We hear a lot about Prohibition-era Chicago because of Al Capone (and presumably because being on a Great Lake, Chicago was a natural port for Canadian liquor). But what about the rest of the country, especially New York? Major port city? Check. Corrupt city government? Check. Gangsters? Yep. So what was going on in the Big Apple during the speakeasy era?
The 21 Club was one of the most famous speakeasies.
I went there for dinner one night and got the tour of the secret wine cellar. Ut’s pretty cool.
Lots of corruption. Speakeasies on every block, Or two on a block, near the train station. Best way to find one: ask a beat cop.
I wonder how much liquor was illegally imported, vs. alky that was brewed at home. Seems to me that either distilling your own (or diverting industrial alcohol) would be easier than importing it. In any case, booze was readily avaialble in any american city-you just had to pay more for it.
New York was a major centre for organized crime during prohibiton (only Chicago was comparable). Al Capone may be more famous, but Lucky Luciano is probably the most important organized crime figure of the prohibiton era and it was during prohibiton that he founded the modern American mafia.
Infact the founding of the modern Mafia offers the biggest clue to New York’s importance there were 10 Italian-American criminal gangs on the original commision ecah with equal status: 1 from Chicago, 1 from Buffalo, 1 from Los Angeles, 1 from Celveland, 1 from Kanas City and 5 from New York. It didn’t take long for the New York based gangs to eclipse the other members of the commision.
Jewish gangsters like Dutch Schultz were important in the early days of the prohibiton, but soon became subserviant to the Mafia (but as several Jewish gangsters had long and close asscoiations with Lucky Luciano some were able to keep some measure of influence).