The club's original location near Times Square was at 200 West 48th Street on a trapezoidal lot between Broadway and Seventh Avenue.

[5] Concert promoter Lou Walters bought the Cotton Club and reopened it in 1942 as the Latin Quarter, with a French New Orleans theme.

During Walters's tenure, the club featured big-name acts such as Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Patti Page, the Carter Family, Sophie Tucker, Mae West, Diahann Carroll, Milton Berle, The Andrews Sisters, Frankie Laine, Sunny Skylar, and Ted Lewis, along with chorus girls and a can can dance to conclude.

[8] In 1979, the space reopened as a Broadway theatre called 22 Steps with performances of Coquelico,[6] My Old Friends,[9] The Madwoman of Central Park West,[10] and Dogg's Hamlet, Cahoot's Macbeth.

From 1980 to 1984, it was named the Princess Theatre and had performances of Censored Scenes from King Kong,[11] Fearless Frank,[12] The Beautiful Mariposa,[13] Sort of an Adventure,[13] Louie and the Elephant,[14] This Was Burlesque,[15] Pump Boys and Dinettes and The Babe.

In December 2004, a fight at the club, during a Ja Rule holiday party, spilled onto the street, and one man was fatally shot and another wounded in a dispute that reportedly involved associates of the Inc.

[18][19] On November 29, 2008, the former New York Giants and Pittsburgh Steelers football player Plaxico Burress accidentally shot himself in the right leg while he was standing in an elevator vestibule between the VIP room and the coat check.