Hey Uncle Vig!

One of the very first places I ever worked was Hemmingways. I started working there in 1980 and there were lines out the door every weekend. Big "Tino" was the doorman.

Boy was that a "hangout". The place was always crawling with gangsters in the 1980's. There were also what we used to call "half a wiseguy's", you know, wannabees with the white tie and black suit and the pinky rings who talked all kinds of shit but were connected to nobody. Just bullshit artists.

Its been my experience that the really heavy guys didn't swagger quite so much.

The owner was a crazy Russian guy named George Young. Every night when I'd walk in he'd say hello to me between long snorts. This guy was doing so much coke he couldn't say three words without his brains falling out of his nostrills.

The place was a hot spot for years, until it finally closed sometime in the mid 90's.

Funny story......My uncle was a carpenter and he did some re modeling when it became a gay place called "ManKind".

He told me that the new owners wanted some walls taken out upstairs where the office was. When they started chopping into the walls they found bags of this sticky yellow stuff. And off duty cop told them it was bags of coke that were probably hidden in those walls 10 or 15 years ago. The Florida humidity just got to them and ruined all of it.

Hollywood was a swinging place back then. Loaded with late night clubs and lots of gangsters during the winter months.....

Thanks for bringing up good old Hemminways.

Sal