Steel City Vice

11/27/2024

Did yinz know that under every building foundation and rock in Pittsburgh there's a mob story? Or a ghost story. Okay, maybe not every building .... Are you new to the South Side or a 4th generation resident who wants to know more about your house or the building where your business is located? No problem. History is Steel City Vice's hustle. Now that it's too cold for walking tours, the weather is perfect for some deep digging in the city's archives. What are you waiting for?

10/04/2024

Pittsburgh is about to lose a whole mess of underworld history after these Fifth Avenue buildings are demolished.

09/30/2024

We had a lively group of South Siders on last weekend's South Side by the Numbers walking tour. We paused in front of the former Lotus Club for a group photo. 📸 by Laura Hussey via Ashley Cortazzo.

09/27/2024

Newport, Kentucky, was a mob town for much of the 20th century. Controlled by the Cleveland syndicate led by Moe Dalitz, Newport was a wide-open city with gambling, prostitution, and bootleg booze. There's lots that Newport has in common with Pittsburgh, including the Cleveland syndicate's activities in both cities. A curious fact about Newport involves its one-way streets. Monmouth Street, which is one-way northbound was filled with so-called "day houses" like the Pepper Pod, which was a restaurant and brothel. The theory was that commuters heading north into Cincinnati could stop off at one of the many joints along Monmouth on the way to work. The southbound York Street catered to the homeward bound traffic with its "night houses." One of the most colorful holdovers from those days is the Brass Ass nightclub, one of two surviving Monmouth Street strip clubs. Formerly known as the Silver Slipper and the Stardust, the Brass Ass had it all.

09/10/2024

There's lots more than mob history to see & hear on the South Side by the Numbers walking tour.
Learn about life in the South Side during the 20th century where millions of workers had to take second & third jobs to make ends meet in buildings like this one. Tour info link in the comments.

09/03/2024

How numbers gambling took root in Pittsburgh's Hill District.

For much of the twentieth century, numbers gambling defined much of the Hill District’s economic and social landscapes. The street lottery immortalized in August Wilson’s plays and Hill District or…

09/02/2024

New fall dates for South Side by the Numbers walking tours. Dates & registration:

South Side by the Numbers is a stroll through South Side Flats mob history. Visit the spots where the action was decades before the steel mill closed and brunch menus replaced numbers slips. Betwee…

08/31/2024

Meet Mae Scheible, one of Pittsburgh's most enigmatic madams.

While researching a feature story on the history of brothels and s*x work in Pittsburgh, I tried to wrap my head around Mae Scheible’s incredible story. Her name appears in several overviews …

08/29/2024

Forget "Hell with the lid off," Pittsburgh was "one giant brothel."

Did you know that brothels are up there with the Steelers and U.S. Steel when it comes to what put Pittsburgh on the map?

07/24/2024

Pennsylvania’s penal code (1860) is required reading when writing about the history of Pittsburgh brothels.

06/18/2024

It’s a hot one out there … just like the summer of 1930 when a heatwave gripped Pittsburgh. Not all of the heat in 1930 came from the weather, though. On July 4, a group of gambling racketeers opened the Guyasuta Kennel Club at an O’Hara Township amusement park. Over the next two months, their drama played out in local newspapers as the district attorney tried to shut down the track. The drama ended, appropriately enough, in flames when the amusement park burned after the dog track was put out of business. Curious yet? Guyasuta Gangsters tells the dog track story and lots more in a free program hosted by the Carnegie Library’s South Side branch.

Date: Tuesday June 25
Time: 6-7pm
Cost: Free
Website: https://www.carnegielibrary.org/event/local-history-talk-guyasuta-gangsters-pittsburgh-mobsters-and-their-ill-fated-dog-track/

06/10/2024

Did yinz know that the Pennsylvania lottery debuted in 1972? Five years later, the lottery added a daily number game (I wonder where they got that idea). What's the state of state lotteries in 2024? Here's a recent Washington Post article.

This week, we explored the geography of sports betting and — much like the majority of gamblers — found ourselves at a loss. So we doubled down.

06/10/2024

The building now occupied by the Hot Metal Bridge Faith Community is one of the sites visited on the South Side by the Numbers walking tour. Years before the ministry acquired the property, it housed Antonini's restaurant. Anthony "N***y the Torch" Lagattuta bought the property in 1992 and he opened the restaurant. Lagattuta, who was born in the Hill District in 1932, cut his mob teeth as an arsonist. He later graduated to prostitution, p**n, gambling, and murder. Antonini's was one of nearly a dozen South Side properties N***y the Torch owned when he died in 1996.

06/09/2024

We had a small but engaged group at yesterday’s South Side by the Numbers walking tour. The weather was perfect. A surprise guest, a retired vice squad cop who busted Numbers racketeers, dropped in and told some memorable stories from his time on the rackets beat. Thank you Novel Ideas for participating and for sharing your photos.

06/06/2024

In 1929, Art Rooney [allegedly] bought the city's most flamboyant floating casino and speakeasy business, the Show Boat. He got longtime pals George and Milt Jaffe to run the operation. The Show Boat was one of many pleasure scows that plied the three rivers during the 20th century. Check out some of this history in the latest Pittsburgh City Paper.

In Pittsburgh, the days of big bands on barges and spectacular police raids on riverboats are long gone.

06/06/2024

Did you know that the Lotus Club was South Side's "one-stop shop?" After the mob took over the social club's charter, it was possible to visit the 27-room house and get booze and food, gamble, and get laid. Want to know the story behind this South Side cultural institution? There are still some remaining spots for Saturday's South Side by the Numbers walking tour. https://steelcityvice.com/south-side-by-the-numbers/

05/26/2024

Yesterday’s launch of the South Side by the Numbers walking tour was a hit. A dozen people strolled the Flats visiting sites where bootleggers and numbers racketeers lived and did business. The next dates for the tour are Saturday June 8 and Sunday June 9. Register now!

South Side by the Numbers is a stroll through South Side Flats mob history. Visit the spots where the action was decades before the steel mill closed and brunch menus replaced numbers slips. Betwee…

04/06/2024

There is a “Pittsburgh True Crime” panel at this year’s Greater Pittsburgh Festival of Books May 11. There will be some familiar names and faces.

Richard Gazarik, Paul Hodos, Jason Kirin will be at the Greater Pittsburgh Festival of Books!