The Blue Room, The Roosevelt Hotel, New Orleans, 1952 Clinton Raymond Oliver

Raymond Oliver

April 1946

Ernest Hemingway also frequented this venerable restaurant from 1921 to 1928 and the author references it in his second novel about the “lost generation” called The Sun Also Rises

It was run by restaurateur Henri Soulé who went on to open Le Pavillon on East 55th Street in 1941

changing his name to Jimmy Kelly to fit in with the Irish-controlled boxing world of turn-of-the-century New York

The Blue Room, The Roosevelt Hotel, New Orleans, 1952 Clinton Raymond OliverWe love this 1952 menu cover of the Roosevelt Hotel in New Orleans for its wonderful image. What's going on behind those illuminated windows, we wonder, and look at the stylish automobiles lined up on the street. The building isn't actually blue, of course, it's the clever way the artist brought attention to The Blue Room, once one of the most famous supper clubs in America. Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald and Frank Sinatra were among the list of