Lexington Avenue is no more

On this cleared site sometime in the late fifties or sixties was built the Mecca Ballroom known rather romantically as the Locarno, a place for stately ballroom dancing. I'm told the Kinks once played there and looked totally out of place. As times moved on it became Tiffany's, a nightclub, a place to go after the pubs had closed to 'dance' (in reality to keep on drinking). I recall nightclubs of the seventies with their glitter balls and extra loud disco noise and groups of young women standing or jiffling around their handbags on the dance floor. Ye gods! What dreadful places! As the seventies slid ecstatically into the Thatcher years Tiffany's became Lexington Avenue (LA's to the cognoscenti), and I'm afraid by then I was too old to be allowed in (I think I've been too old for most things in this life but we pass along on that). Reports of drug taking (No, really?), drunkenness (who ever would have thought?) and antisocial behaviour (well those were the days) drifted past my eyes in those days but I didn't care and I guess neither did anyone else. The place used to be absolutely heaving on weekends ... and then well, autre temps as they say. It closed several years ago and stood empty as is the well known style in this town. Now with la culture approaching and an alleged shortage of hotel rooms in steps Hilton Inc. to pop in a 167 bed hotel. They'd better get a move on.