Friday, June 19, 2015
In Tunnels Below the Green Mill, a Maze of Prohibition-Era Mob History and Myth
Few people know it's there -- fewer know where it leads.
In the floor behind the bar at the Green Mill Cocktail Lounge, a century-old jazz club in Uptown, lies a door. Beneath it: a musty labyrinth of gangster and Uptown history.
The World Below -- a series of tunnels branching underground from the Green Mill to the bookstore Shake, Rattle & Read a few doors away -- mixes myth and fable, dusty boilers and blood-splattered urinals (more on this in a moment).
In the mid-1910s, the Green Mill was an exclusive hangout for Essanay Studio executives and early film stars such as Charlie Chaplin and Wallace Beery. In recent decades, jazz musicians such as Clifford Jordan, Branford Marsalis and Harry Connick Jr. have graced its stage. But tales of Jazz Age Chicago, when gangsters such as "Machine Gun" Jack McGurn and boss Alphonse Capone defied Prohibition, are most prominent down below.
"They could either come to the tunnels and hide, or escape. Of course, the booze was stashed down here," says Ric Addy, owner of Shake, Rattle & Read. The bookstore has been in his family since 1965, which makes Addy an armchair historian and raconteur of all things Uptown.
Below the Green Mill, Addy latches the heavy wooden door to the bar with a metal hook and carefully climbs down the steep stairs, ducking his head under the lip of the floor above.
These musty concrete hallways and storage rooms are remnants of a tunnel system used to haul coal in the first part of the 20th Century. The Green Mill end of the tunnel provides the nightclub with its storeroom and cellar. Boxes of beer bottles and mini-pretzels wait to be summoned. Electrical wires and various pipes slink around the ceiling. Side rooms -- cubbyholes said to be the sites of gangster poker games -- hold dust-caked bar stools.
Around the corner, heading north, through an ominous steel door and down a dark hallway, Addy shines a flashlight on a doorway that, a century ago, would have read "Men."
Before the massive Uptown Theatre changed the face of Broadway's 4800 block in 1925, the Green Mill hosted a vast beer garden and dance hall, complete with underground restrooms. The original stone facade entrance still stands outside, though obscured by a fiberglass sign for the restaurant Fiesta Mexicana.
Below, only the men's restroom survives, complete with the original, tiny octagonal tiles and porcelain urinals.
"It's not too hard to imagine Capone stepping up to do his business here," Addy jokes.
Unlike the brightly lighted Green Mill storeroom, darkness permeates everything and temperatures drop 20 degrees. It's quiet. The corpses of a half-dozen water bugs lie scattered near the doorway.
There is evidence of life, however. Inside one of the urinals, a violent red smear clings to the porcelain -- remnant of a fake mob hit shot for the 1993 movie "Excessive Force
," starring Thomas Ian Griffith and James Earl Jones.
Jones and Griffith aren't the only celebrities to have visited the tunnels. Over the years, Addy has given private tours to bands such as the Beastie Boys and Suicidal Tendencies who were looking for their own pieces of gangster legacy. Years ago, one room held wooden bank vaults stacked with rotting bank documents, but they're long gone.
The only paper down here now belongs to Addy, in two gigantic rail car-size rooms filled with back issues of Rolling Stone, Playboy and Esquire. Addy's dusty library of pop culture doubles as his eBay store, where he packages and sends off rock posters, books and hard-to-find magazine back issues.
Without lights, it's still a tomb.
Heading toward the door to his own store, Addy says, "It really used to creep me out down here."
He adds: "It still feels haunted, kinda ghostly down here. Now it's not so creepy because of all the new construction -- new air conditioning units, new coolers. I just wish the tunnels would keep going, so that I could see what it was like way back when."
Despite the Green Mill's prominent place in Chicago film and jazz history
, its link to gangster king Al Capone still gets the most attention. But that may be exaggerated, says historian Richard Lindberg, author of "Return to the Scene of the Crime: A Guide to Infamous Places in Chicago."
"People are always calling me with Capone stories, someplace where Capone was known to be," Lindberg says. "Ninety-nine percent of it is urban legend, and I think it's especially true with the Green Mill."
The Green Mill started life in 1907 as Pop Morse's Roadhouse, a watering hole in developing Uptown. Three years later, new investors converted the spot into the Green Mill Gardens, a blocklong dance hall and beer garden, complete with a giant windmill perched atop the festivities -- a nod to Paris' own Moulin Rouge (or "Red Windmill").
Capone's shadow fell on the Mill during the late 1920s, when "Machine Gun" Jack McGurn -- Capone henchman and speculated triggerman of the St. Valentine's Day Massacre -- acquired part ownership.
Capone was said to frequent the club and even had a favorite booth that, owner Dave Jemilo says, still sits in the center of the room, facing away from the stage, in full view of the front and side doors, and a quick route to the trap door.
Famously, when singing comedian Joe E. Lewis attempted to get out of his Green Mill contract in 1927, McGurn's men visited Lewis in his hotel room where, Lindberg says, "he was sliced within an inch of his life." Fortunately, Lewis survived a slit throat, recovered and enjoyed a long career as a comedian, though he never fully recovered his crooner voice. His story was later adapted into the 1957 film "The Joker Is Wild," starring Frank Sinatra.
Beyond this, says Lindberg, Capone's ties to the Green Mill are "peripheral at best."
When Jemilo bought the Mill in 1986, all sorts of longtime customers told him personal stories about Capone's visits to the club.
But, he says, "we don't make a big deal about the Capone stuff. We're more about the music and the history of the joint, overall. I don't mind the gangster history, but I don't want to it to be the only thing it's known for."
As for the world underneath Broadway, Lindberg says, "The tunnels had more mundane purposes ... moving coal and eating materials." But, he adds: "Where there was illicit activity, you had tunnels," such as the dug-out tunnels in Capone's places in the Levee District.
Under the Green Mill, however, "I don't believe that they were created as escape routes. ... They were created long before Capone," Lindberg says. "But I think the main point here is: Capone has become such a larger-than-life character, it has created an Al Capone cottage industry, and bits of stories become legend. Separating the fact from the fiction has become the greatest challenge."
Thanks to Robert K. Elder
In the floor behind the bar at the Green Mill Cocktail Lounge, a century-old jazz club in Uptown, lies a door. Beneath it: a musty labyrinth of gangster and Uptown history.
The World Below -- a series of tunnels branching underground from the Green Mill to the bookstore Shake, Rattle & Read a few doors away -- mixes myth and fable, dusty boilers and blood-splattered urinals (more on this in a moment).
In the mid-1910s, the Green Mill was an exclusive hangout for Essanay Studio executives and early film stars such as Charlie Chaplin and Wallace Beery. In recent decades, jazz musicians such as Clifford Jordan, Branford Marsalis and Harry Connick Jr. have graced its stage. But tales of Jazz Age Chicago, when gangsters such as "Machine Gun" Jack McGurn and boss Alphonse Capone defied Prohibition, are most prominent down below."They could either come to the tunnels and hide, or escape. Of course, the booze was stashed down here," says Ric Addy, owner of Shake, Rattle & Read. The bookstore has been in his family since 1965, which makes Addy an armchair historian and raconteur of all things Uptown.
Below the Green Mill, Addy latches the heavy wooden door to the bar with a metal hook and carefully climbs down the steep stairs, ducking his head under the lip of the floor above.
These musty concrete hallways and storage rooms are remnants of a tunnel system used to haul coal in the first part of the 20th Century. The Green Mill end of the tunnel provides the nightclub with its storeroom and cellar. Boxes of beer bottles and mini-pretzels wait to be summoned. Electrical wires and various pipes slink around the ceiling. Side rooms -- cubbyholes said to be the sites of gangster poker games -- hold dust-caked bar stools.
Around the corner, heading north, through an ominous steel door and down a dark hallway, Addy shines a flashlight on a doorway that, a century ago, would have read "Men."
Before the massive Uptown Theatre changed the face of Broadway's 4800 block in 1925, the Green Mill hosted a vast beer garden and dance hall, complete with underground restrooms. The original stone facade entrance still stands outside, though obscured by a fiberglass sign for the restaurant Fiesta Mexicana.
Below, only the men's restroom survives, complete with the original, tiny octagonal tiles and porcelain urinals.
"It's not too hard to imagine Capone stepping up to do his business here," Addy jokes.
Unlike the brightly lighted Green Mill storeroom, darkness permeates everything and temperatures drop 20 degrees. It's quiet. The corpses of a half-dozen water bugs lie scattered near the doorway.
There is evidence of life, however. Inside one of the urinals, a violent red smear clings to the porcelain -- remnant of a fake mob hit shot for the 1993 movie "Excessive Force
," starring Thomas Ian Griffith and James Earl Jones.Jones and Griffith aren't the only celebrities to have visited the tunnels. Over the years, Addy has given private tours to bands such as the Beastie Boys and Suicidal Tendencies who were looking for their own pieces of gangster legacy. Years ago, one room held wooden bank vaults stacked with rotting bank documents, but they're long gone.
The only paper down here now belongs to Addy, in two gigantic rail car-size rooms filled with back issues of Rolling Stone, Playboy and Esquire. Addy's dusty library of pop culture doubles as his eBay store, where he packages and sends off rock posters, books and hard-to-find magazine back issues.
Without lights, it's still a tomb.
Heading toward the door to his own store, Addy says, "It really used to creep me out down here."
He adds: "It still feels haunted, kinda ghostly down here. Now it's not so creepy because of all the new construction -- new air conditioning units, new coolers. I just wish the tunnels would keep going, so that I could see what it was like way back when."
Despite the Green Mill's prominent place in Chicago film and jazz history
, its link to gangster king Al Capone still gets the most attention. But that may be exaggerated, says historian Richard Lindberg, author of "Return to the Scene of the Crime: A Guide to Infamous Places in Chicago.""People are always calling me with Capone stories, someplace where Capone was known to be," Lindberg says. "Ninety-nine percent of it is urban legend, and I think it's especially true with the Green Mill."
The Green Mill started life in 1907 as Pop Morse's Roadhouse, a watering hole in developing Uptown. Three years later, new investors converted the spot into the Green Mill Gardens, a blocklong dance hall and beer garden, complete with a giant windmill perched atop the festivities -- a nod to Paris' own Moulin Rouge (or "Red Windmill").
Capone's shadow fell on the Mill during the late 1920s, when "Machine Gun" Jack McGurn -- Capone henchman and speculated triggerman of the St. Valentine's Day Massacre -- acquired part ownership.
Capone was said to frequent the club and even had a favorite booth that, owner Dave Jemilo says, still sits in the center of the room, facing away from the stage, in full view of the front and side doors, and a quick route to the trap door.
Famously, when singing comedian Joe E. Lewis attempted to get out of his Green Mill contract in 1927, McGurn's men visited Lewis in his hotel room where, Lindberg says, "he was sliced within an inch of his life." Fortunately, Lewis survived a slit throat, recovered and enjoyed a long career as a comedian, though he never fully recovered his crooner voice. His story was later adapted into the 1957 film "The Joker Is Wild," starring Frank Sinatra.
Beyond this, says Lindberg, Capone's ties to the Green Mill are "peripheral at best."
When Jemilo bought the Mill in 1986, all sorts of longtime customers told him personal stories about Capone's visits to the club.
But, he says, "we don't make a big deal about the Capone stuff. We're more about the music and the history of the joint, overall. I don't mind the gangster history, but I don't want to it to be the only thing it's known for."
As for the world underneath Broadway, Lindberg says, "The tunnels had more mundane purposes ... moving coal and eating materials." But, he adds: "Where there was illicit activity, you had tunnels," such as the dug-out tunnels in Capone's places in the Levee District.
Under the Green Mill, however, "I don't believe that they were created as escape routes. ... They were created long before Capone," Lindberg says. "But I think the main point here is: Capone has become such a larger-than-life character, it has created an Al Capone cottage industry, and bits of stories become legend. Separating the fact from the fiction has become the greatest challenge."
Thanks to Robert K. Elder
Scarface Deluxe Gift Set
Scarface Deluxe Gift Set - Scarface (1983) & Scarface (1932)
Brian De Palma's blood-and-sun-drenched saga of a Cuban deportee’s rise to the top of Miami's cocaine business has become something of a popular classic since its release
; it's been referenced in rap songs and subsequent gangster movies and quoted the world over. Despite this lovefest with the dialogue, the film’s brutal violence and lack of positive characters still make it controversial and disliked by certain critics.
Al Pacino stars as Tony Montana, whose intelligence, guts, and ambition help him skyrocket from dishwasher to the top of a criminal empire but whose eventual paranoia and incestuous desire for his kid sister (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio) prove his undoing. Michelle Pfeiffer plays Tony’s neglected coke-addicted trophy wife, and Steven Bauer is his concerned friend. F. Murray Abraham, Robert Loggia, and Paul Shenar are some of Tony’s sleazy business partners and potential killers. Oliver Stone wrote the expletive-packed screenplay, based on Howard Hawks’s 1932 version--which was ostensibly about Al Capone and starred Paul Muni and George Raft. The synth-heavy Giorgio Moroder score expertly evokes the drug-fueled decadence of 1980s Miami, and De Palma provides several of his elaborate set pieces, including a horrific showstopper in a motel room with a chain saw.
Brian De Palma's blood-and-sun-drenched saga of a Cuban deportee’s rise to the top of Miami's cocaine business has become something of a popular classic since its release
; it's been referenced in rap songs and subsequent gangster movies and quoted the world over. Despite this lovefest with the dialogue, the film’s brutal violence and lack of positive characters still make it controversial and disliked by certain critics.Al Pacino stars as Tony Montana, whose intelligence, guts, and ambition help him skyrocket from dishwasher to the top of a criminal empire but whose eventual paranoia and incestuous desire for his kid sister (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio) prove his undoing. Michelle Pfeiffer plays Tony’s neglected coke-addicted trophy wife, and Steven Bauer is his concerned friend. F. Murray Abraham, Robert Loggia, and Paul Shenar are some of Tony’s sleazy business partners and potential killers. Oliver Stone wrote the expletive-packed screenplay, based on Howard Hawks’s 1932 version--which was ostensibly about Al Capone and starred Paul Muni and George Raft. The synth-heavy Giorgio Moroder score expertly evokes the drug-fueled decadence of 1980s Miami, and De Palma provides several of his elaborate set pieces, including a horrific showstopper in a motel room with a chain saw.
How Mobsters Could Influence Sports
With a strong caution that this is simply an informed guess based on the knowledge of author Pete DeVico, consider this possible scenario involving Tim Donaghy, the former NBA referee who bet on games and pleaded guilty to federal felony conspiracy charges for allegedly passing along inside information:
Perhaps the guy liked to gamble and got in hock with a bookie. The bookie might have been inclined to sell Donaghy's marker -- his debt plus points, or interest -- to a mobster. The mobster could have made Donaghy an offer he couldn't refuse, to satisfy the debt by providing inside information and influencing certain games.
"I can't prove this
. It's strictly speculation. But this is how it works," said DeVico, a Brooklyn-born expert on the American mob and author of "The Mafia Made Easy: The Anatomy and Culture of La Cosa Nostra"
Even if that is not how things played out with Donaghy, DeVico believes similar situations arise. That's alarming.
Forget steroids. Forget stealing opponents' play signals. Forget obscene salaries. Fixing games, manipulating the outcome for the sake of gambling, is the worst thing that can happen to any sport or sports in general.
Imagine the collective disgust, the stampede of former fans, if it became widely accepted that organized crime and gambling interests swayed the final scores of a number of games.
What merit would there be in Steelers town to dissect Ben Roethlisberger's psyche and decision-making if we believed even one NFL game official was on the take and would call interference or holding penalties to reach a predetermined outcome -- or worse, if we suspected certain linemen or receivers or quarterbacks were ready to botch plays or feign injuries on purpose?
The good news, according to DeVico, is the American mob is a shadow of what it once was, reduced in many cases to the level of loosely organized street thugs. The bad news is that does not mean La Cosa Nostra can't or doesn't have an undesirable hold on some sporting events.
In the past, DeVico points out, the mob was strong enough to run cities as big as Chicago and stiff-arm the FBI.
In the future, sports gambling could be the vehicle that drives the Mafia to reorganize and regain some level of power and influence. There's a cold shiver for you.
DeVico, whose book traces the origins of the Mafia in Italy and its history in the United States, said all it takes is an opening. "As long as the mob can exploit you, they will," he said. "They're masters of exploiting weaknesses."
It's probably farfetched that high-paid pro athletes are on the take for money. It would be something darker, DeVico said.
That could be digging up information about individuals' gambling or drug problems, steroids use, even infidelity. It's a simple formula: Help us, or we'll expose you. And there's a second formula: Expose us, and you'll be sorry.
DeVico grew up knowing wiseguys and, judging from his book, has done exhaustive research on the American Mafia (there's even a short section on its history in Pittsburgh), so perhaps he too quickly sees conspiracies. Or maybe it's just that most of us are naive or lack the proper cynicism.
In any case, DeVico suspects possible mob ties in many instances of impropriety in sports.
With boxing and horse racing, at least in years gone by, there's little question outcomes have been influenced.
DeVico can't help but wonder about the various point-shaving scandals in college basketball, the ongoing investigation into game-fixing with Toledo football, and the recent bust of a gambling operation run by former Penguins player Rick Tocchet and a New Jersey policeman.
What stood out to DeVico about that last case was the news the ring handled more than 1,000 wagers for more than $1.7 million in a 40-day period. "There's no proof of mob ties -- there never is -- but that's a lot of money," he said. "Somebody's going to know about this."
He didn't mean just the authorities.
Even Pete Rose, the disgraced former Cincinnati Reds star and manager who is banned from baseball for betting on games, makes DeVico curious.
"Who knows, but all the signs were there -- he supposedly always won when he made bets of $10,000 or more, he was accused of tax evasion," he said.
Let's not panic. There's no reason to think sports are corrupt to the point of stinking. Things might even be cleaner than they used to be -- for now. And if it makes football fans feel any better, DeVico figures NFL games would be difficult to fix because of the number of people involved.
Not much comfort, though, is it?
Thanks to Shelly Anderson
Perhaps the guy liked to gamble and got in hock with a bookie. The bookie might have been inclined to sell Donaghy's marker -- his debt plus points, or interest -- to a mobster. The mobster could have made Donaghy an offer he couldn't refuse, to satisfy the debt by providing inside information and influencing certain games.
"I can't prove this
. It's strictly speculation. But this is how it works," said DeVico, a Brooklyn-born expert on the American mob and author of "The Mafia Made Easy: The Anatomy and Culture of La Cosa Nostra"Even if that is not how things played out with Donaghy, DeVico believes similar situations arise. That's alarming.
Forget steroids. Forget stealing opponents' play signals. Forget obscene salaries. Fixing games, manipulating the outcome for the sake of gambling, is the worst thing that can happen to any sport or sports in general.
Imagine the collective disgust, the stampede of former fans, if it became widely accepted that organized crime and gambling interests swayed the final scores of a number of games.
What merit would there be in Steelers town to dissect Ben Roethlisberger's psyche and decision-making if we believed even one NFL game official was on the take and would call interference or holding penalties to reach a predetermined outcome -- or worse, if we suspected certain linemen or receivers or quarterbacks were ready to botch plays or feign injuries on purpose?
The good news, according to DeVico, is the American mob is a shadow of what it once was, reduced in many cases to the level of loosely organized street thugs. The bad news is that does not mean La Cosa Nostra can't or doesn't have an undesirable hold on some sporting events.
In the past, DeVico points out, the mob was strong enough to run cities as big as Chicago and stiff-arm the FBI.
In the future, sports gambling could be the vehicle that drives the Mafia to reorganize and regain some level of power and influence. There's a cold shiver for you.
DeVico, whose book traces the origins of the Mafia in Italy and its history in the United States, said all it takes is an opening. "As long as the mob can exploit you, they will," he said. "They're masters of exploiting weaknesses."
It's probably farfetched that high-paid pro athletes are on the take for money. It would be something darker, DeVico said.
That could be digging up information about individuals' gambling or drug problems, steroids use, even infidelity. It's a simple formula: Help us, or we'll expose you. And there's a second formula: Expose us, and you'll be sorry.
DeVico grew up knowing wiseguys and, judging from his book, has done exhaustive research on the American Mafia (there's even a short section on its history in Pittsburgh), so perhaps he too quickly sees conspiracies. Or maybe it's just that most of us are naive or lack the proper cynicism.
In any case, DeVico suspects possible mob ties in many instances of impropriety in sports.
With boxing and horse racing, at least in years gone by, there's little question outcomes have been influenced.
DeVico can't help but wonder about the various point-shaving scandals in college basketball, the ongoing investigation into game-fixing with Toledo football, and the recent bust of a gambling operation run by former Penguins player Rick Tocchet and a New Jersey policeman.
What stood out to DeVico about that last case was the news the ring handled more than 1,000 wagers for more than $1.7 million in a 40-day period. "There's no proof of mob ties -- there never is -- but that's a lot of money," he said. "Somebody's going to know about this."
He didn't mean just the authorities.
Even Pete Rose, the disgraced former Cincinnati Reds star and manager who is banned from baseball for betting on games, makes DeVico curious.
"Who knows, but all the signs were there -- he supposedly always won when he made bets of $10,000 or more, he was accused of tax evasion," he said.
Let's not panic. There's no reason to think sports are corrupt to the point of stinking. Things might even be cleaner than they used to be -- for now. And if it makes football fans feel any better, DeVico figures NFL games would be difficult to fix because of the number of people involved.
Not much comfort, though, is it?
Thanks to Shelly Anderson
Brooklyn Rules
Outside Providence director Michael Corrente helms this tale of three lifelong friends struggling with relationships
, responsibility, and loyalty on the mean streets of 1980s era Brooklyn, NY.
When the violent influence of the mafia becomes factor in their friendship, lives will be threatened as the fond memories of the past begin to give way to potentially grim future.
Brooklyn Rules is the story of three boyhood friends who come of age in Brooklyn during John Gotti's rise. When becomes enamoured with the mafia lifestyle, it frays the friendships and puts the pals in grave danger. Alec Baldwin plays a mobster, Freddie Prinze Jr, Scott Caan, and Jerry Ferrara are the three friends. Brooklyn Rules is from the writers of The Sopranos
, responsibility, and loyalty on the mean streets of 1980s era Brooklyn, NY.When the violent influence of the mafia becomes factor in their friendship, lives will be threatened as the fond memories of the past begin to give way to potentially grim future.
Brooklyn Rules is the story of three boyhood friends who come of age in Brooklyn during John Gotti's rise. When becomes enamoured with the mafia lifestyle, it frays the friendships and puts the pals in grave danger. Alec Baldwin plays a mobster, Freddie Prinze Jr, Scott Caan, and Jerry Ferrara are the three friends. Brooklyn Rules is from the writers of The Sopranos
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