Chumley’s
Leland Chumley opened his speakeasy on a corner lot in 1922 in New York’s Greenwich Village. A corner lot was particularly handy for an establishment devoted to the dispensing of illegal liquor. In the event that there should be unwelcome attention from the constabulary, a convenient second door on the side of the building provided the opportunity for rapid egress from the premises without running the gauntlet of incoming policemen.
Neither door leading into the establishment was marked, other than the address. Chumley’s rapidly became popular with the Village crowd, writers and poets, social activists and journalists, and other denizens of that famously eclectic neighborhood.
Chumley’s address (marked on one door) was 86 Bedford Street. The term “86”, meaning to discard something among restaurant employees, has been said to originate from the address. Leland Chumley paid protection money to co-operative local policemen (many of whom were devoted customers) and was rewarded with advance notice of an intended raid on the premises.
Reportedly one of the bartenders would answer the phone to hear the cryptic message to 86 the patrons and any visible booze, resulting in a quick emptying of the bar of patrons and products through the door bearing that number. The call signified the police would enter through the side door. Beside the side door, Chumley’s contained (and still contains) numerous hidden doors and connecting tunnels to allow for quick departure.
The side door, which opened into a small courtyard, was known to the patrons as the Garden Door. Both doors could be used for entry by customers in the know and known to the establishment. Chumley’s remained open long after Prohibition, always a favorite haunt of New York writers, and has recently been renovated. Perhaps in deference to its days as a speakeasy, both doors remain unadorned with signage, and customers desiring to enter must know exactly where they are going, as their forebears did during the Roaring Twenties.