Speakeasy fed city family, relatives say
Owner was widow -- and one tough lady
By BRIAN LIBERATORE

Article appeared April 2, 2007, on page 1A

While repairing the driveway near a bar on the city’s West Side, a landscaper stumbled across a secret, underground chamber. The contents in the room suggested the space was once used for clandestine storage of illegal alcohol.

I knew there would be a good story behind the rooms.

Using deed records, I traced back ownership of the property to the 1920s. I searched for the name of the business owner, Mary Mrlack, in old census records and city directories from the same period. I was able to find Mrlack’s obituary from 1964, and used the names in the obit to track down her surviving relatives scattered across the United States.

The search proved fruitful and the family members shared their stories, which have been passed on through the generations.

BINGHAMTON -- Two years after Stephen Mrlak, a Slovakian immigrant, opened the Turf Exchange hotel and bar on Main Street, the federal government outlawed the sale of alcohol. Mrlak died two years later in 1922, leaving the establishment to his 36-year-old wife, Mary Mrlak, and her two young daughters.

Mary Mrlak, also a Slovakian immigrant, did what she had to do, family members said.

"She was tough. She was all business," said Violet Resciniti of Binghamton, a retired Union-Endicott teacher and Mary Mrlak's grandniece. "She had to be."

A family secret that had been passed through generations of Mrlak's descendants went public Tuesday when a landscaper stumbled on the entrance to a secret passageway to the former Turf Exchange Hotel under the parking lot of what is now the CyberCafe West.

"Granny always told me if we hadn't sold liquor, we'd have lost the place," said Bob Barcay, 45, from Fort Collins, Colo. Barcay is Mary Mrlak's great-grandson.

The hidden rooms below the parking lot contained wooden kegs, bottles and an elaborate pulley system left to decay since Prohibition was lifted and the rooms were sealed. A team from the Public Archaeology Facility at Binghamton University began an excavation Thursday of the hidden chamber.

"I've been sitting here over the years wondering if anybody would find it," said Norah Barcay, 86, of Colorado Springs, Colo., who is the granddaughter of Mary Mrlak.

Mary Mrlak had two daughters, Anna and Dorothy. Anna, who was 13 when her father died, kept the books at the Turf Exchange. Dorothy, who was 3 years old when her mother took over the hotel, helped in a different way.

FOOLING THE FEDS

Mary Mrlak would take the family to Canada, where the sale of liquor was permitted. Dorothy would pretend to sleep in the back of the car, Barcay said. Mary Mrlak would stash the smuggled booze below her young daughter, knowing customs officers at the Canadian and U.S. border would not wake a sleeping child. When in Binghamton, Mary Mrlak would drive the car into an automobile garage near the hotel and unload the beer and liquor into the recently rediscovered secret chamber.

"She was quite a lady," said Russell Petterson, 84, of Ridgecrest, Calif. Petterson is Mary Mrlak's son-in-law. "My wife always said she was the first licensed woman driver in Binghamton. She came here at the age of 14 and really did a lot with her life under adverse conditions."

Despite some close calls, the Turf Exchange served alcohol uninterrupted through Prohibition. If one of the bar's lookouts saw law enforcement coming, the patrons would shove their glasses of beer, liquor and wine into secret compartments throughout the bar, including a large cooler hidden in the floor, said Bob Barcay, recounting conversations he had with his grandmother, Anna Barcay.

Barcay remembered a story about one close call.

A lookout had spotted a Binghamton police officer walking toward the Turf Exchange, and the patrons quickly stashed their drinks. When the officer walked into the bar, Mrlak noticed a glass of beer remained on the bar.

The patrons froze. Serving alcohol during Prohibition was cause to shut down an establishment.

"What are you going to do?" someone asked the officer.

"I take mine on ice," the officer said. "Make it look like a soda."

That awkward relationship between law enforcement and the ubiquitous speakeasies persisted through Prohibition.

Resciniti's grandmother, Helen Torony, who was Stephen Mrlak's sister, ran a speakeasy out of the Lincoln Hotel on Clinton Street with her husband, Stephen Torony. Resciniti remembered her grandmother talking about the "feather men," in her thick Slovakian accent.

"I kept picturing men with feathers in their hats," Resciniti said. "She was referring to the federal men, of course. They had to be sure they could see them coming."

Resciniti said she remembered her grandmother scooping up the glasses and bottles of liquor from the bar in her apron and running outside at the first mention of a "feather man."

MAKING ENDS MEET

Business at the Turf Exchange was difficult, Bob Barcay said. Mary Mrlak served food at the restaurant and housed tenants in the upper floors. Census records from 1925 show two shoemakers and a fireman living in the rooms above the hotel.

Without income from the alcohol sales, the Turf Exchange never would have lasted, Barcay said.

His grandmother and her sister, Dorothy, worked with their mother, cleaning rooms and serving food to the patrons. Mary Mrlak, Bob Barcay said, had to be tough to make the Turf Exchange work.

"She did her own bouncing," Barcay said. "I know that Granny Mrlak had no problem picking somebody up and throwing them out of the bar."

From 1926 through 1933, Binghamton city directories list Mary Mrlak as the proprietor of soft drinks. In 1934, after Prohibition was lifted, the directory listed the establishment again as a hotel. And while Mrlak would later rent out the establishment to another operator, she owned it until her death in 1964. The building's deed went to her daughters, Dorothy and Anna, who sold it to Virginia Sexton, deed records show.

Jeffery Kahn bought the bar in 1999, when it became the CyberCafe West. Kahn said he wants to keep the secret rooms intact to make sure the Mrlak family secret lives on -- only now as a public piece of the city's history.

Discovery hints at speakeasy
Former Turf Exchange may have catered to underground drinking

By BRIAN LIBERATORE

Article appeared March 29, 2007, on page 1B

BINGHAMTON -- From 1926 through 1933, the widow who owned the Turf Exchange, now the CyberCafe West, is listed in the city directory as a proprietor of soft drinks. An accidental discovery Tuesday, and an archaeological expedition that began Thursday, offer strong support to the rumor that Mary Mrlack, who died in 1964, was selling more than soft drinks.

Michael Jacobson and Shannon Glazer with the Public Archaeology Facility at Binghamton University spent Thursday crawling into the recently revealed secret rooms below the parking lot of the CyberCafe hoping to unlock the secrets of what appears to have been a secret hideaway for a Prohibition Era speakeasy.

Dan Carruthers, a local landscaper, discovered the rooms Tuesday while repairing the parking lot.

Jacobson and Glazer planned to catalogue and photograph the room and its contents, which had been sealed for about 80 years. Wooden kegs, glass bottles and a funnel, left to decay in the underground chamber, confirmed CyberCafe owner Jeff Kahn's suspicion that his century-old bar served alcohol when the federal government forbade it.

"I feel like my role is to keep this little piece of history alive and let it grow," Kahn said.

Walter Garvey, 86, of Vestal, was a young boy during Prohibition. His father, he said, had worked at Lauer Brewing Company on Laurel Avenue early in the 20th century.

Garvey said he would go with his father to deliver beer, which was produced illegally, to the various speakeasies across the area, including the bar at 176 Main St., now the home of the CyberCafe. At the time, Garvey said, the bar was referred to as the Turf Exchange -- a homage to the jockeys and horse trainers from nearby stables who frequented the establishment. An annual stop for his father's beer delivery, Garvey said, was the policeman's picnic, where the suds were provided free of charge.

"I could never go in the speakeasies, of course," Garvey said. "But I knew what my father was doing. He was collecting for the beer he was distributing."

Garvey said he remembered the widow Mrlack presiding over the Turf Exchange.

"I suspect it was a speakeasy," Garvey said. "There were many of them around Binghamton and the Triple Cities."

Deed records show that a Stephen Mrlack purchased the property at 176 Main St. in 1916. The building, even then, was listed as a bar and hotel. He died in 1922, records show, two years after the start of Prohibition. In his will, Mrlack left the bar to his wife, Mary, who was the building's sole proprietor for more than 40 years.

Census records from 1925 show that three middle-aged men lived in rooms above the Turf Exchange. One of the men was a firefighter, likely employed at the fire station next to the bar.

Around the time Stephen Mrlack died, tax maps show that an automobile garage was built just east of the bar. Construction of the garage could have concealed the construction of the secret rooms below the surface.

The archaeological team from Binghamton University plans to continue its excavation and may bring in special sonar equipment to determine if there are more secret rooms below the surface of the parking lot.

Based on artifacts found in the chambers, Jacobson said, the team hopes to determine the exact date the rooms were built, and what they were used for.

A chimney in the room and a drain in the floor suggest the room may have served as a small distillery, as well as a storage room, Jacobson said.

The team plans to write a report over the next few months on the results of the excavation.

"There's a tremendous amount of history in this valley," Garvey said.

Hidden rooms found at café
Chamber under parking lot may have been Prohibition-era speakeasy

By BRIAN LIBERATORE

Article appeared March 28, 2007, on page 1A

BINGHAMTON -- A landscaper Tuesday accidentally uncovered a hidden chamber below the parking lot of CyberCafe West in Binghamton.

The two rooms, which were filled with rotted wooden kegs, a rusted pulley system and glass bottles dating back to the 1920s, confirmed CyberCafe owner Jeff Kahn's suspicion that his building had once housed an illegal speakeasy.

"It's an interesting mystery," Khan said, staring into the recently revealed opening.

Dan Carruthers, a local landscaper, had planned early Tuesday to break apart a concrete slab in the CyberCafe parking lot on Main Street that had started to crack and sag. The first swing of his sledgehammer brought light into a space that had been sealed for decades.

"When I broke that open and everything fell down into the hole, I was pretty excited," Carruthers said. He ran back into the CyberCafe, found a flashlight and crawled into the opening. Plywood remnants in the mound of dirt led Carruthers to believe that the opening had been boarded up and the entrance long ago filled in with dirt before it was sealed.

The rooms were filled with glass bottles, a copper funnel and wooden beer kegs, rusted taps still in place. A glass jug near the kegs read, "Winarick's Jeris," a hair tonic dating back to the early part of the 20th century. A fireplace on one side of the 12-by-20-foot room may once have pulled smoke and fumes from a small distillery, Khan said. The remains of a pulley system hung in the adjacent 3-by-12-foot room.

Like most cities across the country during the 1920s and early 1930s when the U.S. government banned the sale of alcohol, Binghamton was dotted with speakeasies that sold beer, wine and liquor in backrooms out of the sight of law enforcement, said Gerry Smith, Broome County historian.

Tax maps of the city dating back to 1898 show a saloon where the CyberCafe now stands. In the 1920s, a series of automobile garages were built in the spot of the underground chamber, Smith said.

Construction of the garages, Smith said, could have covered for a different kind of construction.

"You wouldn't build those details without some different intent," Smith said, referring to the pulley system in the underground chambers.

Rumors of a speakeasy, Kahn said, have always surrounded the building. Irregularities in the walls near the rear of the restaurant hint that there was once a back room accessible only through a side door, Kahn said.

As for the hole in his parking lot, Kahn said he was still weighing options.

"I don't know what to do with it," Kahn said. "It's very odd to have a room below your parking lot. I feel it should serve some purpose."