Big Apple

Jean Mason and friends in 1937 dance “The Big Apple” during an SAE fraternity house party. The Pavilion (1935-1959) was home to many University of South Carolina dancers who observed blacks in Columbia’s Big Apple nightclub originated a dance that a troupe took to New York. From meager beginnings in a former Jewish synagogue turned nightclub in Columbia to the nickname of New York City, the Big Apple was the dance of the 1930s.