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fight at the Stork is today more newsworthy than an atom bomb.
During the second World War the Stork existed in the minds of un–
counted scores of thousands of fighting men all over the world as
the most desirable place in existence. The record is incontestably
available to prove it.
A good deal of highly paid space in coated paper magazines and
elsewhere and the intellectual resources of scores of authorities,
ranging from Stanley Walker and Katharine Brush to the editors
of learned reference books of biography and manners, have been
devoted to evaluating the Stork and Mr. Billingsley and what makes
them click with such astounding and eyer crescent precision. Its
breathless success has been variously attributed to the transcendent
genius of the proprietor, to his lavishness with material favors and
friendship with the reporters, to the Stork's fortunate geographic
location, to its cuisine, to its superb ·disdain for floor shows and
even to the favor and occasional patronage of Mrs. Vanderbilt. The
record, however, will show that the Stork was fantastically profitable
when it was located in Fifty-eighth Street on the wrong side of Fifth
Avenue, that numerous other saloon proprietors have set up drinks
for the paragraphers without any trace of the Stork's overwhelming
prestige, and that Mrs. Vanderbilt also favors with her presence
the Metropolitan Opera, a tradition in no way comparable either
on a fun basis or financially to the Cub Room.
Nor is Mr. Billingsley altogether infallible. Sometimes his most
adroitly fashioned strategies go completely snafu.
Every now and then it is his fond whim to devise a new code of '
signals by which, without attracting the attention of patrons, he
can govern the conduct and the staff of the Stork Club. Recently
he dreamed up a new essay in folly through whose agency he hoped
to inform his doormen and waiter captains of the status and welcome
of arriving guests by a series of code numbers which the m(l$ter
ix: Foreword