Ain’t No Party Like A Gangland Party

green door tavern

speakeasyThe Best of Prohibition Speakeasies

When I sell liquor, it’s bootlegging. When my patrons serve it on a silver tray on Lakeshore Drive, it’s hospitality. – Al Capone

When the Eighteenth Amendment rolled out of Washington D.C., it decimated such industries as grape farmers, breweries, and wineries.

At the same time, however, a uniquely American underground industry was built that not only filled the void left but ushered in such lasting organizations as Organized Crime and NASCAR.

It is reported that there were more than 100,000 Speakeasies in New York City alone, and in Chicago, Al Capone controlled the flow of illegal booze and raked in over $60 million in 1927 alone.

If there is one lesson to be learned about “The Noble Experiment,” it is that Americans always find a way.

Especially when alcohol is involved.

Mayflower Club
The Mayflower Club

Although Speakeasies were by their very nature a secret, some became the stuff of legend that endures today. Below are the best-regarded secret (and not-so-secret) watering holes of Prohibition, served with a twist of lemon when appropriate.

Mayflower Club, Washington D.C.

Known as the social hub for political movers-and-shakers who broke the laws that they enacted, the Mayflower Club was the place to be seen in Washington during the dark days of Prohibition.

The political heart of D.C., the Mayflower Club had an off-street entrance for patrons to discreetly exit on the three occasions that the club was raided during Prohibition years.

Known equally for gambling as well as booze, arrests in the Mayflower Club of its high-profile clientele were almost non-existent.

 

bohemian caverns
Bohemian Caverns

The Bohemian Caverns, Washington D.C.

A Mecca for jazz music during Prohibition, the Bohemian Caverns operated out of the basement of the Davis Drugstore on the corner of 11th and U Street.

Staying open after other Speakeasies had closed, the Caverns had both white and black clientele who gathered for brined pork chops, booze served in teacups, and blazing hot jazz.

Legends such as Shirley Horne, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Billie Holliday, and Pearl Bailey played the Caverns, joined by the best comedians of the day.

If you lived in Washington during Prohibition and didn’t drop by the Caverns after the Mayflower closed, then you simply didn’t really live in D.C.

 

cotton club
The Cotton Club

Cotton Club, New York

The stuff of legend, New York’s Cotton Club was THE place for jazz in Prohibition America.

A whites-only club located in Harlem, the Cotton Club featured the finest black musical talent in America.

Lena Horne, Fletcher Henderson, Duke Ellington, Adelaide Hall, Count Basie, Bessie Smith, Cab Calloway, The Nicholas Brothers, Lottie Gee, Ella Fitzgerald, Fats Waller, Louis Armstrong, Nat King Cole, Billie Holiday, and Ethel Waters all graced the stage at one time or another, and often the audience was just as famous as the performers.

Opened by heavyweight champion Jack Johnson and later operated by gangster Owney Madden from his cell in Sing Sing, the club was a funnel for cheap liquor into the posh atmosphere of New York.

 

 

The 21 Club
The 21 Club

21 Club, New York City

The 21 Club, run by cousins Jack Kreindler and Charlie Berns, was the embodiment of a Speakeasy in popular culture.

Although it was raided many times during Prohibition, no arrests were made.

The shelves that held the illegal booze were rigged with a system of levers that dumped the alcohol into the sewer as soon as a raid began.

The walls of the 21 Club held hidden passageways, and the secret wine cellar in the basement, accessible through a concealed door in the brick wall, held the private wine collections of some of the biggest names of the day.

The Stork Club
The Stork Club

The Stork Club, New York City

Playing host to the hoi polloi of New York’s celebrity crowd, the Stork Club brought a sense of refinement and elegance to an illegal Speakeasy community.

The mission for most of the Stork Club crowd, in addition to imbibing illegal hooch, was to see and be seen. The glamorous of the glamorous came to the Stork Club night after night to turn heads.

Names such as Lucille Ball, Charlie Chaplin, and Ernest Hemingway all made the Stork Club scene, but the who’s who of who didn’t show is also intriguing.

Among those banned from the club were Milton Berle, Jackie Gleason, and Humphrey Bogart.

green door tavern
The Green Door Tavern

The Green Door Tavern, Chicago

During the Prohibition era, a green door on a building indicated the presence of a Speakeasy.

At the Green Door Tavern in Chicago, that was one of the few extravagances. Turning to a dry restaurant at the dawn of Prohibition, the Green Door Tavern moved the bar downstairs.

The building itself, the first wood-framed building in Chicago to be built after the Great Fire,  began to lean soon afterwards. The lean in the building still exists today, and the blue-collar clientele remains the same as well.

The basement bar was one of the last built by the Brunswick Company before the company began making bowling lanes.


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