Nightclubs: The Cooch Terpers

He: "Come with me to the casbah."

She: "By subway or cab?"

That exchange was not only possible but commonplace last week in Manhattan, as more and more New Yorkers were discovering 29th Street and Eighth Avenue, where half a dozen small nightclubs with names like Arabian Nights, Grecian Palace and Egyptian Gardens are the American inpost of belly dancing. Several more will open soon. Their burgeoning popularity may be a result of the closing of the 52nd Street burlesque joints, but curiously enough their atmosphere is almost always familial—neighborhood saloons with a bit of epidermis.

The belly boites, with their...