Silent night, lonely night at the Tango Palace

The original story as it ran in the Voice 51 years ago.

Christmas eve. Times Square is empty, darkened by closed shops and shut-down signs. Only Fascination Playlands seems to be enjoying a normal business, and the dinging bell signaling another lucky winner at dime a throw tic-tac-toe can be heard for blocks. What few lights there are flash and blink…twinkle, if you will, in the frozen air. You walk the streets, and you figure Christmas comes to Times Square at an oblique angle.

Two guys just down the block stop, fumble in their pockets, and give an aging drunk a quarter. You walk by, do the same, and the guy is speechless, mumbling, falling against the wall and finally squatting and staring up in numb thanks. “Merry Christmas,” you say. He can only nod, attempt a smile, then his chin flops down against his chest.

Around the corner, a scruffy pimp shapes up his girls with a shaking finger and promises being “let go” if they don’t get out there and hustle up some scratch. The girls are not takin this lightly. The pimp is their connection for junk, and losing him at this time of year would mean a quick trip behind bars for sure.

Up the street, one of the lights blinks on and off in reds and yellows: “Girls — Beautiful — Girls” for dancing at the Tango Palace, 1 p.m. to 4 a.m. The doorway to the place is adorned with tinted likenesses of busty babes with rosy cheeks, decked out in slinky floor-length gowns of satin and velvet and sequins. They smile with teeth that are whiter than white, and on a street where the Castro Convertible showroom is an oasis of sanity, on a night when you’ve got a head full of hoary memories and visions of dancing sugarplums, the ladies look real.

Upstairs, the scene is faded dream of decadence and glitz. You’re announced by a buzzer that opens the door, and inside a bevy of painted beauties sit in a horseshoe-shaped vinyl pit, legs crossed, toe-exposing spike-heeled slippers flopping in unison, keeping time with Artie Shaw, one of the Dorsey brothers or Glenn Miller playing a moonlight serenade. A spinning mirrored ball plays irregular spots across their faces, and you can see that they’re smiling, just like the dime-a-dance girls in the picture showcase downstairs. A sign says those smiles cost $7.50 a half hour.

Spiral stucco Gothic pillars punctuate a room that hasn’t changed in 30 years. Red velvet and tassels and mirrors and chrome, and over in one corner, atop a baby grand piano, a squat plastic Christmas tree with a half a dozen presents scattered beneath it.

Three ladies get up, hike up their hemlines, bolster their bosoms, and saunter over to a railing running parallel to the bar. You get a beer and turn to face them. “Hey honey,” one of them calls, “come on over and sit with me. Ya wanna do a little dancin’?” Sure, you figure. You want to see what it’s like, you and the two other customers in the joint, one of them being escorted through his drunken half hours by the luckiest girl in the place. “He wuz drunk when he come in here a few hours ago, and he’s still drunk now. The guy’s laying out a lotta dough to sober up, I’ll tell ya that,” she says as you walk by. You sit down, lay out the money, and buy your half hour of smiles, caresses, rubbing legs, and slow dances with the lady of your choice.

She’s from Brooklyn. Born and raised there, she says. And yes, this is the way she spent Christmas eve last year, too. “The kid’s home with my mother. I’m divorced, see, a few years back. I been working this joint for two years now. It’s not so bad — ya gotta make a buck, ya know? Sure you do. You look like you been around. Tell me. You a musician?”

“Why? Do a lot of musicians come in here?”

“Well, you know. These guys in town for a weekend gig, sometimes when they get off, they want some company and they come by. They’re like anyone else, I guess.”

What about Christmas? She doesn’t answer right off. “Listen, honey, this the first time you been in here? Yeah? Well let me tell ya how we work it. We just get — whatdaya call it — a commission on the time, see? And then it’s what we can make in tips. So. You want some very sexy dancing, you give me $20. Not so sexy is $10. You just stick it right here between my titties, darling, and we’ll get along fine.” It’s what she’s been using to buy Christmas presents for her kid, she says. You take out a 10 for some not so sexy dancing and stick it down her platform chest. She smiles and grabs your hand, and you bump and grind through several ancient goodies.

What about last Christmas? “Well, last Christmas eve was a good night,” she says and looks away. “What do you mean by that? Did you have a lot of customers?” “No, I had one real good one,” she answers quickly with a forced smile. Did he give a big tip? Did he go home with you? Well, she says, “He ended up buying me a color TV. A big color TV.”

The half hour is up, and the lady in black with long eyelashes and teased hair gets up to go. “It’s been real nice, honey. You sure you don’t wanna dance some more? No? We’ll see you later then, darling. You make something of yourself, you hear? I’m going to open my own hairdressing shop someday. I’m saving up my money.”  “Merry Christmas,” she calls, as you head out the door.

A folded night-owl edition of the Daily News is stuck in the banister on the stairs leading out of the place. The front page is a picture of a baby enjoying her first Christmas eve at the home of the cop who found her last year in the toilet of a Times Square hotel. You figure Times Square hasn’t changed much.