I think these are Roger Evoy's photos - Outside and Inside Bay Shores back in the day during the day
Episode 14 - Flashback
- Opening Bay Shores for the Season
Bay Shores manager Jack Murray had been
driving his white Cadillac convertible north for three days, coming up from his
annual winter sojourn in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, and trying to get into the
frame of mind of working another summer season on the Somers Point bay.
While he was driving down the Black Horse Pike he
thought he was moving pretty fast – over 70 miles per hour, but was quickly
overtaken and passed by group of about a half dozen or so motorcycle bikers
wearing Hells Angels patches and California rockers, and slowed down to the
legal speed limit.
About forty-five minutes later, as he turned around
the Somers Point circle, he saw the same bikers being escorted off the causeway
by a convoy of three Ocean City police cruisers, a sight that brought an ironic
smile to Murray’s face.
He turned off the circle and made a quick right down
the first side street and pulled into the vast and empty Bay Shores parking
lot, littered with broken bottles and cans and pulled up to the front door of
the dilapidated old wooden clapboard seasonal nightclub that had been there for
as long as anyone could remember.
It was a weekday in mid-May, and Murray hadn’t been
back since he locked the door after Labor Day 1964, eight months ago.
After unlocking the padlock on the chained door,
Murray turned the handle and pushed the door open a crack with his shoulder as
a rush of stale beer and cigarette smoked air flushed out past him. As the door
opened wider the streak of sunlight glistened on half filled beer bottles,
drink glasses and ashtrays on the bars, the leftovers, exactly as it was at 4
am on the day after Labor Day 1964.
That was the night Harry Anglemeyer was murdered,
Murray thought momentarily. In fact, Harry was probably still alive when he
locked up and left town that night, the last morning of a memorable season.
That was some grand finale to the end of the summer
of 1964, one that would be hard to top – with the Democratic National
Convention ten miles away in Atlantic City, the Beatles at the Boardwalk Hall,
the Miss America Pageant, Jerry's Kids Telethon, Sinatra at the Five, hell,
Harry’s murder seemed to have gotten lost in the headlines, bumped from page
one of the Press of Atlantic City to the back pages, and has probably since
been forgotten by most people. But not everybody.
As Murray flipped on the electric and lights and
surveyed the disaster in front of him, one that had to be cleaned up so they
could reopen for Memorial Day weekend, a car drove up and a young man in half
an Army uniform got out and said, “Hi, are you Mister Murray?”
Murray shook his head yes.
Reaching out to shake hands the young man introduced
himself, “I’m Vince Rennich. My mother introduced me to Mr. McCann at dinner
last night, and he said if I came down here you would give me a job at Bay
Shores.”
Then, looking at the dilapidated old building asked,
“This is Bay Shores?”
“Yes, welcome to Bay Shores and Somers Point,”
Murray replied. "I think you'll like it here once you get into it."
“This is the first time I’ve been to Somers Point,”
Renich said, “and I got lost getting here.”
“Well, you can work as a bar back until a bar
tending job opens up, and can start by helping to clean up this joint – clear
off the bars first and then sweep the floors. I’ll be back in a little while
with some help for you. And you can have the pick of the rooms upstairs to stay
in,” he said as an afterthought.
Murray then drove down the street a few blocks and
turned up Delaware Avenue to Gregory’s Bar where he parked on the street and
went in the back door by the pool table.
He sat at the old Mahogany bar across from what they
call the Tight End Fishing Club.
Gregory’s has changed a bit since then, though the
long polished, rectangle Philippine mahogany bar is still the same, in 1965
there was a pool table in the back with a juke box, a dart board next to the
Men’s Room door, a shuffle board against the side wall and a wooden telephone
booth with folding glass doors next to a table from where the Somers Point
mayor conducted most of his afternoon business.
Somers Point Mayor Stretch's routine was to work at his city hall office until noon when he would walk across the street to Gregory's for a three martini and snapper turtle soup lunch.
Murray ordered a drink from Charles Carney the
bartender, and bought “the boys” a round, before ordering some clams on the
half shell that made Carney's eyes roll as he had to shuck them himself, part
of the job at the time. While Carney shucked his clams in front of him Murray
told Carney that he had a new guy came in without any experience, a friend of
Mr. McCann, and he asked Carney to “show him the ropes,” so when he moved up
from bar back to bartender, he knew what to do.
“Send him up for lunch tomorrow,” Carney said with an Irish smirk,. “And I'll show him the ropes and teach him a few tricks,” he paused for effect, “like how to rip off the owners.”
“Send him up for lunch tomorrow,” Carney said with an Irish smirk,. “And I'll show him the ropes and teach him a few tricks,” he paused for effect, “like how to rip off the owners.”
Murray knew Carney pretty well from when he was a
bartender at Bay Shores a few years earlier, and knew he was only kidding, so
he went on and explained to Carney that he needed a work crew to clean up the
bar so he could open by Memorial Day weekend.
A few guys at the Tight End Club overheard him and
quickly spoke up, some had done the chore before.
“We’ll help you Jack,” said Bill Saylor, a carpet
layer by trade, who knew that Murray would pay them well in cash and let them
have whatever booze was left when they closed the bar last Labor Day.
The crew included Saylor, brothers John and Timmy
Hunt, Gary Duffy and Wayne Kline, a paraplegic by birth who walked like a crab
but was very smart, had a college degree as an accountant, but was severely
handicapped. He also worked as the golf cart manager at the Atlantic City
Country Club – the Northfield links, and for drinking money, he cleaned up the
Bay Shores parking lot of debris every morning when it was open.
Murray walked over to Bill Saylor and pealed off a
C-note hundred dollar bill and gave it to Saylor, telling him to buy some
pizzas and hoagies for the work crew and then pealed another C-note and told
Saylor to give it to the new guy at Bay Shores, Vince Renich, just out of the
army, a friend of Mr. McCann. "Tell Vince that this is just an advance,
and I'll check back with you in a few hours after I take care of some business.
Saylor just nodded, as he had done this before, as
the Tight End Club looked at Murray like the Iceman Cometh, bringing some much
needed work, some cash flow, booze to drink and food to eat while you worked.
Murray then went over to Somers Point Mayor
Stretch's table and sat down with his drink as the mayor put down his newspaper
so you could see his face for the first time.
“Thanks for the drink,” the mayor said, as he was
considered “one of the boys,” but he winched a twitch when Murray asked him the
status of the Anglemeyer case.
“It's all covered,” the mayor said. “It was a
homosexual hit squad who targeted Harry and tried to blackball him. They
confessed and are already in jail. It's all covered.”
“What the fuck do you mean 'it's all covered,'?”
Murray talked down to the mayor.
“It's going to trial soon, and will all be over by
Labor Day,” the mayor said confidently. “Since Egg Harbor Township doesn't have
a police force and the State Police are too busy, the case file has been given
to the Ocean City PD, and they've got it all under control.”
Murray knew better, but didn't want to tell what he
knew to the mayor of Somers Point, who apparently was out of the loop on what
was really going down behind the scenes.
“Well here's a dime,” Murray said slapping a ten
cent piece on the table.
“Call Mr. Kirkman and tell him that I'm coming to
see him, now,” Murray said emphatically, getting up, walking back to the bar to
put his drink down and leave a $20 tip for Carney, waved to the boys who were
still at the bar and walked out the back door.
He nodded to Bill Saylor across the street, loading
up the work crew into his long white van filled with carpets, and said, “I'll
check in with you in a few hours.”
Making a left on Shore Road Murray passed Mac's and
the Shoe Store on the left and Somers Mansion on the right, the High Point,
Point Diner, Your Father's Mustache as he turned around the circle past the
Crab Trap and Circle Liquor store, and right onto the cause way and over the
draw bridge, from where in the distance across the bay he could see the
Flanders Hotel on the far horizon, standing out on the Ocean City skyline. As
he got closer he could see Kirkman's two-story square penthouse on the top
floors, and wasn't looking forward to going there.
Murray considered going right to the top to see
Stumpy Orman, who he knew was right then holding court at a table at Arnold
Orsatti's restaurant in Atlantic City. While Murray had never met Orman, he
knew he was the top underworld boss at the Shore, and Murray was acquainted
with Orsatti, who owned Orsatti's Casino that was now the Under 21 Club, next
door to Bay Shores, where they had top flight entertainment, but no booze, and
was popular for its endurance dance contests. Orsattti wasn't really a mobster
like Orman, but he was his congenial host, and let Orman take care of his
business out of his restaurant, and was handsomely rewarded for it.
But he would be stepping out of line by going
directly to Orman, so Murray decided to stay in rank and talk to Elwood Kirkman
instead, as he was more in tune to the Ocean City political situation, which
was being haunted by the Anglemeyer murder, then as now, over fifty years
later.
Murray knew that Anglemeyer wasn't killed by a
homosexual hit squad, because while he was in Florida he learned from a police
source that a very distinctive diamond ring, that Harry Anglemeyer
ostentatiously wore on his pinkie finger, was stolen the night he was murdered,
probably by one of the three guys who picked him up and put him behind the
wheel of his parked car.
And the ring had been pawned in Florida by someone
Murray knew was a bouncer at the Dunes, who worked for his boss, John McCann,
Sr., the co-owner of Bay Shores.
It wasn't “all covered,” as the mayor of Somers
Point had professed, and Murray wanted to protect his own interests and the
interests of his boss and that of Bay Shores and the Dunes.
This was just the beginning, Murray thought, as he
drove over the second draw bridge and onto Ocean City's Ninth Street, and where
it would end no one knew.
END OF ACT ONE – Waiting on the Angels – The Long
Cool Summer of '65 Revisited.
The Tight End Club at Gregory's at a later date - some of the same guys
Gregorys as it was in 1965
No comments:
Post a Comment