Underground bars and clubs....
I'll never forget growing up on the Lower East Side of how many underground bars and clubs that there used to be. As far as I can remember, there were rarely any problems at them. They were usually held in buildings that were allegedly land lorded by the mob. Who knows? I certainly didn't. All I do know is that the hidden bars I used to see and know about as a kid are all gone now. But when I was a kid, I used to always wonder if this was what it was like when Prohibition took hold of our country way back in the 1920's and early '30's. I always wondered if the Speakeasies (that is the illegal saloons) where the same store fronts and building hallways that I would see 40 plus years later growing up on the Lower East Side?
My mother sometimes cooked food for one such illegal establishment. She was also a bar tender at one of the nearby legal bars too. That bar was called "Luckys". However, the illegal place that she cooked for was appropriately called "The Hole" of all things.
Lots of folks from the neighborhood patroned these illegal bars. They were happening places in their time. Sometimes even some swanky uptown people of some higher rung on the society ladder would show their faces to one of these illegal, downtown digs. In the 1970's the bar scene in New York City had hit it's height of popularity. It was the one place where all sorts of taboos and rules could be broken - and nobody would care or talk about it. They had become modern day Speakeasies.
I walked in and out of many of these places when I was a kid during the day. You see one of my uncles also worked for the owner of one of these illegal establishments. I would hang with either he or my mother and got an education that my school classroom never could match. He was what they called a "runner" for the illegal "numbers" game. In other words he was the guy responsible for walking around the neighborhood collecting money and taking bets for people who wanted to bet on the horses.
That was the life I lived, saw and grow up around for many years. It's the real life stories and drama that I knew couldn't all be placed on this blog. That I would have to create a second blog to deal with just those stories.
Stay tuned for my links to my "blue" blog. I will be posting the link here and on my www.twitter.com/NYEntertain the very near future. Bookmark this blog or add to your Twitter account.
I'll never forget growing up on the Lower East Side of how many underground bars and clubs that there used to be. As far as I can remember, there were rarely any problems at them. They were usually held in buildings that were allegedly land lorded by the mob. Who knows? I certainly didn't. All I do know is that the hidden bars I used to see and know about as a kid are all gone now. But when I was a kid, I used to always wonder if this was what it was like when Prohibition took hold of our country way back in the 1920's and early '30's. I always wondered if the Speakeasies (that is the illegal saloons) where the same store fronts and building hallways that I would see 40 plus years later growing up on the Lower East Side?
My mother sometimes cooked food for one such illegal establishment. She was also a bar tender at one of the nearby legal bars too. That bar was called "Luckys". However, the illegal place that she cooked for was appropriately called "The Hole" of all things.
Lots of folks from the neighborhood patroned these illegal bars. They were happening places in their time. Sometimes even some swanky uptown people of some higher rung on the society ladder would show their faces to one of these illegal, downtown digs. In the 1970's the bar scene in New York City had hit it's height of popularity. It was the one place where all sorts of taboos and rules could be broken - and nobody would care or talk about it. They had become modern day Speakeasies.
I walked in and out of many of these places when I was a kid during the day. You see one of my uncles also worked for the owner of one of these illegal establishments. I would hang with either he or my mother and got an education that my school classroom never could match. He was what they called a "runner" for the illegal "numbers" game. In other words he was the guy responsible for walking around the neighborhood collecting money and taking bets for people who wanted to bet on the horses.
That was the life I lived, saw and grow up around for many years. It's the real life stories and drama that I knew couldn't all be placed on this blog. That I would have to create a second blog to deal with just those stories.
Stay tuned for my links to my "blue" blog. I will be posting the link here and on my www.twitter.com/NYEntertain the very near future. Bookmark this blog or add to your Twitter account.
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