Lincoln Gardens was a very large dance hall and nightclub located at 459 East 31st St Chicago, IL 60616.
[2] Opening some time in the first years of the 20th century,[1] the facility was originally a segregated dance hall by practice if not by law, that featured bands with only white musicians and patrons.
[3] Both African-American, the two men also operated the music publication Whip which promoted clubs and musicians in the city of Chicago.
[3] Williams successfully lobbied Chicago politician Louis B. Anderson to support the club by making him a 1/3 partner in the business venture, and Anderson in turn used his influence as part of Chicago mayor William Hale Thompson's political machine to get the political will to support the club and prevent police harassment of the establishment and its patrons.
The hall's name was later changed to the Café de Paris sometime before it closed in June 1927 when it was the target of a bombing suspected to be related to gang warfare.