Skrimpy
Bronze Member
Check this out. It was in yesterdays Press and Sun Bulletin from Binghamton, NY (3/26/07). Really cool stuff. I used to party in that bar in college. Back then it was called West Side Cheers. Now it's a kind of deli called "The CyberCafe" that serves beer. I hope they open up the speakeasy all restored, the guy that owns it would be crazy not to. The link will only work for a week or so before the Press and Sun take it off from their web site.
http://www.pressconnects.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070328/NEWS01/703280328/1006
Hidden rooms found at café
Chamber under parking lot may have been Prohibition-era speakeasy
By Brian Liberatore
Press & Sun-Bulletin
BINGHAMTON -- A landscaper Tuesday accidentally uncovered a hidden chamber below the parking lot of CyberCafe West in Binghamton.
The two rooms, which were filled with rotted wooden kegs, a rusted pulley system and glass bottles dating back to the 1920s, confirmed CyberCafe owner Jeff Kahn's suspicion that his building had once housed an illegal speakeasy.
"It's an interesting mystery," Khan said, staring into the recently revealed opening.
Dan Carruthers, a local landscaper, had planned early Tuesday to break apart a concrete slab in the CyberCafe parking lot on Main Street that had started to crack and sag. The first swing of his sledgehammer brought light into a space that had been sealed for decades.
"When I broke that open and everything fell down into the hole, I was pretty excited," Carruthers said. He ran back into the CyberCafe, found a flashlight and crawled into the opening. Plywood remnants in the mound of dirt led Carruthers to believe that the opening had been boarded up and the entrance long ago filled in with dirt before it was sealed.
The rooms were filled with glass bottles, a copper funnel and wooden beer kegs, rusted taps still in place. A glass jug near the kegs read, "Winarick's Jeris," a hair tonic dating back to the early part of the 20th century. A fireplace on one side of the 12-by-20-foot room may once have pulled smoke and fumes from a small distillery, Khan said. The remains of a pulley system hung in the adjacent 3-by-12-foot room.
Like most cities across the country during the 1920s and early 1930s when the U.S. government banned the sale of alcohol, Binghamton was dotted with speakeasies that sold beer, wine and liquor in backrooms out of the sight of law enforcement, said Gerry Smith, Broome County historian.
Tax maps of the city dating back to 1898 show a saloon where the CyberCafe now stands. In the 1920s, a series of automobile garages were built in the spot of the underground chamber, Smith said.
Construction of the garages, Smith said, could have covered for a different kind of construction.
"You wouldn't build those details without some different intent," Smith said, referring to the pulley system in the underground chambers.
Rumors of a speakeasy, Kahn said, have always surrounded the building. Irregularities in the walls near the rear of the restaurant hint that there was once a back room accessible only through a side door, Kahn said.
As for the hole in his parking lot, Kahn said he was still weighing options.
"I don't know what to do with it," Kahn said. "It's very odd to have a room below your parking lot. I feel it should serve some purpose."
http://www.pressconnects.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070328/NEWS01/703280328/1006
Hidden rooms found at café
Chamber under parking lot may have been Prohibition-era speakeasy
By Brian Liberatore
Press & Sun-Bulletin
BINGHAMTON -- A landscaper Tuesday accidentally uncovered a hidden chamber below the parking lot of CyberCafe West in Binghamton.
The two rooms, which were filled with rotted wooden kegs, a rusted pulley system and glass bottles dating back to the 1920s, confirmed CyberCafe owner Jeff Kahn's suspicion that his building had once housed an illegal speakeasy.
"It's an interesting mystery," Khan said, staring into the recently revealed opening.
Dan Carruthers, a local landscaper, had planned early Tuesday to break apart a concrete slab in the CyberCafe parking lot on Main Street that had started to crack and sag. The first swing of his sledgehammer brought light into a space that had been sealed for decades.
"When I broke that open and everything fell down into the hole, I was pretty excited," Carruthers said. He ran back into the CyberCafe, found a flashlight and crawled into the opening. Plywood remnants in the mound of dirt led Carruthers to believe that the opening had been boarded up and the entrance long ago filled in with dirt before it was sealed.
The rooms were filled with glass bottles, a copper funnel and wooden beer kegs, rusted taps still in place. A glass jug near the kegs read, "Winarick's Jeris," a hair tonic dating back to the early part of the 20th century. A fireplace on one side of the 12-by-20-foot room may once have pulled smoke and fumes from a small distillery, Khan said. The remains of a pulley system hung in the adjacent 3-by-12-foot room.
Like most cities across the country during the 1920s and early 1930s when the U.S. government banned the sale of alcohol, Binghamton was dotted with speakeasies that sold beer, wine and liquor in backrooms out of the sight of law enforcement, said Gerry Smith, Broome County historian.
Tax maps of the city dating back to 1898 show a saloon where the CyberCafe now stands. In the 1920s, a series of automobile garages were built in the spot of the underground chamber, Smith said.
Construction of the garages, Smith said, could have covered for a different kind of construction.
"You wouldn't build those details without some different intent," Smith said, referring to the pulley system in the underground chambers.
Rumors of a speakeasy, Kahn said, have always surrounded the building. Irregularities in the walls near the rear of the restaurant hint that there was once a back room accessible only through a side door, Kahn said.
As for the hole in his parking lot, Kahn said he was still weighing options.
"I don't know what to do with it," Kahn said. "It's very odd to have a room below your parking lot. I feel it should serve some purpose."
