Post #380290 by Dr. Zarkov on Wed, May 14, 2008 1:56 PM

A few months back, an older friend of my wife and me talked to us about her experience working at the Bali Hai in Northport, Long Island, back in the 1950s. I did a Tiki Central word search and found that some folks had been discussing the NY Bali Hai in 2002, but no one seemed to know much about the place, so please excuse me for briefly attempting to add to our general store of knowledge.

Our friend, Elsa Posey, had been professional dancer in Broadway shows and ballet companies. As is the case today, except for a handful of big stars, even successful dancers are forced to find other paying jobs to sustain themselves, and Elsa snagged a gig at the Bali Hai, a Tiki bar, where she wore a grass skirt, participated in hula shows and waitressed. She said none of the dancers knew anything about hula and made up what they did, but they all thoroughly enjoyed working there. One thing she remembers vividly is that the waitresses loved it when a table would order a volcano bowl drink, because each one cost $5.00 and the waitress got to keep $1.00 of that. The drink price alone should tell you something about how long ago this was.

She dredged this up from her memory after visiting our house and seeing our tiki lounge (http://www.flickr.com/photos/drzarkov/). After returning home, she sent me two matchbook covers, a paper coaster and plastic swizzle stick from the Bali Hail, which was located at 647 Main Street, Route 25A, in Northport, Long Island, New York.

Elsa Posey currently directs her own dance school and that's how my wife, who was a professional dancer and choreographer in New York when we met, knew her. I also had met Elsa when we both served on the board of the National Dance Education Organization, a national association of dance teachers, but at that time she wasn't aware of my interest in Tiki. If you would like to learn more about Elsa, here is a link to an article published in Newsday in 2003: http://www.poseyschool.com/newsdayarticle.html.