New Year’s Eve 2009 is going to be an amazing night and the best way to spend it is at the Vollrath Tavern at the Hip Hop into the New Year Party with Brad Real and the Mudkids. If you’re looking for some mind blowing music and a nonstop good time then this event is for you. IndyConcerts.com has had the pleasure of promoting this event and the talented artist that are performing in it, but now its time to show some credit to the venue that’s allowing this all to happen…

I had the pleasure of going down to the Vollrath yesterday around 5:00pmish, and its definitely a different atmosphere during the day compared to the night time events, but show me a bar that isn’t. I met up with Matt Christman, the events manager at the Vollrath Tavern, who was nice enough to give me the infamous tour of the historic tavern. Now I won’t be able to tell the stories as well as Matt did, but I’ll do my best. Some of this stuff is pretty damn cool, especially if you are into the darker side of history.

The Vollrath Tavern opened in 1926 as a speakeasy, for those of you that don’t know what a speakeasy is:

A speakeasy was an establishment which illegally sold alcoholic beverages during the period of United States history known as Prohibition (1920–1932, longer in some states). During this time, the sale, manufacture, and transportation (bootlegging) of alcoholic beverages was illegal throughout the United States. The term may have come from a patron’s manner of ordering an alcoholic drink without raising suspicion — bartenders would tell patrons to be quiet and “speak easy”,— or from patrons’ ability to talk about alcohol without fearing that a government official might be listening.

Speakeasies became more popular and numerous as the Prohibition years progressed and more of them were operated by people connected to organized crime. Although police and Bureau of Prohibition agents would raid them and arrest the owners and patrons, the business of running speakeasies was so lucrative that they continued to flourish throughout America. In major cities, speakeasies were often quite elaborate, offering food, live music, floor shows, and striptease dancers. Corruption was rampant — speakeasy operators routinely bribed police to leave them alone or to give them advance notice of raids.

Old stairs with built in booze ramp

Thank you Wikipedia…Anyway the fact that it was originally a speakeasy had my interest sparked from the get go. The bar you see today when you walk into the Vollrath is actually considered upstairs an used to be two different fronts of the speakeasy. One section was a candy shop and the other was a barber shop with the speakeasy in the basement hidden from the authorities. As we opened the basement door and headed down into what felt like a trip back in time, I noticed how original everything still looked. Not a lot has changed since its inception in the 20′s. Now for those of you that know a little about speakeasies, besides providing lots of booze they needed to provide lots of exits in case their was a raid. Matt was telling me that there is rumored to be about 9 exits, but he in his diligent investigation over the past 6 months of working there, has only been able to find 6. But still that’s pretty cool that there are 6 known ways to escape from the Vollrath. In fact two of the exits fascinated me the most. One was boarded up so I couldn’t actually use it, but Matt informed me that it lead up into a secret door in the hallway of the adjoining apartment building. My other favorite was an exit that opened out the side of the building like a storm shelter would and this door was used for the unloading of the booze for the speakeasy. The cool thing was there was an old slide or ramp built next to the stairs so they could slide down the cases of booze quickly before anyone saw them. Near one of the other exits was an old long piece of wood with about a dozen pegs sticking out, it resembled a coat rack, but you could see, and from Matt telling me, that the pegs were longer than normal and this was because it was an old rack used to check your gun belt when you entered the bar. Just seeing all of these original artifacts was absolutely amazing.

Old dumbwaiter

Other artifacts that stood out as totally awesome we’re the old dumbwaiter and the original speakeasy cooler. The great thing about the dumbwaiter is that they still use it today to move cases of beer and liquor from the basement up to a secret cabinet behind the bar upstairs. For those you that don’t know what a dumbwaiter is: A simple dumbwaiter is a movable frame in a shaft, suspended by a rope on a pulley, guided by rails; most dumbwaiters have a shaft, car, and capacity smaller than those of passenger elevators, usually 100 to 1000 lbs. Before electric motors were added in the 1920s, dumbwaiters were controlled manually by ropes on pulleys. The other very interesting artifact was the original cooler used for the booze. And the fact that it is still standing isn’t the interesting part. What is so fascinating is that back in the speakeasy era a man was beaten to death against the cooler and back before their was censorship and filters for what the media could show the public a headline picture was printed in the Indianapolis Star of a bloody man laying dead on the ground in front of the cooler. If you search back in the microfilms at the public library you can actually see that very picture.

Moving on to some of the employees of the old speakeasy, they didn’t just consist of bartenders and bootleggers, but also hookers. Yes my friends you could get drunk and get laid all in the same place. Back behind the original bar were about 4 rooms from what I could see. Matt informed me that these rooms were used as a brothel for patrons looking for a little slap and tickle with their whiskey. There is even an old bathroom and shower where the girls would clean up after they completed their services. Sorry to those of you that were looking for a PG rated history lesson, not going to happen here.

And since we covered illegal booze, murders, and hookers, why not move on to bank robbers. But keep in mind these aren’t just any bank robbers. The robbers I am referring to are the acclaimed John Dillenger and his pose. John Dillenger was an American bank robber in the Midwest during the early 1930s. He was considered to be a dangerous criminal who was involved in the deaths of several police officers, robbed at least two dozen banks and four police stations, escaped from jail twice and was idolized by some as a modern-day Robin Hood. The exploits of Dillinger and his gang, along with those of other criminals of the Great Depression such as Bonnie and Clyde and Ma Barker, dominated the attention of the American press and its readers during what is sometimes referred to as the public enemy era (1931–1935) hints the name to the recent movie Public Enemy staring Johnny Depp as John Dillenger. This “public enemy era” period was what led to the development of the modern, more sophisticated Federal Bureau of Investigation. Rumor is that John Dillenger used the Vollrath Tavern on multiple occasions to plan robberies to local banks, including one on Mass. Ave.

In one of the rooms in the basement, the same room matt and I ended our tour and hung out a bit shooting shit about music, is a poker table set up to pay respect to those that used to use this covert speakeasy as a way to stick it to the man. Its a very cool feeling to be down in the basement of the current Vollrath Tavern. It makes you wonder what it would have been like back in the days of the speakeasies and John Dillenger….

I want to thank Matt Chirstman and the Vollrath Tavern for not only allowing me to take a trip back in history with them but for throwing what will be one of the best NYE parties you guys have ever seen. The Vollrath has some great shows coming up, be sure to check them out at their website: www.vollrathindy.com and also on Facebook. For those of you that have never been its located just south of Indy at 118 East Palmer Street, Indianapolis, IN 46225.