Dirty Dancers: Miami Beach, 1940

When the 1940 winter season ended and the Carousel Club closed, Miami Beach was expected to await the arrival of Thanksgiving 1941, when tourists would return. Instead, a building boom took place beginning with the National Hotel and continuing up Collins Avenue from 16^th to 23^rd Street, with the Rooney Plaza Hotel.

The rumba dancers that performed at the Five O’clock Club, the Beachcomber, Club Bali and Carousel either went north or remained for the summer, out of work. When we learned that the new hotels were installing dance studios to serve guests, and welcoming teachers, we joined the new National Hotel. In return for performing at the pool with free rumba lessons for hotel guests, we had the use of the studio, free of charge. A business was born.

Miami Beach and rumba and conga became synonymous. Bathed in Latin rhythms from nearby Havana. A chain of dance studios—one in every new hotel—would have paid off very handsomely we thought except that there were not enough dance teachers to fill the growing demands. Furthermore, the hotel owners were now asking for a percentage of the take and were thinking of charging for dance studio space. To hire teachers or to work on a percentage basis without contracts was clumsy since they could make deals with the hotels eliminating my partner and me. Things were up for grabs.

Since the National Hotel was number one in 1940, our studio was well known. And considered the pioneer in this dance studio business: in hopes of dealing with more sound (read: honest) establishments, we approached the venerable Tatem Surf Club, and Anglo-Saxon private club for the old guard Floridian “aristocracy.” At the entrance, a sign read Restricted. The management agreed to permit a trial studio seeing that we had run the Conga Nights at the prestigious Coral Gables Country Club. When there were absolutely no customers from the Tatem Surf Club membership, we quit. No doubt the rumba was considered ethnically incorrect: “Jewish.” The Anglos scorned the dance and today they are seen at a loss on the dance floor trying to learn the box step