A Blighted Streetscape Inhales Stardust This Summer

New York, NY — West Eighth Street - - a street once associated with the humorist Mark Twain and entertainers like Barbra Streisand, Joan Rivers, and Jimi Hendrix - - has forfeited applause. Almost two dozen storefronts are vacant on this main thoroughfare between Fifth Avenue and Sixth Avenue. However, stardust will return on Sunday August 20, 2006 when a walking tour includes a few glamourous stops on Eighth Street linked to the world-class diamond-buyer of the Roaring 20s: Texas Guinan.

It was 100 years ago when Mary Louise Cecilia Guinan [1884-1933] arrived in Manhattan - - alone, newly divorced, and steeled by self-determination. In Colorado, the soft-spoken Irish-American known as "Marie Guinan" had been a demure Sunday school teacher. But in 1907, the ambitious 23-year-old rented a $2/ week room in 72 Washington Square South and assumed a louder identity: TEXAS Guinan.

"Tex could never have lived anywhere but in Greenwich Village," observed her biographer Louise Berliner, whose grandfather Maxwell E. Lopin was the lawyer who kept the speakeasy hostess out of jail after numerous police raids during the lawless decade. Evidently, it was true because - - even when she was earning $700,000 a year [$5.5 million today], enough to afford a Park Avenue address - - Tex retained her West Eighth Street apartment until her death at 49.

A few Eighth Street and Washington Square addresses linked to Texas Guinan are below.
* * Eighth Street & Broadway - where Tex banked her $700,000 salary in the 1920s
* * 17 West 8th Street - Tex's large and luxurious duplex
* * 22 West 8th Street - where Tex housed her showgirls
* * St. Joseph's on 6th Avenue - where Tex and Lew Ney ["Mayor" of Greenwich Village] baptized a baby in March 1927
* * 75 Washington Square South - where Tex garaged her 2 armored cars

More Texas Guinan - - and Mae West - - locations will be covered on the tour on Sunday August 20, 2006. Reserve at Village Restaurant. The Walking Tour is part of the Annual Mae West Gala.

Kicking off at 12 noon on Sunday August 20, 2006, "Mae West and Texas Guinan in Greenwich Village during a Lawless Decade" is a tour of the Washington Square area with an emphasis on locations linked to the transgressive careers of Mae West and Texas Guinan during the Roaring 20s. Meet at Village Restaurant, 62 West 9th Street [near Sixth Avenue], where a free exhibition of rare archival images of MAE WEST and TEXAS GUINAN can also be viewed for FREE from August 17th until August 31st during restaurant hours.

On August 20th, the fee includes BRUNCH at Village + gin cocktails right after a tour: $25. Rain or shine.
Reservations: (212) 505-3355 - Village Restaurant, 62 West 9th Street, NYC
BONUS: Pay before August 20th, 2006 and get a free gift
WHY: Exhibition & TOUR followed by BRUNCH are part of the Annual Mae West Gala
Subway: IND to West Fourth Street station; PATH Train to 9th Street

See a sampling of these images online:
* http://maewest.blogspot.com/ and
* http://texasguinan.blogspot.com/.

COURTING MAE WEST, LLC, based in Manhattan, is an off-Broadway producing outfit whose mission is to increase visibility and opportunity for women and women-driven stories in the theatre.

Sponsorship and media inquiries are welcome.

COURTING MAE WEST, LLC
Sponsorship Coordinator:
Conrad Bradford
917-403-0890

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