During the Prohibition era, the building had been a speakeasy, owned by NY gangsters Frank Hoffman and Walter Schieb. A young Frank Sinatra waited tables there, serving drinks poured from behind a long bar on the first floor that was wired to blow up in the event of a police raid. Clearly this was never needed, but perhaps staff and patrons fled through the speakeasy’s three escape tunnels instead. Hoffman and Schieb had bribed local business owners to let them dig the tunnels through their basements.
In 1964, the Otway family purchased the building from Schieb and opened a theatre, but Lorcan Otway had designs on a museum to tell the story of the time when the likes of Al Capone, Lucky Luciano and John Gotti ruled the City’s streets.
Otway’s dream was realised in 2010 and while the museum may be small, his lovingly-curated collection includes newspaper clippings, Tommy guns, John Dillinger’s death mask, and bullets from the St. Valentine’s Day massacre in Chicago.
Otway’s knowledge and enthusiasm for the seedier side of early New York has been described as “encyclopaedic” and he happily leads tours of the speakeasy and museum, to tell the story of the role that organised crime has played in shaping the politics, culture and legend of New York City.
