Flappers were making up for lost time.
Imagine that, after ladies had been wearing corsets in sealed up drawing rooms less than ten years earlier. The trumpeting of the brass band, the smoke, the laughter, the magic of the speakeasy is floating up from the staircase, just for you. A cat, or what you hope is a cat, skitters away from you as you step, tentatively, away from the sidewalk and into the gloom.