Wig wags bring big bucks to bookies - SOFLA race parks 1940s

By Jane Feehan

Gulfstream Park 1948
Florida State Archives

It was estimated that 2,000 bookie joints operated in the Greater Miami area (including Fort Lauderdale) in 1948-49. 

“Wig wag” men helped ensure success of the popular but illegal gambling industry.

These men traveled the country from track to track to communicate through hand signals the new line, or post race odds, while horses ran. Signals included smoothing hair, raising arms with fingers outstretched, running arms down their sides, patting their heads, scratching and more. Wig wags, brightly attired so they could be picked out in a crowd in front of the grandstand, were observed by scanners, or people located about a half-mile away.

Gulfstream Park probably 1940s or 50s

State Archives of Florida

In Miami, scanners were situated at a large two-story house at 7701 Bird Road. They used powerful military binoculars to track the changing odds. Changing odds were important to bookies; it insured that favorable odds would not be beaten down by bets going through machines legally at the track.

The house on Bird Road (long gone and now part of a highway) was the nerve center for Miami’s bookie industry. During the 40s, most bookies operated in Miami under mob-run and intentionally misnamed Continental Press Service. Press services needed telegraph and telephone banks.

Investigating reporters in 1948 visited the house where they found a “motherly-looking woman” on the first floor, knitting. The clicking of her needles ostensibly drowned out telegraph tapping on the floor above. (Phones had been pulled out after prior police investigations.) Bookies also used short wave radio or “mobile automobile radio” from a locked car to hear a race in progress. A microphone would be suspended beneath a car located near the track.

The most favorable swindles were those involving out-of-state locations with lag times in telegraph communication. Last minute odds—whittling odds—was the lifeblood of bookie operations; without them, 95 percent of their business would disappear. In 1948, bookies raked in between $250 million to $300 million from Hialeah, Tropical Park, and Gulfstream race parks in South Florida, and Sunshine Park in Tampa while about $98 million went through the same tracks legally.

Eight percent of legal betting revenues went to the state in taxes. Five percent was divided among Florida’s 67 counties where it sometimes subsidized an entire county government.  The remaining three percent went to an old age assistance fund matched by federal money. Illegal off track betting probably cheated the state out of $10 million a year then. Tax losses served as some of the fodder in the campaign against illegal gambling in the late 1940s. Arrests of wig wag men were routine by 1949.

Betting continues to be big business in the Sunshine State, but today it’s predominantly legal. Gambling revenues from six South Florida state-operated casinos (not Seminole establishments) jumped more than 12 percent in 2013 netting the state $162 million in taxes; the national average was a 4.8 percent increase.  Copyright © 2013. All rights reserved. Jane Feehan.

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Sources:

Miami News, Dec. 12, 1948

Miami News, Dec. 13, 1948

Miami News, Dec. 14, 1948

Miami News, March 8, 1949

Sun-Sentinel, May 7, 2013

Tags: Gambling history, racetrack gambling in the 1940s, Continental Press service, wig wag men, film researcher

Dick Cami and Convulsion at Miami's Peppermint Lounge: the Twist, HullyGully, Mashed Potato and ...

By Jane Feehan

Note : Richard "Dick Cami" Camillucci, Jr.,  quoted below, died July 28, 2020 at  age 86.

One of Miami’s hottest night spots in the early 1960s was the Peppermint Lounge, a place where old and young, rich and famous danced their nights away to the latest gyrating crazes, including the one that launched the club, the Twist.

Ernest Evans, known forever after as Chubby Checker, recorded Hank Ballard’s rhythm and blues tune, The Twist, in 1959. The record did not sell well so Checker went on tour across the nation to sing the tune and demonstrate a dance that went with it. Some say he lost 30 pounds in just three weeks of performing. The tune – and the dance—finally caught on 14 months later as a fad that swept the world.

It proved to be a draw at the Peppermint Lounge on West 45^th Street in New York where people waited in line to get through its doors. The popularity of the club spawned a few others, including the Peppermint Lounge on the 79^th Street Causeway in Miami.

The Miami club opened Dec. 1, 1961 at the former site of Colonel Jim's. The Miami News reported Lee Ratner and Morris Levy of Roulette Records were its backers but according to Dick Cami (in his mid 20s at the time), he ran the place. Cami was married to the daughter of New York mobster Johnny “Futto” Biello.

An impressive roster of big name entertainers played at the Miami club.

"Major rock and roll acts worked at the Peppermint Lounge like the Coasters, Jerry Lee Lewis, Conway Twitty ... and more," said Cami.

Miami’s Peppermint Lounge, with its mirrored ceilings and fenced-in dance floor attracted locals, tourists—and the famous. Nat King Cole asked Cami if he could play the piano there a few nights to get the feel of the rock ‘n roll thing his daughter Natalie liked so much. He was at the piano when singer Sam Cooke, who recorded his own top-of-the-chart tune, Twistin' the Night Away, came in one evening. The Beatles visited Cami's place to pay homage to rock n' roll—the inspiration for their music—three times when they

Lenny Bruce, frequent visitor.
Domita Jo on his left, photo courtesy of Dick Cami

were in the area to appear on the Ed Sullivan Show.

Politicos ventured fearlessly into the club to be part of the action. Gov. Grant Sawyer of Nevada was at a Governors Conference in Miami when he found the Peppermint Lounge. He visited the club each night with his wife; a large crowd gathered as the governor climbed the dance floor fence and twisted the night away.

And the Twist kept raging “round and round” Miami, Miami Beach and the rest of the country. “How long will the Twist epidemic last?” asked columnist Herb Kelly as he listed all the Miami Beach hotel lounges bowing to the fad. “It’s spreading so fast nobody knows.”  Gray-haired matrons were shaking their hips on the same dance floor with green-haired girls and bearded young men, “all shaking like there was no one else in the world, not even their partner,” mused Cami.

The Twist was invented by chiropractors, quipped comedian Bob Hope.  “The whole world’s sacroiliac is going to be out in about three days.”

Actually it took a bit longer than three days.

Things began to slow down about a year later. That’s why the Peppermint Lounge started featuring a dance revue, the “Crazy Crazes,” a history of dance fads. Four dancers—two male, two female—and singer Regina Rae highlighted the show presenting dance crazes from the 1920s to the Twist.

Other dances caught on at the Peppermint Lounge as they had elsewhere in the U.S.: the Hully Gully, the Mashed Potato, the Fly, Bird, Dog, Frug, Slop, and the Continental. The Legends provided the music at the Miami lounge for all the crazes and so did a band from Jamaica, Freddie Scott’s Blues Busters. Their claim to fame was blending calypso and rock ‘n roll, known then by another name.

"We were the first to bring Ska, the precursor of Reggae, to America, " reminisced Cami.

Lights went out on the dance floor by 1964 or early 1965. In late ’64, Cami sold the lounge to Joe Camperlengo of Fort Lauderdale; Camperlengo owned the 4 o’Clock Club in that city. The Peppermint Lounge reopened shortly after the sale and soon became the Inner Circle. By 1965, the place was razed to make way for a new steak house.

Lucky for South Florida, Dick Cami remained but moved on to other endeavors in the area. He opened Applause, a nightclub at the Omni Center in Miami. Some reported that he wanted to go into construction but he (and later with his two sons) became the driving force behind several restaurants: Cami’s Seashells in Dade and Broward counties; Grumpy Dick’s in Plantation, Crabby Dick’s in Key West, and Islamorada Fish House in Dania. 

The restaurant closest to Cami's heart was his Top of the Home in Hollywood, FL. For 26 years  it stood acclaimed for its fine Continental dining, outstanding wine selection, and stunning panoramic vista of Broward County. His popular lounge featured two singing bartenders and piano player Sonny Gambino. 

Today, Cami no longer owns a restaurant but with a wealth of experience accumulated over the years he serves as chief operating officer of food and beverage for  Excelsior Hospitality Management International, a consulting and asset management company. 

There is more to Cami's past —and present—than the restaurant biz.

He stepped into the boxing world for a time, managing a few fighters who the late, great Angelo Dundee trained at his Fifth Street Gym in Miami Beach.

Cami also manages affairs for his friend, Sandi Lansky*, daughter of reputed mobster, gambling kingpin and former Miami resident, Meyer Lansky. Cami has served as advisor during the compilation of her memoirs by William Stadium. The book, Daughter of the King, was released March, 2014.

The former restaurateur is currently in discussions with Fox about a TV pilot series, The Twist, and has teamed up with a former colleague to produce an animated musical feature, The Dog Show, a story about a mutt who wins the Westminster Dog Show.   

Cami lives in Oregon today but memories of those sizzling Miami Beach days and the twisting Peppermint Lounge nights loom large. I'll have to ask the next time I speak with him if he ever hums the Chubby Checker song:                         

           Come on, baby, let’s do the twist.

      Take me by my little hand and go like this.

                              We’re gonna twisty …

*  Sandra Lansky, daughter of Meyer Lansky wrote a memoir, Daughter of the King, in 2014.

Sources:

Miami News, Dec. 5, 1961

Miami News, Nov. 29, 1961

Miami News, Aug. 17, 1962

Miami News, Nov. 27, 1962

Miami News, Aug. 7, 1963

Miami News, Oct. 8, 1964

Miami News, Sept. 19, 1965

Beaver County Times, Aug. 19, 1964

Lakeland Ledger, Feb. 29,1988

Reading Eagle, May 20, 1965

Rome News-Tribune, Mar. 14, 1972

Richard "Dick Cami" Camillucci, Jr.

Tags: Miami history, Miami dance clubs, Peppermint Lounge, the Twist, Chubby Checker, Sandi Lansky, Meyer Lansky,Fort Lauderdale historian, Miami historian

South Florida’s Christmas past: of mule parties, teacher surprises, film studios and …

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  Poinsettia hedge - Florida 1948
  Florida State Archives
  
  

  
  
• By Jane Feehan 
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  Christmas in South Florida of decades past was celebrated with parties and special community events much as it is today. But there were different situations, some that may draw a smile or surprise. The following may provide a little of both.
  
  
  1917 - West Palm Beach: Staffers of New Jersey-based World Film Corporation stayed at the Salt Air hotel in Palm Beach in order to attend a Christmas party Dec. 8 in West Palm Beach at Metcalf hall. They were on hand to obtain “natural scenes” at the Hawaiian-themed affair. The hall was decorated as a Hawaiian garden; guests followed suit in appropriate garb. Admission was charged to spectators and participating dancers.
  
  
  1921-Miami: A “unique” Christmas party was held Christmas day for every mule and work horse in Miami. School children in the city played host while Boy Scouts fed carrots, apples, sugar and bread to the “dumb animals” so they would have as enjoyable day as possible.

  

  Christmas caroling Christmas Eve 1935, Miami. 

  A Federal Emergency Recovery project

  State Archives of Florida
  1921-Miami: Teachers at “grammar schools” were given a “real Christmas surprise” … when they received pay checks for the month of December “right on the dot” as a result of a clerical arrangement. Checks were cut without waiting for reports from principals; if they had waited for those reports, checks would have been delayed a few days.
  
  
  1934-Miami: The Kiwanis Club of Coral Gables held a Christmas party atop the Alcazar Hotel for 100 children with one of the outcomes expected to be the establishment of a fund to bring children from “100 communities of the United States to enjoy the benefits of South Florida sunshine.”
  
  
  1944-Florida and the United States: There was no Christmas gift wrapping paper, boxes and other accessories produced because the US Government declared it a non-essential industry during World War II. The one bright spot was the production of greeting cards. Cards were made small and in lighter paper but there was no shortage. Reason? About 15 million people were away from home to work war plant jobs throughout the country; sending Yuletide greetings was critical in shoring up morale of the workforce.
  
  
  1953-Broward County: About 25,000 attended the fifth annual Broward County Community Christmas party and Circus at Gulfstream Park in Hallandale. Broadcast by WIOD, the party featured Santa Claus riding a truck, the South Broward High School band, circus impresario Bob Morton, Gulfstream Park President Jimmy Dean, and the Boy Scouts. Hundreds of disabled children attended as special guests.  Copyright © 2013. All rights reserved. Jane Feehan.
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• Sources:

Miami News, Dec. 8, 1917

Miami News, Dec. 24, 1921

Miami News, Dec. 23, 1934

Miami News, Oct. 01, 1944

Miami News, Dec. 20, 1953

Tags: Florida Christmas history, Miami Christmas 1920s, Palm Beach history, Christmas in South Florida history, Miami in 1930s, Miami in 1940s, South Florida history 

Miami in 1904: Nothing that savored of prosperity or future greatness except ...

Miami Bayfront Park 1958 (before the find in the 2000s)
Florida State Archives

By Jane Feehan

In June 1897, the Daily Metropolis extolled the virtues of Miami (see prior post at http://bit.ly/1bU4bUp), a tiny settlement incorporated in 1896. The five-star Royal Palm Hotel was listed as one of the town’s assets and, indeed, it was.

Seven years later the same newspaper reported that Miami and its high-profile hotel, which was known to assign an attendant to each guest, made front page news of the Daily National Hotel Reporter. Its editor (unnamed) had made an East Coast trip during the winter season of 1904 to report on its “magnificent hotels;” Henry Flagler’s Royal Palm Hotel was one of them.  

The editor wrote:

 The town of Miami is a revelation. Before the advent of the East Coast Railway, eight years ago, Miami was little more than a wilderness … few inhabitants, no industries and nothing that savored of prosperity or future greatness.

Miami is today one of the prettiest towns in Florida. It has three banks, numerous fine shops, factories, two daily newspapers and a tourist hotel. That hotel, the Royal Palm … is a hotel that appeals to every one who enjoys artistic excellence, home comforts and luxurious appointments. The hotel is under the management of Henry W. Merrill, first manager of the Poinciana in Palm Beach, who was previously connected with the Ormond-on-the-Halifax.

Today the Royal Palm may be too small for the demands that are likely to be made upon it in the future. Visitors are constantly arriving from Nassau, Havana, Key West and Cedar Key and on rail from St. Augustine.

The editor also wrote that he was in Miami when the East Coast Railway [sic] ran its first freight trains on a regular schedule over 22 miles which extended “below Miami. He predicted “that within a few years the output of vegetables—particularly tomatoes— will be of such volume and quality as to astonish the world.”

The Royal Palm Hotel was severely damaged by the 1926 hurricane and was torn down in 1930. Eventually it was paved over with a parking lot near what became the Dupont Plaza Hotel in downtown Miami.

In 2003, in preparation for a $640 million hotel/condo development, a pre-project inspection  excavation gave up ceramic fragments and metal pieces that lay more than two feet beneath the earth. It was the remains of the Royal Palm Hotel (see index for Miami in the 1900s). Further digging yielded even more history: artifacts from a Tequesta settlement 10,000 years old. Development was halted and the Miami Circle, as it is known because of a circle of stones apparently left by the Indians, was declared a National Historic Landmark on January 16, 2009. The city established the site as Miami Circle Park, a green space, in 2011. It is part of Bayfront Park at 301 Biscayne Blvd.

Repairing seawall surrounding  the 38 ft
Miami Circle cultural landmark
Florida State Archives

Today Miami has nearly 414,000 residents and is considered a gateway to South American markets. It is also a city where slightly more than half its population was born in another country.  

Henry Flagler, as history has proved, had a knack for picking prime real estate …
Copyright © 2013. All rights reserved. Jane Feehan.

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Sources:

Daily Miami Metropolis, April 6, 1904

Sun-Sentinel, April 21, 2004
Wikipedia

Florida Memories

For more on how the Circle was saved see:

https://www.floridarambler.com/florida-bike-hike-trails/miami-circle-see-history-great-views-by-foot-or-bike/

Tags: Miami history, Henry Flagler, hotel history in Miami, Royal Palm Hotel, Miami in the early 1900s,Royal Palm, Miami Circle, Tequesta Indians

Marvelous Miami of 1897: brick buildings, secret societies and ...

Early Miami
Florida State Archives

By Jane Feehan

Miamians were excited about their new town in 1897. Henry Flagler’s East Coast Railroad was extended from Palm Beach to the Biscayne Bay area in April the prior year. In July 1896 Miami (named for a nearby river) was incorporated. The new Flagler hotel, the “mammoth” Royal Palm, was open for business. Miami’s population ballooned from 300 before the railroad to more than 1,600 residents in 1897. The fledgling city was poised for continued growth.

Its newspaper, the Miami Metropolis, publicized reasons to move to the area in its June 4, 1897 edition. Among them were:

• A “good back country which is being settled up very rapidly. The local trade from this territory and that which comes from the Florida Keys will support a good town at this point.”

• The Royal Palm Hotel, plus “three other good hotels.”

• The large holdings of Flagler and the amount of money he has already expended in the development of Miami will ensure the growth of manufacturing in the area.

• Miami is warm enough to warrant the planting of citrus trees.

• “Our transportation facilities are excellent.” (In addition to the rail terminus, Flagler also established boat service to the Bahamas.)

• Three secret societies

• A sound bank

• An ice factory

• “Ten brick buildings, one, the Hotel Biscayne with four stores underneath.”

• "Several miles of paved streets"

• “Waterworks and a sewerage system”

As it turned out, "Marvelous Miami" did not need a grand public relations plan to launch its growth. South Florida with its prospects for a new life—and perhaps riches—quickly attracted pioneers from around the country looking for a new frontier. By 1910 there were nearly 5,500 in Miami, by 1920, more than 29,000.

Sources:
Miami Metropolis, June 4, 1897
www.historymiami.org

Tags: Miami history, Miami before 1900, Henry Flagler, Royal Palm, film researcher, historical researcher, Fort Lauderdale historian, Miami historian

From food stand to drive-in and up in the sky: Hot Shoppes, Big Boy and ...

By Jane Feehan 

In 1963, airline caterer Hot Shoppes employed 550 in Miami. From their operations center at 4101 NW 25 Street, the company made soups, gravies, pastries, butchered meats, and purchased supplies. Hot Shoppes produced 5,000-6,000 meals a day during winter in the Magic City.

Its founder, J. Willard Marriott, opened his first food stand in 1927 in Washington, D.C. The small company, Hot Shoppes, was soon an icon in the capitol area, serving meals in a casual setting. Within a decade, Hot Shoppes entered the national market. 

The company pioneered the airline in-flight catering industry. They provided meals to Eastern, Pan American, TWA, Avianca and delivered to airline hubs from their facilities across the nation The company operated 100 plants throughout Florida in 1963 and had plans to open “in quick succession” seven more, according to Calvin Wienges, then southern regional manager.  

Its development of in-flight food service proved to be a boon, elevating its profile and expanding its business across the nation. The company was renamed Marriott Corporation in 1967. The year it became Marriott Corporation, the company purchased Big Boy, the following year, Roy Rogers restaurants. There were other chain restaurants—and soon a string of hotels. Hot Shoppes closed in 1999. Today, in the Anthem restaurant at the Marriott Marquis Washington, D.C., a lunch counter modeled after the original Hot Shoppes restaurants serves Hot Shoppes classic favorites.

So many in South Florida and throughout the nation have been touched in one way or another by what came to be emblematic of world-wide hospitality. And it all started with a food stand.Copyright © 2013. All rights reserved. Jane Feehan.

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Sources:

Miami News, April 7, 1963

Washington Post, Dec. 20, 2011

Marriott Corp.

Tags: Miami history, South Florida history, food history, film researcher, Jane Feehan Fort Lauderdale historian, Miami historian

Stranahan Park: Of Indian burial mounds and shuffleboard

Shuffleboard 1946
Florida State Archives/Florida Memory

10 E. Broward Blvd.
Fort Lauderdale, FL 33301

By Jane Feehan

Shuffleboard, with roots traceable to 15th-century England, was big in Fort Lauderdale beginning in the 1930s, especially after Stranahan Park was carved out of land deeded to the city. It was the site of games hosted by the Fort Lauderdale Shuffleboard Club with members from more than 30 states. The park was reportedly built with dirt from Indian burial mounds. Stranahan Park was a "cypress swamp" deeded to the city by Frank Stranahan in the early 1900s. 

In 1928, it was reported that construction of a "novel game" was to be completed at the park and expected to draw a large crowd of players because so many watched its installation. A croquet court was also to be opened. Stranahan Park was already a popular spot with its concerts, checkers and chess tables, and busy horseshoe courts to "make it one of the most beautiful and useful parks along the East coast."

See index or use search box for more posts on Frank Stranahan.

 Today, the 1.6-acre park consists of a pavilion, benches and an open play area. 

https://www.parks.fortlauderdale.gov/Home/Components/FacilityDirectory/FacilityDirectory/175/1091

Sources:

Fort Lauderdale News Jan. 15, 1928

Miami News , March 10, 1934

Copyright © 2013., 2021 All rights reserved. Jane Feehan.

Tags: Fort Lauderdale shuffleboard club, Fort Lauderdale in the 1930s, Fort Lauderdale historian, Miami historian, Frank Stranahan