 The disc jockey Symphony Sid broadcast live on WJZ early in the club's existence.On August 25, 1959, Miles Davis was beaten by a New York City policeman on the sidewalk in front of Birdland, during a performing engagement at the club.During the 1950s, Birdland also became a fashionable place for celebrities to be seen, with Frank Sinatra and Ava Gardner, Gary Cooper, Marilyn Monroe, Sugar Ray Robinson, Marlene Dietrich, Joe Louis, Judy Garland and others as regulars.