The rue de Lappe owes its name to Gérard de Lappe, a market gardener, who once owned land on the site. Lovers of paris - the old Paris, that is - think pf the rue de Lappe as the street of dancing and of people from the Auvergne. At the turn of century, people rushed to the rue de Lappe to enjoy themselves and dance the suggestive "frottis-frotta". By 1930, seventeen dance halls had sprung up on the street, including the Bal Vernet at number nine.

The Bal Vernet was the most sordid and the shabbiest of th lot, and could never complete with Le Petit Balcon, let alone with Bousca's, which, with its two dance floors, spotless decor, and multicoloured lights, was the meeting place for gigh-class procurers and their ladies.

"Hand over the cash", says the cashier. The orchestra takes a break as, money bag in hand, he walks onto the dance floor. It's 25 centimes a dance at Bousca's.

Gazing round to make sure everyone's coughed up, he calls out "Allez, roulez!" and off they go again. Anyone who tried to get away without paying would soon be counting stars on the pacement outside.

In 1931, one Jo France, known as Jojo or "Jo" to his friends, opened "La Bastoche",a small cabaret at 32, rue de Lappe. Jo was the youngest landlord on the street, and the only one who was'nt from the Auvergne.

His lucky break came when a woman was found murdered at the Hotel Vernet. The Bal Vernet's owners closed down overnight. Jo France took out a lease on the place.

When he was in the Val de Grâce military hospital, Jo France had struck up a friendship with the Breton Henri Mahé, a talented painter and slangmaster from rue Mouffetard. Mahé had already decorated some of the best-known brothels, as well as the Moulin Rouge and the Rex. So Jo asked'Enry the Brush to decorated the former Bal Vernet, which became Jo's Ballroom, or:"BALAJO".

The club was inaugurated twice: once in 1935, with Mistinguett and her famous legs, and a second time a year later. In the meantime, Jo France bought the furniture factory next door. But 1936 was the time of general strikes, the Front Populaire and civil unrest. It was hard to find manpower to knock down the walls. Mahé kept on with his decoration, and finished the job in sixty-three days.

The Balajo was opened on June 18th, 1936.

The great writer Louis Ferdinand Céline, a close friend of Mahé, wrote: "I came out of Jojo's place totally blown away by the quality of the ballroom. Truly a small masterpiece of taste, playfulness, mischief, and roguish poetry".

It was a storming success. The accordion, an instrument that was both traditional and avant-garde, and the domain of the young in the same way the electric guitar is today, owes its reputation to the Balajo, where it reached the peak of its popularity and earned a claim to respectability.

A number of celebrities can be seen at the ballroom, such as movie star Mademoiselle Arletty, Marlene Dietrich, writers Francis Carco, Joseph Kessel, Marcel Aymé and Louis Ferdinand Céline, journalist Pierre Lazareff, Abel Gance, or George Raft...

When war was declared in 1939, The Balajo shut down.

It would not reopen until five years later, on December 24th, 1944.

The Balajo picked right up where it had left off, with the same old faithful clientele, and on any given day you might see Mistinguett, Maurice Chevalier, forever tight with his wallet, Arletty, or Jean Gabin, a regular on Saturdays, who you would step down from his dark red, dual-carburettor Delahaye, and saunter over in that way he had, like a sailor.

The Toupie, or spinning top, now a classic accordion piece, was created by Jo Privat. A waltz where you spin as fast as you can without moving from one spot, its virtuosos would dance it on top of cast-iron Paris café tables.

And there were new personalities, such as Edith Piaf, who celebrated her marriage to Jacques Pils at her usual table before she started bringing boxer Marcel Cerdan there, Django Reinhardt, with his magical fingertips, and Francis Lemarque, born on the street to which he delicated one of his songs, "Rue de Lappe", later sung by Mouloudji, Gregory Peck, Robert Mitchum, the Hollywood heavyweight and heavy on the bottle, Sophia Loren, Rita Hayworth, so beautiful that the entire hall fell into a hush when she walked in, and Jo Privat wrote a song in her honour.

Brigitte Bardotwould show up some nights, incognito, and Auguste Le Breton, a faithful friend, and renowned writer of detective novels set in the Parisian underworld.

And the ever present, the hard core with those impossible names, Didi the Diamond, Rotton Foot Ricky, Petey the Waster... In other words, anyone who was anyone in Paris.

Yves Didou, seconded by Jean Deschamps, the other big cabaret owners at the time after Jo France, summed it up when they said: "The whole world has gone, is going, or some day will go to the Balajo"

Jo Privat, presided over the musical arrangements. He accompanied Philippe Clay when he came to the ballroom to spark his romance.

In 1982, Robert Lageat and his son Jacques, the champion wrestler known as Jacky Corn, turned the Balajo into one of Paris "hottest night-spots", while retaining its authentic and original decor.

In 1994, backed by former wrestlers Rémy Bayle and Daniel "Schmitago" Schmid, the undoubted star of the rue de Lappe, Jacques Lageat took over the reins from his illustrious predecessors.

More than just an institution, the Balajo is a special place in a class of its own, where dance lovers throng in a atmosphere that is both typical and unique, in a decor that stays faithful to yesterday's traditions, yet where the music is appropriatly modern.

Taken from the book Robert Des Halles, by R.LAGEAT ( JC Lattès)