Celebration at the Puppy Bar New Orleans c. 1945. Original photograph Collection Jim Linderman / Dull Tool Dim Bulb

From reporter Blake Ponchchartrain writing for GAMBIT “the Best of New Orleans” I was able to identify this great photograph location! It became the Puppy Bar in 1940, so my speculation this was of cebration of the end of WW2 is likely correct. The place was hot..looks like no air conditioning to me. Maybe they shared a bottle of Champagne? If you search “the Puppy Bar” this great article will show up. Here’s the summary:  According to a 1975 column by Howard Jacobs in The Times-Picayune, The Puppy House actually was the second name for the club located at that spot. Owner Frank Ferrara opened a club there called The Circus in 1938. The name change must have come soon after, because a 1940 story in The New Orleans Item called it The Puppy House. By 1948, Ferrara had changed the name of the club to the Sho-Bar.   He retired in 1958 and sold the Sho-Bar, though it remained a fixture on Bourbon Street for decades. Among performers who took the stage there were Cupcake and Candy Barr, Sally Rand with her "world famous fan dance," Lili St. Cyr and Rita Alexander, the striptease artist known as "the Champagne girl." The biggest star of all, Blaze Starr, even drew the attention of Louisiana Gov. Earl K. Long.   In his book Bourbon Street: A History, Richard Campanella points out that Long's limousine could be seen parked outside the club several nights a week beginning in 1959. "That's where he fell head over heels in lust with the buxom Appalachian girl who went by the stage name Blaze Starr," Campanella writes. "The sensational story of the 63-year- old governor and the 23-year-old dancer helped make Long, Starr, Bourbon Street and Louisiana all the more delectably notorious to the national consciousness."   In the 1980s, the Sho-Bar moved to the 300 block of Bourbon but has since closed. As for the original club in the 200 block, it was Deja Vu Showgirls for many years but is now Hunk Oasis, a club featuring male dancers. Original “”Nightclub photographer” 8 x 10 glossy photographs, c. 1945 Collection Jim Linderman Dull Tool Dim Bulb the Blog #trueburlesque. #burlesque. #candybarr. #theshowbar. #SallyRand. #neworleans.