Prohibition agents found a hostile welcome in New York’s Hell’s Kitchen in July 1922.
When three Federal officers entered Gentilly’s Cafe on Eighth Avenue, they first blended in with the room, talking with the proprietor and patrons before handing Tony Gentilly a summons for allegedly selling them liquor. The friendly mood vanished at once.
Patrons hissed, jeered, and followed the agents into the street, warning that Gentilly’s would be the last place in the neighborhood where they could trick anyone.
The situation worsened at a second cafe on Ninth Avenue, where bottles, glasses, fists, and a five-gallon demijohn were suddenly turned against the officers.
By the time the riot ended, one man was bleeding heavily, two others were bruised and under arrest, and Hell’s Kitchen had made clear just how unpopular Prohibition enforcement could be.
Drys Find It Hot In Hell’s Kitchen
Prohibition and its enforcement agents are not exactly popular in Hell’s Kitchen, and as a consequence of the visit of three Federal officers to that section of the city yesterday one man is in New York Hospital with several stitches in his scalp and two other prisoners in the West Thirtieth Street police station are suffering from numerous bruises and lacerations.
The trouble had its origin when Agents Peter Reager, Jack Kerrigan, and William Stafford entered Gentilly’s Cafe, at 766 Eighth Avenue, and after conversing in friendly manner with the proprietor and patrons for a time, handed Tony Gentilly a summons to appear before a United States Commissioner on a charge of selling the agents liquor.
The crowd of patrons began to hiss and cast verbal abuses at the agents. The remark was heard, the agents said, that Gentilly’s cafe would be the last place in the Kitchen they would be able to fool.
When the Federal men retreated before the hisses and jeers from the cafe, they were followed by a small group of the patrons, led, it was alleged, by William Clark.
The agents went to Began’s Cafe at 683 Ninth Avenue, where the men who had followed them from Gentilly’s Cafe shouted their identity. As the agents started to serve a search warrant on Edward McLoughlin, proprietor, Clark, it is alleged, grabbed a five gallon earthen demijohn and hurled it at them, following up his miss with an attack with his fists.
Bartender James Callahan at the same time began directing a fusillade of bottles and glasses at the agents from behind the bar, his shots going wild, the agents said. The room was covered with broken glass.
The riot was quickly stopped when Clark was felled by a blow which burst a blood vessel in his head. His profuse bleeding frightened the crowd into subjection and an ambulance was called. Clark was taken to New York Hospital, where his wound was sewed up by physicians.
McLoughlin was charged at the West Thirtieth Street police station with violating the Volstead act by possessing liquor. Callahan was held on charges of possession and assault. Clark’s name was placed on the blotter on a charge of assault and interfering with an officer.
Source: The New York Herald. New York, N.Y. July 9, 1922.
