The Bamboo Lounge

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The Bamboo Lounge was a Lucchese crime family criminal enterprise business owned and managed by Irish-Italian mob associate Angelo McConnach, the brother-in-law of Paul Vario a high-class "rug joint" (casino) located on the corner of Rockaway Parkway and Avenue N in Canarsie, Brooklyn, near John F. Kennedy International Airport.

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[edit] The Setup

The Bamboo Lounge was a two-story cavernous Polynesian-themed night club which was done with Caribbean and South Pacific schmaltz and lavishness. The Bamboo Lounge was also set up to look like a flamboyant Hollywood movie set. It had a motif of exotic plants with mounted and stuffed blowfish. The table lamps were miniature Moai statues. It closely resembled the popular restaurant chain "Don the Beachcomber" or Trader Vic's establishments and it's many tiki culture and exotica spin off restaurants that dominated California during that time for years. It was still relatively new theme concept at the time. To encourage more every-day repeat patronage Angelo supplemented The Bamboo Lounge's typical Chinese-Cantonese fare with more traditional steaks, meat chops and chicken dishes. It was successful in operating from the late 1940s to the 1970s until it mysteriously burned down in a suspected arson. It was furnished with bamboo-built furniture and had zebra-striped banquettes and barstools and potted palm trees and Moai statues sticking up all over the interior. It had a dimly lit interior lit predominantly by candle light so no matter where you walked in the place it looked always to be in the middle of the night. After members of organized crime started becoming regular patrons, it was soon frequented by $500-a-night prostitutes and escorts soliciting for wealthy high-rollers at the Craps tables supplied by Ralph Atlas. The waiters dressed in a uniform of white Panama suits, Hawaiian pastel silk shirts and would have two or three gardenia leis around their neck. The lounge was insured by Charles Kottler. Canarsie, Brooklyn born fiction writer Charles Stella lived two blocks from the night club when growing up.

[edit] As A Casino

The illegal casino operation was overseen by Paul Vario's son Salvatore "Babe" Vario and McConnach. It had professional Craps game and dice tables ordered in from Las Vegas which were operated by professional stickmen and boxmen that worked at legitimate casinos. The games were very popular with thirty or forty men gambling, the men were wealthy Manhattan garment district executives, restaurant owners, union officials, doctors and dentists, including just about every mobster in Brooklyn, New York. Angelo's elderly mother was a little old lady who worked the cash register from morning to night, while Angelo acted as the Maître d' and manager. The night club was successful, but eventually Angelo convinced his brother-in-law Paul Vario to invest in the establishment. After Paul invested a large portion of money into the night club it became a supermarket for swag from John F. Kennedy International Airport. Through his brother-in-law's influence The Bamboo Lounge became so well protected from the local politicians and precinct police that the establishment did not have to be secretive about it's criminal activities. Paul Vario also used the nightclub to launder the proceeds earned from his union racketeering and hijacking.

[edit] Stolen goods market

It was like a commodities exchange for stolen goods. Outside there would be big Cadillacs and Lincolns double parked along the street and inside there would be guys screaming and drinking and yelling about what they wanted to buy or what they needed to have stolen. Fences from all over Brooklyn used to show up in the early morning hours. Lucchese crime family associate Charles V. Errigo ran most of the swag dealing business at The Bamboo Lounge and Charles used to buy and sell dozens of metal freight igloos, or shipping crates of stolen goods. Insurance adjusters, truck drivers, union delegates, wholesalers and discount store proprietors were regular habituates of the lounge. It operated like an open flea market and auction house. There would be a long list of items in demand posted at the nightclub and a certain dealer could get premiums if they grabbed the right swag. They dealt with clothing, seafood, fabrics, cigarette] that were the large money makers, then coffee, records and cassettes, liquor, televisions and radios, kitchen appliances, meat, shoes, children's toys, jewellery and watches and stolen securities. Wall Street bankers and brokers would buy them all up from the Lucchese crime family. As a business partner of Paul Vario, Paul could request Angelo to hire incarcerated mobsters on the payroll of his nightclub so they could obtain early parole. Paul handed out business contracts of purchasing the liquor and food to associates of the Lucchese crime family. The insurance of The Bamboo Lounge was also handled by politicians who received the brokerage fees. Angelo was also able to receive large loans for renovations and improvements from his good credit rating but had the money handed over to Paul Vario.

[edit] Destruction

Sometime in the late 1970s before the 1978 Lufthansa heist "The Bamboo Lounge" was burned down. By the time the NYPD noticed the smoke billowing out of The Bamboo Lounge's front door, the blaze had been raging for hours. As firefighters arrived, it was already "flashover" fire, a full-blown inferno so intense, everything in the lounge had become combustible: the bamboo and wicker furniture, liquor and the tiki decor. In the minds of the fire department investigators it was a "suspicious fire" but ruled "electrical" after they proved it was set. It was allegedly set by Henry Hill and others with Sterno and toilet paper to make it appear to be an electrical fire. In the film Goodfellas it shows Henry Hill and Tommy DeSimone who were the ones that were responsible for burning down the nightclub. It is plausible, because years later Henry Hill burned down several buildings on behalf of Phillip Basile for the insurance money. In the film Henry Hill and Tommy DeSimone are shown making incendiary preparations to burn down The Bamboo Lounge by stuffing flammable wads of paper doused in an ignitable fluid into ceiling fixtures (to make it look like an electrical fire) - a Bamboo Lounge matchbook flares into flames and is used to light the rest of the interior of the restaurant. The arson was never solved and the arsonist or arsonists were never caught. After the destruction of "The Bamboo Lounge" Angelo McConnach did not open another restaurant.

[edit] In film

In the film Goodfellas, the scenes set at The Bamboo Lounge were filmed at the Hawaii Kai Restaurant at 49th Street and Broadway in Manhattan, New York. As shown in the film, one night Anthony Stabile, Jimmy Burke, Tommy DeSimone and Henry Hill are hanging out at the Bamboo Lounge, and Tommy DeSimone tells a story of a bank robbery in Secaucus, NJ that makes everyone laugh, prompting Henry to comment and say to DeSimone that the fellow mobster is "funny". The easily offended Tommy DeSimone then seems to become more and more belligerent as he intimidatingly badgers Henry for an explanation on his harmless comment. The tension mounts, and although Henry is eventually able to partially defuse the situation. Then after confronted with having a large bar bill to pay at The Bamboo Lounge by Angelo McConnach character, Tommy becomes enraged at the insult of confronting him in front of his friends and smashing a whiskey glass on Angelo's head. The young uncredited extra seen in Goodfellas carrying a crate of Justerini & Brooks Whisky off the back a transport truck and into the Bamboo Lounge is actor Glenn Taranto. When Joe Pesci says to Henry Hill when preparing to destroy The Bamboo Lounge, his "You little prick, you look like you're decorating a fucking Christmas tree" was improvised on the suggestion of Martin Scorsese.

[edit] References