To spot the historic site of Forbidden City, look for the dark gray, ornate old building directly across the street-it sits between modern storefronts, right where the window displays have changed but the decorative architectural details above hint at its colorful past.
Now, go ahead and imagine the scene here on a glamour-filled San Francisco night in the 1940s. You’d see a queue of people-some in crisp military uniforms, others swirling in their finest city outfits-waiting to ascend a narrow stairway above 363 Sutter Street. You’d catch a whiff of anticipation and maybe a trace of steak sizzling from the kitchen upstairs, and hear a distant thrum of drums and laughter beating through the building’s walls. If you peeked up at the right moment, you might make out the original sign for the Forbidden City nightclub, glowing like a secret invitation between the bustle of Union Square and the mystery of Chinatown.
This was no ordinary club. Forbidden City was a world apart, opened on the second floor in 1938 by the larger-than-life Charlie Low-a man who wanted to create an “Oriental paradise” unlike anything San Francisco had ever seen. Inside, the décor tried to channel the grandeur of Beijing’s Forbidden City, but with a distinctly American twist: white tablecloths, Chinese and American “fusion” dishes, and a glitzy stage that would make even the Cotton Club jealous.
The real magic, though, was the show. Picture the room packed with 300 people, the haze of cigarettes catching the colored spotlights, and the band launching into a swinging big-band tune. Suddenly, the curtains would part, and out would parade a line of dancers in silk cheongsams-then, in the next instant, they’d toss those off for the shimmer of sequins and tap shoes, leaping into tap numbers and ballads that seemed to turn every stereotype of the era on its head.
This was the “Chop Suey Circuit”-the most famous of the twelve or so Chinese nightclubs that sprang up in Chinatown, but this one took the cake. Every single person on stage and behind the scenes was Asian American. At a time when Hollywood and Broadway shut doors tight to Asian performers, Charlie Low’s Forbidden City opened them wide. Jadin Wong, who once snuck out her window as a girl just to watch people dance, brought her rebel spirit here. Noel Toy, hired as a “Bubble Dancer” despite having never danced before, became the club’s sensation, draped only in ostrich feathers or inside a giant, opaque bubble-her act quickly tripled business and drew a three-page spread in Life magazine.
Of course, things weren’t always as glamorous as they seemed. Many local Chinese found the club scandalous; some called it shameful, protesting, “Girls aren’t supposed to show their legs!” Charlie Low had to recruit dancers from as far away as Arizona and Hawaii, often asking them to take on more Chinese-sounding stage names to fit the “exotic” fantasy he was selling. And yet, performers here were pioneers-proving that Asian Americans weren’t just waiters and railroad workers, but incredible singers, comics, magicians, and dancers. Their shows were fast and funny; acts jumped from slapstick and cowboy spoofs to sultry ballads, with plenty of room for talented female impersonators like Jackie Mei Ling, and rising stars like Dorothy Toy and Paul Wing-the “Chinese Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.”
The audience was as mixed as the menu: Hollywood stars, Bay Area locals, servicemen readying for the Pacific, travelers whose jaws would drop at the spectacle. On any given night, you might spot Humphrey Bogart, Judy Garland, or even Ronald Reagan applauding in the crowd. World War II brought wave after wave of soldiers here, desperate for a last night of fun before shipping out, and Forbidden City was ready with a whirlwind of music, dance, and what has to have been the most enduring sequence of dad jokes ever told in Mandarin and English.
But times change. The rise of television and shifting tastes chipped away at the live entertainment scene. Charlie Low sold the club to the legendary dancer Coby Yee in 1962, who kept the party going until 1970-after which, the space morphed into a movie theater, then a tech classroom, and, well, today it’s waiting for its next reinvention. The walls aren’t talking, but if you stand quietly, maybe you’ll still hear the echo of a big band, the laughter of a crowded crowd, and the determination of a generation that stepped into the limelight and dared the world to watch.
And if you ever get invited upstairs-well, just remember: the “babies” are still forbidden to say “yes.” But you can definitely say yes to a good story.
