Portland on the Take by JD Chandler

Author:JD Chandler
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing Inc.
Published: 2014-09-15T00:00:00+00:00

After Prohibition ended in 1933, the “speakeasy culture” translated into the new “nightclub culture.” During World War II and after, a night on the town often included a visit to one or more nightclubs. Photograph by John Collier. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

The Cecil Rooms were located on Southwest Sixth Avenue in the heart of downtown Portland. Patrons had to climb a flight of stairs and ring the buzzer to gain admittance to the two-story brick building. The door was kept locked, and the guests were viewed through a small window before being allowed entrance. The after-hours club employed a series of “runners” who spread the word about where someone could “get a drink.” Also known as the 212 Club, the large room featured a bar, a jukebox, pinball, a piano and several tables surrounding a small dance floor. An adjoining room featured a large dice table. The kitchen was used by employees and only a select few guests. The Cecil Rooms didn’t sell food and didn’t have a liquor license. Upstairs were three rooms, one used by Pat O’Day and the others kept for favored guests and employees. O’Day’s room was sometimes used for assignations by the prostitutes who often frequented the club. In January 1947, two men lived in the rooms above the Cecil Club: Johnny Snyder, a young boxer who used the name Bobby Clark in the ring, and Jimmy Barr, who sang in the club and helped Johnny train. Pat O’Day often slept upstairs, although he had an apartment on Southwest Vista Drive. O’Day spent most of his time at the club, which served illegal alcohol nearly twenty-four hours a day.

The “bootleg” clubs drew clients from all classes and occupations. Steered by “runners” from the upscale nightclubs—or taxi drivers and pimps—businessmen, middle-class couples on a night out, visitors from out of town, sailors and other transient workers looking for a drink rubbed elbows with safe-crackers, armed robbers, prostitutes and drug addicts. A regular cast of characters made the rounds of these clubs, and many of them preyed on the unwary visitors. Jimmy Barr, a bottom-of-the-barrel nightclub singer, and Lee Butler, an ex–special police officer with a record for assault who played accordion, provided the entertainment at the Cecil Rooms. Sybil Willard and her roommate, Faye Tripp, made the rounds of bootleg clubs looking for opportunities. Willard was Pat O’Day’s “girlfriend,” although some might have called her his punching bag. Barbara Daugherty ran the hatcheck concession and manned the door at the Cecil Rooms. Captain Frank Tatum was a frequent visitor to Portland since he captained a freight ship that made regular runs to Yokohama with grain cargos for famine-stricken Japan.

Captain Tatum had been in the Merchant Marine agency for more than twenty years and had seen a lot of action on liberty ships in the Atlantic during the war. When the war in Europe ended, he transferred to the Pacific and began to work out of Portland in 1945. In 1946, he took command of the SS Edwin Abbey, a former liberty ship sold by the Navy Department for civilian use.

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