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EDWARD P. MESEROLE, Secretary
The Stagecrafters is the haunt of unsavory “introducers” who make contacts with wealthy chumps there, offering girls and gambling. Police recently arrested a lout, who, they charged, had become acquainted with William H. Engelmann, a photo-lithographer from Baltimore, out for a fling with friends in the Stagecrafters. The prisoner suggested a blackjack game and took him to a room in the Ambassador Hotel, which is owned by Gwen Cafritz’s husband. Engelmann was soon a $1,500 loser, and asked his host to cash a check. He said he would, at the hotel cashier’s booth, and left with Engelmann’s check. Engelmann became suspicious when the man didn’t return after an hour. He found the man had checked out. When the fellow was caught, police said, they found on him a deck of marked cards.
Another bottle-club that opened after the adjournment of the Congressional investigation is on the site of the Palm Grill, at 14th and Q, under a new name, the Sunrise.
The shuttered Turf-and-Grid was reborn as the aforementioned Amvets. The Turf’s owner, Richard O’Connell, has been employed by the government since the beginning of the New Deal, in such agencies as the original NRA, the Department of the Interior (under “Honest Harold” Ickes) and more recently in the Red-infested Wages and Hours Division of the Department of Labor.
Another club that operates on and off is the United Nations Social Club. When we visited it, its chief social activity was a crap game. Another is the Crystal Cavern.
When George P. Harding, a 39-year-old gunman and underworld fingerman, was shot to death by Joe Nesline, notorious Prohibition era bootlegger, in the Hideaway—an aftermath of last year’s conquest of Washington by the Mafia—Washington’s bottle-clubs took another shellacking.
Congressmen beat their breasts, newspapers shrilled, the DA promised action and the cops vowed to close all the joints. For a few days a couple of clubs went easy; at this writing most were again in action.
The Hideaway, scene of the crime, was reported “closed for good” by the precinct captain, but Joseph Horowitz, an owner, announced “business as usual” while the cops were telling everyone the premises were empty. At press time, the present and future status of the club was in doubt.