Steve Lafler

1956 Movie Star Steve Lafler

Fifty-Second Street crackles with electricity as midnight beckons. Limos and cabs drop revelers at jazz hot spots like Birdland and Johnny Ryan's, decked to the nines. Headliners from Sarah Vaughn to the Miles Davis Quintet rewrite the rules of cool nightly in clubs packed to the gills. Downtown bohemians mix easily with African Americans and Latinos, with a smattering of out-of-town business visitors tripping the light fantastic. Midtown Manhattan offers a cultural oasis to the diverse fans of cutting edge jazz.

Welcome to an alternate universe mid 20th century where hipster "happy drunks" Susie and Jack find love, trans woman Ramona builds a high-profile career, and even Muggles the drug-dealing pimp can have a heart of gold. This is the jolly conceit of cartoonist Steve Lafler-enjoy it as you lean into that transcendent Coltrane solo over a martini just past midnight in Manhattan, smack in the center of 1956.