New Years at The Palais Royale

The dance hall the Palais Royal was built in 1922. It was in the 1930’s that it gained its greatest popularity. 'Big bands' such as Duke Ellington and Count Basie, Paul Whiteman and the Dorsey Brothers played there.

The largest audience was in 1933, when 3000 people danced to Eddie Duchin's Park Central Orchestra from New York. From 1933 to 1950, Bert Niosi "Canada's King of Swing" and his orchestra were the house band.

Back in the nineties I enjoyed the best New Years’ Eve celebration of my life at The Palais Royale. The friends I was with and the musicians who performed there were part of the pleasure, but there was a quality of enchantment that I attributed to the place itself. At that time, the Palais Royale still exuded the charm of its old dance hall days.

It still stands today, newly renovated.