The Viper Room
Converted from a grocery store to a nightclub in the 1940s, the Cotton Club on the Sunset Strip in West Hollywood went by many names, including The Melody Lounge, Filthy McNasty’s and The Central before being revitalized as The Viper Room by Johnny Depp and Sal Jenco in 1993. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers performed on the club’s opening night. The club became a hangout of the young Hollywood elite, and was the site where actor River Phoenix died of a drug overdose on Halloween night in 1993 and is said to haunt it.
West Hollywood, Los Angeles County
Images by Andrew Schmidt