The Eldorado

This post will give you a little more information about the Eldorado, the sources can be found at the bottom.
I have blatantly copied, pasted and mixed texts from other sides assuming that the cause of education will justify this.

The Eldorado, Tanzlokale für Herren, has had a complicated history with at least 5 establishments claiming the name in and around Berlin from 1848 to the present day. But it was a pretty much openly gay and transvestite friendly bar in a time where most people would not have expected such liberal tolerance.

The most famous incarnation was at the corner of Motzstraße and Kalckreuthstraße from 1926 to 1933. Tourist guidebooks of the day suggested a visit to the Eldorado in order to see something to tell the folks back home about.

It is referred to in countless novels and guide books over the years, including those by Christopher Isherwood, well known for writing “Goodbye to Berlin” and the musical and movie;”Cabaret”.
Eldorado became immensely popular and a centre of attraction for homosexuals, transvestites, transsexuals and open-minded people, among whom numerous artists and writers.
In the late 1920s it was considered the most fashionable nightclub in Berlin. The cabaret shows and the refined atmosphere of the nightclub (in which is was difficult to distinguish the boundary between “male” and “female”) became legendary, and were immortalized by artists such as Otto Dix.
Eldorado is even mentioned in the first German-language recording of a song featuring an openly gay love affair in 1929, ‘Am Sonntag will mein Süßer mit mir Segeln geh’n’.

It featured regular performances by the likes of Marlene Dietrich,Paul O’Montis, Claire Waldoff and the Weintraub Syncopators, and was widely known to be a regular venue for transvestites and transexuals.
Customers could buy ‘chips’ to exchange for dances with the ‘performers’ who would then compare to see who got the most tokens and thus was most popular.
Of course it was most fun if a man gave a token to a transvestite thinking it was a woman.

In February of 1933, the Berlin Chief of Police announced a “comprehensive campaign against Berlin’s depraved nightlife” and brought forward the closing time of all “amusements with dancing of the homosexual kind’” to 10 O’clock.
Shortly afterwards Hermann Goering ordered the closure of a raft of premises and the Eldorado was raided and closed down.
The premises was then taken over by the Nazis and used as a local headquarters.

The writers and artists that had made the cabaret shows unique underwent brutal persecution by the regime. Many of them were arrested and deported to the concentration camps.
Others committed suicide in order to escape the torturers, and others took refuge in the United States.

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When building the Eldorado I sadly had to accept the limitations SL forces upon us, never enough prims or space. Also there was not that much material that showed me in detail what the club looked liked and its interior was also often changed. What you get when you visit the Eldorado here in SL is just there to give you a little taste of what the real club was.
May it taste bittersweet, knowing what happened to it in the years that followed.

The Eldorado in 1920s Berlin is opening on Saturday the 30th, 1pm slt!

Sources:
http://www.cabaret-berlin.com/?p=11
http://www.eldoradoberlin.de
http://www.everyonegroup.com/files/eldorado.pdf http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eldorado_(Berlin)