By Danny deBruin
The Long Islander
June 23, 1993; pp. 3 and 39
Huntingtonians have always enjoyed their leisure time. Huntington’s reputation as a “lively town” on Long Island is nothing really all too new. From the turn of the century, through the days of Prohibition, to the present, the town has always had its share of “things to do” and places to drink.
“A few years ago Huntington was a drowsy country village, without street lights or a public water system. It’s highways were quagmires in winter and spring, and dust heaps in summer. It was a village without banking facilities, and its only means of communication between village and railroad was an old fashioned stage drawn by a team of horses past middle age, driven by Uncle Jesse Conklin.
“Today, with a live bustling population of 5,400, it has all the enterprise of an energetic Western city of the same population, and is preparing for still greater things in the future.”
The previous two paragraphs were lifted from the October 19, 1907 edition of the Brooklyn Eagle. There are photographs accompanying the article, though some of those buildings are gone. One photograph is of Huntington High School, which is now Town Hall.
Huntington grew from a “backwards town” to a modern community. It had 200 electric street lights, a “modern” water works system capable of pumping one million gallons of water a day, a power plant, fine roads, schools and churches, and fire hydrants and a fire prevention system which not even New York City rivaled at the time. The article claimed that Huntington had “all the modern conveniences” back in 1907.
Huntington was also a favorite destination for motorists in the days when driving was a leisure activity. The Brooklyn Eagle author describes the midday Main Street traffic congestion as “about three to four hundred motor cars” for a two-hour peak time around noon. And in the town was the Huntington Hotel and the Chateaux des Beaux arts, which served as an inn and casino. According to rumor, the Chateaux des Beaux Arts (currently the Bay Club) would become a “speak easy” and liquor smuggling port during the prohibition era.
Although prohibition was not enacted until January 16, 1920, Huntingtonians who cherished their right to imbibe were well prepared for the impending law that would make them, like the rest of America, dry. The beaches of Long Island were known to be great ports for importing illegal booze during the Prohibition era. Illegal stills were constructed in barns, garages, and backyards of some Huntington residents.
Raids of illegal stills and speakeasies were made between March and September in 1932 and District Attorney Alexander Blue, although he would later be accused of “being on the take,” seemed to have enforced the law.
Two raids occurred during the week of March 27. The first was at a still on Meadow Road, which could make 25 gallons of hootch and was considered small. According to the report in the Long Islander, small quantities of “finished liquor” were found, as well as corn mash. Police officers wrecked the still under the orders of the district attorney and Deputy Sheriff Robert Ray of Northport.
Another still was raided and destroyed days later on New York Avenue in Huntington Station. Richard Woodhul was accused of running the twenty-gallon still, and authorities found three gallons of alcohol and about ninety gallons of corn mash.
Two other raids occurred during the week of September 17, 1932. Huntington residents probably patronized “Nick’s,” a well-known speakeasy located at Cold Spring Hill. Between the two raids, ten prisoners, two pistols, and a 750 gallon still were collected. State troopers wrecked the house and still, and donated the copper from the still to the Veteran’s Hospital.
Deputy Sheriffs Robert Ray and William Wuestman, along with investigator Howard Totten, were involved in a sting operation while “Nick;s” was being raided. The three law officers waited from midnight to 6 a.m. The net led to the arrest of two men, Francesco Frazio and Antonio Renda, both from Manhattan. Police found another 750 gallon still at the raid, which took place at a barn on Burr Avenue.
There were allegations made against local town officials and their involvement in bootlegging and grafting. District Attorney Blue suspended three investigators from the district attorney’s office for alleged extortion in March, 1933. William H. Fillbech, of Huntington Station, Albert Kehlenbeck of Patchogue, and William Baker of Kings Park were the three investigators supposedly “on the take.”
During the trial, Kehlenbeck testified that District Attorney Blue had given him orders not to interfere with the liquor business in Patchogue. The attorney for the accused men, Mr. Stanley Fowler, said that the court proceedings and suspensions were just an attempt to cover up for the liquor dealers in Patchogue, “whom the district attorney is now protecting.”
Although the three men were found not guilty in court, and whether the charges the three defendants made about the District Attorney being controlled by gangsters were true or not, Blue did not run for reelection.
With prohibition repealed and ratified on December 5, 1933, the speakeasies and stills vanished slowly. Although President Roosevelt pleaded with the country to bar saloons from the country, his request fell on deaf ears. As Roosevelt said, “I ask especially that no state, by law or otherwise, authorize the return of the salon, either in its old form or in some modern guise.”
Perhaps today’s bars are different from the old saloons. Maybe today’s bars, restaurants, and night clubs are the “modern guise” to which Roosevelt alluded. But summertime is here, and when Friday night rolls along, patrons come out and quench their thirst, Huntington is as well known today as it was back in the days of Prohibition, as a place to go for people all over Long Island and New York City.
