Tag Archives: organized crime

The 21 Club in New York City was a Speakeasy in the 1920’s during Prohibition.  Their website has some interesting information about the wine cellar:

Perhaps the most elaborately disguised vault in New York City, ’21’s Wine Cellar was built to be invisible. Behind several smoked hams that hung from the basement ceiling and a shelved wall filled with canned goods, stood a perfectly camouflaged 2 1/2 ton door that appeared to be part of the wall.  Opened only by inserting a slender 18″ meat skewer through one of many cracks in the cement wall, the secret door silently slid back to reveal ’21’s most coveted treasure: two thousand cases of wine.

There were apparently many raids at the club but the staff was so good at keeping an eye out that they always saw the police coming and hid everything just in time.  The 21 club has a section about its history on their website at http://www.21club.com/web/onyc/wine_cellar_history.jsp