The various businesses located at 3700 Oberlin Avenue – the home of today's Mutt & Jeff's – has been the subject of many blog posts over the years.
While many of the previous modern era nightclubs and restaurants located in that same building that is still there today are well-remembered (such as Sherwood Inn), the ones dating back to the 1930s are not so well known. Penny Morgan's – a notorious brothel – is one of them. (I've written about Penny Morgan's several times.)
Another is the 400 Bridge Club, which was the scene in 1934 of a tragedy involving the nightclub's two business partners. As I described it back on this blog post, "It happened in early September 1934. Florence Lee, a divorcee and co-owner of the club, had been attempting to keep her partner, Michael Carreo, from driving home as she believed he was drunk. She took his keys and, for her trouble, received a beating from him, including a punch in the face.
"He drove off with Joseph Yankowsky, the manager of the nightclub, who lived nearby. Furious, Miss Lee arrived at Yankowsky's residence shortly thereafter and shot Carreo several times with a .38 automatic pistol.
"Then she drove directly to Lorain police headquarters and gave herself up. Carreo died later that day.
"When told that her partner was dead, she was quoted as saying, "Why did I do it? Oh, why did I do it? Forgive me, Mike. I must have been crazy, Mike."
In November Florence Lee was found guilty of manslaughter by a common pleas jury. Here's the front page of the November 1, 1934 Lorain Journal with the story, as well as the continuation.
Florence was one mean looking lady.To quote Jon Bon Jovi,"she gives love a bad name".
ReplyDeleteJudge Webber was 81-82 at the time and (like many other judges) prone to lecturing from the bench. 1934 was the year his last term ended. He ran for another term but lost the primary. This was years before the 70-year election age limit was imposed on Ohio county judges in 1968.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if he really meant "dancing girls" or had something else in mind.
A woman shooting a man was always big news. The other way around, well, that was common enough to receive far few column-inches. Sometimes, it generated hardly any coverage at all.
Thanks, Don – I was counting on you to weigh in as I knew you would have some great background information, since local murder and judges are two of your areas of expertise!
ReplyDelete