, "the dist" because his Zionist Organization of America district meetings took place there. He may have written "Club district" in this entry because some other club he belonged to met there as well (perhaps the ball committee he joined a few weeks ago had something to do with this unnamed club) though I think it's more likely that he had just come to think of "The Dist" as a clubhouse.

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