Playboy Club and its Bunnies are making a comeback in NYC

NEW YORK - The tightly corseted Playboy Bunnies, with rabbit tails and ears, will soon be back in business in New York City.

Three decades after the original Playboy Club closed in Manhattan, an apparent victim of changing American tastes and views on women, a new one will debut later this year in a hotel a few blocks from Times Square.

The club on West 42nd Street "will be one of the most chic and sophisticated venues in the world," promises Playboy Enterprises spokesman John Vlautin.

It will have a lounge, a restaurant, a game room and, of course, the Bunnies, though with updated outfits. Other Playboy clubs are already operating in London, the Vietnamese capital of Hanoi and several places in India. Another is set to open in the spring in Shanghai. New York's club will be in the Cachet Boutique New York Hotel, replacing the gay-themed Out Hotel, which closed last year.

If the club opens as scheduled, it will be in a city that began the year with hundreds of thousands of women taking to the streets to protest the presidency of Donald Trump, in part because of remarks he made that were perceived as chauvinistic.

The timing may be off, says travel guidebook publisher Pauline Frommer.

"Retro is in, but I'm not sure this type of retro," she says. "We live in this era when thousands of women are gathering in marches to protest. I'm not sure the zeitgeist is right for Playboy now."Industry observers said the key to success is how the brand will be presented to prospective guests. Will it be seen as a luxurious enclave, a nostalgic throwback, or a place where "75-year-old guys walk around in silk pajamas?" travel guru Peter Greenberg asks.

"As a concept, Playboy has the word anachronism written all over it — outdated, irrelevant — so I don't know what the cachet is today," Greenberg says.

Playboy founder Hugh Hefner opened the first club in Chicago in 1960. He quickly expanded the operation to 30 clubs around the world.

A chance to leer at the Bunnies wasn't the only attraction. The clubs also featured top musicians and other entertainers. New York's version opened on East 59th Street between Fifth and Madison avenues in 1962.

The next year, feminist Gloria Steinem worked as an undercover Bunny and wrote an expose for Show Magazine entitled "A Bunny's Tale."Among her revelations: The pay was lousy, the male customers propositioned the female staff, and she was forced to get a gynecological exam and take a test for venereal disease before she was hired.