City of Girls

Vivian comes from a wealthy clan in upstate New York, but she can’t relate to her family at all. Her mother is an equestrian. Her father is an industrialist, and her older brother is so serious-minded that his schoolmates nicknamed him “the Ambassador.” Vivian also can’t relate to the girls at any of the schools she’s attended over the years. Her most recent humiliation is being booted out of Vassar after her freshman year.

Despairing that she’ll ever amount to anything, her parents ship her off to live with her Aunt Peg in New York. Vivian is piled on board a train with two suitcases and a sewing machine given to her by her Grandmother Morris. The old woman was a flamboyant seamstress who taught Vivian to sew like a fashion designer. This skill gave her instant popularity with her schoolmates, if not with her teachers. 

Vivian arrives at Grand Central Station, searching for Aunt Peg. Years earlier, Peg had married wealthy Billy Buell, and the two had collaborated on a number of theater productions. They eventually produced a stage hit which later became a string of popular movies. Billy moved to Hollywood while Peg took her share of the proceeds and bought a dilapidated theater to produce variety shows.

Vivian is met by a British woman named Olive who acts as Peg’s secretary Vivian describes her as a woman who looks “like a spinster who drank Ovaltine for dinner and gargled with salt water for vitality” (19). Olive take Vivian to the shabby Lily Playhouse in mid-town Manhattan.

When Vivian walks into the Lily theater, she thinks, “It was all grandiose, it was all crumbling. The Lily reminded me of Grandmother Morris—old, overdone, and proud, and decked to the nines in out-of-date velvet” (24). Backstage, Olive leads Vivian to Peg, who is talking with two stunning showgirls named Gladys and Celia. Peg is delighted to see her niece and invites the entire group upstairs for dinner, even though Olive grumbles that there isn’t enough food. The living quarters in the four-story theater are chaotic and cluttered. Much to Vivian’s relief, Peg gives her the opulent rooms that are reserved for Billy, whenever he breezes through New York.

Over dinner, Olive frets about the low receipts for their last show while Peg shrugs off the financial problem. Peg asks Vivian what she would like to do during her time in New York. When Vivian shyly announces that she knows how to sew, the showgirls pounce. They ask if she can make them some better costumes. Vivian is dazzled by their glamour and agrees to help them.

Two weeks later, Vivian is happily immersed in her new life as the theater’s costume designer. She says, “The Lily Playhouse was unlike any world I’d ever inhabited. It was a living animation of glamour and grit and mayhem and fun—a world full of adults behaving like children, in other words” (44). Despite the apparent chaos, performances occur on schedule. The shows are meant to entertain the immigrant communities surrounding the theater. Nothing highbrow or pretentious is ever presented. Just simple song, dance, comedy, and melodrama routines meant to divert the patrons from their dreary lives.

Peg and Olive live on the fourth floor of the building. The third floor houses Mr. Herbert, the scriptwriter and a part-time actor, and well as Benjamin Wilson, a composer and musician.

A glamorous woman named Celia ends up sharing Vivian’s fancier quarters. Vivian is too star-struck to mind. She comments on the fact that nobody, herself included, ever cleans up. They have a quiet maid named Bernadette who takes care of all the chores. Vivian realizes for the first time that she’s been surrounded by servants her entire life. In a direct address to Angela, she says, “You will often hear such people say: ‘I didn’t even know I was poor!’ I was the opposite, Angela: I didn’t know I was rich” (58).

During the next week, Vivian learns a little about her new roommate. Celia became pregnant at the age of fourteen and was kicked out of her home by her parents. She found a variety of jobs in and out of showbusiness before capitalizing on her looks as a statuesque showgirl. After putting in her time on stage at the Lily, Celia goes out with a variety of men, dancing and drinking until the wee hours.

Because Vivian is so good at creating costumes, all the showgirls begin to cluster around her sewing area as their regular meeting place. They become curious about Vivian’s personal life and ask if she’s ever had sex. Shocked and dismayed that she’s still a virgin, the showgirls determine to set her up with one of their regular male patrons. Vivian’s deflowering is scheduled for the very unromantic hour of 10 AM with a veterinarian named Dr. Harold Kellogg, whose wife will be away during that time.