During Prohibition of 1920's baseball great Babe Ruth lived at Ansonia Hotel Broadway & W 73rd St and drank at the Dublin House speakeasy 3min away on W 79th St NYC

During Prohibition of the 1920's baseball great Babe Ruth lived at Ansonia Hotel Broadway & W 73rd St and drank at the Dublin House speakeasy, a Irish Pub owned by John P. Carway, 3min away on W 79th St near Broadway NYC. Babe Ruth spent the majority of his "bachelor" life as a New York Yankee at the Ansonia Hotel from 1919 to 1929. Bachelor in quotes because although Babe was married at the time to his first wife, Helen Woodford, he was certainly not faithful to her. Babe Ruth moved to the Ansonia with his wife when the Boston Red Sox sold his contract to the Yankees after the 1919 season, he was 24 years old, Babe stayed there till 1929 apparently on the NY Yankees tab. Babe lived hard by drinking and womanizing at the Ansonia Hotel located at 2109 Broadway and the corner of W 73rd Street on the Upper West Side of Manhattan NYC for 10 years. 

Hard drinking baseball super star Babe Ruth hung out at speakeasy's on the Upper West Side of NY during prohibition in the 1920's. One of the Babe's favorite places would have been the Dublin House bar (Irish Pub) on W 79th Street, just 6 blocks north from the Ansonia Hotel on W 73rd Street where Babe lived from 1919 to 1929, over 10 years. Babe Ruth had an Irish upbringing at St Mary's Industrial School for Boys in Baltimore, taught by strict Irish priests. Ruth spent about 12 years at the school. The Dublin House bar (Irish Pub), run by John P. Carway, opened as a speakeasy in 1921 on W 79th Street and a legal bar in 1933. A speakeasy is an establishment that illegally sold alcoholic beverages during prohibition and Babe tried to drink every drop of it. 

Babe Ruth a was a terror on the ball field and driving up and down Broadway of the upper west side in his roadster. On Thursday April 21st, 1921 a motorcycle cop chased Babe Ruth in his roadster up Broadway from 97th Street as Babe was speeding to the Polo Grounds, the shared home field for both the NY Giants (baseball) and NY Yankees. Ruth would later have to show up at West Side Police Court. Babe Ruth loved cars, but wasn’t particularly skilled behind the wheel. He was often stopped by police. But after learning who he was, most cops simply waved Babe Ruth on. 

Babe's second speeding arrest in 1921. An exception was the officer who nabbed Ruth as he raced his maroon sports car on New York’s Riverside Drive on Thursday June 8th 1921. Taken straight to traffic court, he was sentenced to a day in jail—a “day” being until 4 p.m. The magistrate fined the Babe $100, which he promptly paid with a single bill, and sentenced him to a day in jail. Babe was actually in a cell from 11:30 am to 4 pm. Babe Ruth hightailed it out of the Jail at 300 Mulberry street, and sped away to the Polo Grounds, 9 miles away, to get into the game, New York Yankees against the Cleveland Indians, in the 6th inning at 4:40 p.m. The Yankees won the game in the ninth. Babe Ruth the man whose parents sent him to reform school at age 7—they said he was “incorrigible”—wrecked multiple cars, was arrested for speeding and hit-and-runs, drank prolifically, frequented prostitutes, and was hit with a paternity suit. “He was the most uninhibited human being I have ever known,” said sportswriter John Drebinger. “He just did things.” 

Babe Ruth wasn't an orphan, though he did grow up in a school for orphans. His dad, George Ruth, Sr., owned a saloon downstairs from the family's apartment, and, according to some accounts, a concerned neighbor told the cops a child was living there after a gunfight broke out in the bar. Babe Ruth grew up in a bar, he would frequent bars the rest of his life. The courts then remanded young Ruth to St. Mary’s Catholic Industrial School for Orphans, Delinquent, Incorrigible and Wayward Boys in Baltimore. It's said his parents would get him released temporarily a few times, but his behavior was too wild for them to control and he'd quickly be sent back to the strict Irish priests at St Mary's school.

Just before Babe Ruth arrived at the Ansonia Hotel and drinking at the Dublin House Irish Bar, the mixture of bad guys and baseball turned bitter. On September 21, 1919, a group of Chicago White Sox players assembled in the Ansonia hotel room of first baseman Arnold “Chick” Gandil and agreed to throw the World Series for about $20,000 a man, most only got $5,000. The money was put up by Arnold “The Big Bankroll” Rothstein, the king of New York’s gambling houses. Arnold Rothstein also ran the speakeasies in New York City, he got a cut of the action for protection from police, paying them off to keep the underground bars in business. The White Sox lost five games to three against the Cincinnati Reds in the World Series, playing so clumsily that suspicion arose, and baseball’s biggest scandal ever was set in motion. Though the players were found innocent by a 1921 grand jury, they were later banned from baseball for life by commissioner for life Kenesaw Mountain Landis.

Arnold Rothstein ran the speakeasies in New York City, he got a cut of the action for protection from police, paying them off to keep the underground bars in business from 1921 to Nov 1928 when he was murdered. Arnold Rothstein was the paramount fixer, one who acted as go-between in business contracts with the city, in the quashing of arrests, in extralegal "permissions to operate speakeasies" and other criminal enterprises, and in other bargainings that paid off politicians and police. Arnold Rothstein was an American racketeer, crime boss, businessman, and gambler in New York City until his murder Nov 4th 1928. Arnold Rothstein was gunned down at the Park Central Hotel 870 7th Ave Manhattan, a .38 caliber detective special Colt revolver was found outside on the street by taxi driver Al Bender. 

“Who shot A.R.?" Cops in NYC did not try too hard to solve the murder of Arnold Rothstein, as too many politicians and police brass would be hit if they did. His associates include Charlie “Lucky” Luciano, Meyer Lansky, Dutch Schultz, Jack “Legs” Diamond. Prohibition helped Rothstein reach new heights of power and income. Rothstein was quicker than some of his mobster colleagues to see the huge profits that could come from illegal sales of banned alcohol in speakeasies. Notably, although Rothstein was often considered a professional, even corporate, member of the Mob, he was also unafraid to use his connections with violent New York City street gangs to further his business interests. The Hotel Metropole opened in 1910 at 147 West 43rd Street and became a nightlife nexus of the Tenderloin district known as Satan’s Circus. Owned by Tammany Hall power broker, Big Tim Sullivan, The Metropole boasted a 24 hour liquor license and a casino managed by Arnold Rothstein. Arnold Rothstein, the Brain of Broadway, managed Big Tim’s gambling parlor on the second floor. 

The opulent casino featured faro tables and roulette wheels. Some of the biggest crap games New York City history went down in the Metropole. It was also in the Metropole where Abe Attell, a former champion featherweight boxer, caught the attention of Arnold Rothstein becoming The Brain’s bagman and enforcer. Attell served Rothstein well during fixing of the 1919 World Series, insulating the gangster from criminal prosecution, serving as a go between for Rothstein and the Chicago White Sox's players, who all originally met at the Ansonia Hotel at 2109 Broadway at W 73rd Street in September 1919. Baseball super star Babe Ruth coincidentally moved into the Ansonia Hotel at 2109 Broadway at W 73rd Street with his wife in November 1919.

Babe Ruth's $20,000 salary from the Yankees in 1920 would be worth $296,000 in 2022, he spent most of it on women and drink, Babe was 25 years old in 1920. The 100 Year old Dublin House Irish Pub at 225 West 79th Street NYC where Babe Ruth often visited survived Prohibition and Covid. The Dublin House Irish Pub first opened during Prohibition in 1921 as a speakeasy where Babe Ruth would have hung out. Formerly the Dublin House building at 225 W 79th Street was an orphanage, just like where Babe Ruth grew up in Baltimore. According to the blog 'Lost New York City': [A] man named John P. Carway rented the space at 225 West 79th Street back in 1921 and operated it as a speakeasy. The first floor was the bar, the second floor the restaurant, the back of the third floor was the kitchen. 

The Dublin House bar was set up as a New York State corporation as indicated on the owner of the bar, John P. Carway's business card. Dublin born John P. Carway bought the Dublin House building in 1933 after Prohibition was repealed and had the big 'Neon Harp' sign installed outside the building, an old town house, which was owned at the time as an investment by the etiquette writer Emily Post. Mike Cormican, a Dublin House bartender (born in Ireland), bought it in 2006.

Dublin House officially opened as a legal pub in 1933 easily recognized by its neon harp sign out front. Bars couldn't serve alcohol from January, 1920 through December, 1933. “Special arrangements” with authorities made it possible for the Dublin House bar to continue selling alcohol discreetly right through the country’s “dry” years. Gangster Arnold Rothstein ran the speakeasies in New York City, he got a cut of the action for protection from police, paying them off to keep the underground bars in business. But banning alcohol didn't curb America's thirst or the Babe's for it, which is why Dublin House began as a speakeasy. 

Babe Ruth lived at the Hotel Ansonia on W 73rd St just a 3 min drive from the Dublin House speakeasy at W 79th St in the 1920's, Babe would have been a regular. Babe Ruth's parents essentially allowed him to be raised by the strict Xaverian Brothers, many Irish, at St. Mary's Industrial school in Baltimore, giving him an Irish Catholic upbringing. After Ruth married Claire Hodgson in 1933, they moved to her 11-room apartment at 345 West 88th Street in Manhattan, New York, he stayed on the Upper West Side of NYC near Yankee Stadium. It would be fair to say that New York City never truly accepted Prohibition, Jan 17, 1920 – Dec 5, 1933. Laws were passed, an amendment ratified, and even police task forces trained to enforce these laws, but the City of Immigrants and the Babe never gave in.

The Dublin House was raided by Federal Agents on Feb 9th, 1933 just 10 months before the end of Prohibition, a bartender by the name of John Bartell of W 68th street was arrested. Supposedly "much liquor" was taken by the agents. Supposedly the place was stripped of its furnishings, but the Dublin House bar opened on W 79th Street legally on December 6th, 1933, one day after Prohibition ended. Somebody paid somebody off. New York at the time was awash with booze. Prohibition was largely an idea born in America’s religious rural heartland, and many cosmopolitan city dwellers resented it being imposed on them. 

Nowhere was this more the case than in New York, the wettest of wet cities, where speakeasies, cabarets and restaurants served alcohol under the protection of corrupt policemen funded by Arnold Rothstein who ran the speakeasies in New York City. The United States government established the Bureau of Prohibition to fight this new war, a federal task force with the sole purpose of cracking down on illegal alcohol trade and manufacturing. One well known agent in Chicago during Prohibition was Justice Department Special Agent Eliot Ness and his "Untouchables".

Irish owned and operated for over 100 years, the Dublin House was often the first thing sailors docking at 79th Street Boat Basin saw. Officially operating as a pub since 1933 in the post-prohibition era, its neon harp has remained a beacon in the area for those seeking respite from the craziness of the city around them. The Carway family from Ireland opened the bar during prohibition in 1921 and it became a legal bar in 1933, that's when the sign went up. For years, it was run by John P. Carway's nephew Chris Waters, and in 2006, longtime bartender Mike Cormican, who hails from County Galway, Ireland, bought it to keep the tradition going. "We're very well known and we get a lot of tourists, people come back year after year, people who drank here years ago come back here and drink again,” said Cormican.

Babe Ruth loved baseball, women, and the drink. On January 5, 1920, the New York Yankees major league baseball club announces its purchase of the heavy-hitting outfielder George Herman “Babe” Ruth from the Boston Red Sox for the sum of $125,000. In all, Ruth had played six seasons with the Red Sox, leading them to three World Series victories. In New York during the 1920, Ruth's primary position changed to outfielder and he led the Yankees to seven American League pennants and four World Series victories. Babe Ruth was a huge star in New York and attracted so many fans that the team was able to open a new stadium in 1923, Yankee Stadium, dubbed “The House That Ruth Built.” “Babe Ruth all time great baseball player, he could pitch, he could hit, he could eat seventeen hot dogs and launch a baseball five hundred feet in Yankee stadium. He ate too much. He smoked too much. He drank way too much even during Prohibition. And Babe rented his hookers by the dozen. What’s not to love?”

Dublin House is a neighborhood drinking spot on W 79th Street. It opened at the beginning of prohibition in 1921, survived that, reopened as an actual pub once alcohol was legalized in December 1933 and has remained in the same place ever since. The barkeepers speak in an authentic Irish brogue, but considering how patrons begin to pick up the brogue the more they drink, by the end of the night, everyone sounds like they just stepped off the boat from Dublin anyway. Nicola Cusack is the Dublin House daytime bartender on W 79th Street. Draught Guinness is on tap, Harp is available as are all the usual European cans and bottles along with standard bar kitchen fare like hamburgers and chips. The charm of the place is begun largely by the unusual large neon sign which has always been an eye-catcher even when neon was more prolific, and extends to the original decor which is pretty much original.
 

Bill Warner Private Investigator Sarasota 941-926-1926 - Cheaters and Child Custody Cases.