History

Introduction | About the Jockeys | About the Toys | Secret Wine Cellar | Timeline | 21 Trivia Challenge

In 1920, over three-quarters of a century ago, Congress passed the Eighteenth Amendment ushering in the Prohibition Era.

In New York, as in every American city, 'speakeasies' mushroomed, but none was more celebrated than "Jack and Charlie's '21'", founded by two collegian cousins from the West Side, Jack Kriendler and Charlie Berns.

Although '21' was raided more than once, federal agents were never able to pin anything on Jack and Charlie. At the first sign of a raid, they would activate an ingenious system of pulleys and levers, which would sweep bottles from the bar shelves and hurl the smashed remains down a chute into the New York sewer system!

It was during this period that '21's famous secret Wine Cellar was built.  Its two-ton door was unlocked by placing a meat skewer into a tiny hole in a certain brick.  Investigators were further confused by the fact that the cellar was located not in number 21, but number 19, the house next door.