Vintage Hotel Key & Key Fob O'Hare Sahara Inn Schiller, Park Illinois - Chicago

Description

Vintage Hotel Key & Key Fob
Sahara Inn
3939 N. Manheim Road
Schiller
Park, Illinois
The O'Hare Sahara Inn had Mob / Mafia ties, allegedly.
Condition:
This item is used and shows signs of use and wear.  See photos for condition.
The Sahara Inn had a Grand Opening on June 6th, 1962.  Time magazine, just a week later, published a short travel piece written by a correspondent who'd been at the opening, who called the Sahara "a little bit of Las Vegas, but without gambling tables yet.”
"A salmagundi of Italian marble, Japanese carpet, matched rosewood, Hawaiian monkeypod wood, gold foil and tropical fish, the Sahara Inn is like a movie set for a dream sequence in a musical starring George Jessel and Zsa Zsa Gabor," the Time magazine author wrote.
Patrons lounging beside the outdoor pool, its deck punctuated by palm trees and gold torches, were served cocktails by waitresses, called "starlets," sporting ruffled bikinis and beehive hairdos.
The waitresses inside the cocktail bar served drinks while wearing skimpy "harem" outfits, draped with strands of faux pearls and topped with tiaras sprouting ostrich feathers.
A mural on one wall of the bar was covered with caricature drawings of big and once-big stars -- singers, comedians and entertainers – many of whom graced the nightclub stage.
Inside the main nightclub, the Club Gigi, the headliner on opening night was popular singer Bobby Darin, who had just released a new single, "Things," a country-tinged side that would shoot to No. 3 on the U.S charts.
Second on the bill was all-around entertainer George Kirby, a singer/piano player/comedian, a black man who had an uncanny ability to do impressions of white Hollywood stars like John Wayne and of jazz singers as diverse as Joe Williams, Louis Armstrong and Sarah Vaughan.
Also, on opening night, the place was lousy with cops.
"Platoons of policemen," including "detectives from the state police, state's attorney's office, police intelligence unit and the Federal Bureau of Investigation almost outnumbered the guests," wrote Wiedrich, who chronicled organized crime of the era for the Tribune.
Source: Riverside Brookfield Landmark