Alexander's Lounge (46 Sweeney)

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Alexander's Lounge (46 Sweeney)

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Alexander's, ink and watercolor (Dennis Reed Jr)While only one-story today, before a 1979 fire there was a basement and two upper floors of rooms. Alexander's, ink and watercolor (Dennis Reed Jr).  See our blog post, "Alexander's Lounge: A Revealing History."

Early Years: The White Star Hotel

(1875 map shows a smaller building on the site.)

The first direct mention: In 1889, Captain James Ennis's 25 year-old nephew (also names James Ennis) kills himself after wounding his 16 year-old bride in the right arm with a pistol in their small house behind the State Bank near Dodge & Co.'s lumber yard, on Manhattan Street. "White Star Hotel" called a "sailor's house." Newphew Ennis dies sometime later.

1893/4 advert for Ennis's newly remodelled hotel premises "speial attention" to "small opera troops." An item around the same time calls it "Star Hotel," and says he is "Overseer of the Poor." "An update to the establishment:. James Ennis, that born hustler, who conducts the "White Star Hotel" on Sweeney Street is up to the times in all he undertakes. He has had his place of business thoroughly refurnished and equipped with modern conveniences recently until now he has a hostlery of which he can well feel proud. Mr. Ennis is one of our most enterprising citizens and his personality as an accommodating and painstaking landlord is. well-known, locally and among many traveling men."

Also 1893/1894 there is an ad selling the "boarding house and saloon," The White Star Hotel.

A curious 1897 item in the Tonawanda News, claims in 1882 Captain James Ennis establishes the White Star Hotel, having also owned the hundred year-old Log Cabin on bicycle-friendly cinder of the River Road, at the foot of the trolley track. An 1889 item in "The Review" of Farmer's Village, N.Y.: "Mrs. James Ennis, of the White Star hotel, Tonawanda, writes us that Frank Hennon (as we decipher the name), a sailor, claiming to belong to this county, recently died at her house, from an injury resulting from a falling wall. Should this meet the eyes of friends of the deceased, further information can be obtained by addressing the above."

October 13, 1897, Ennis's Log Cabin robbed of a "nickel-in-the-slot contrivance," on "the other side of the Buffalo & Niagara Electric Railroad Company's big car barn." Difficult-to-read article metions a ghost and hypnosis.

Photos in the early 20th Century show a 3-story building on the site.

By 1905 the hotel has changed hands to William Phelps, at least  according to an item that identifies him as a wife beater. 

Philip Perew's White Star Hotel (c.1907-1921)

Canadian-born eccentric Philip Perew is running the White Star by September 1907. It is likely that some of the "liberties" now associated with the site were already being taken at this early date--Perew owns a dozen or so Goose Island houses of ill repute in his lifetime. Liquor and women was pretty much his business model (and questionable inventions, but that's another story.)

How eccentric is he? He keeps a "menagerie" of exotic animals with him at the hotel. The collection of poor souls is narrowly evacuted before a disastrous fire on October 11, 1909 "amost entirely" destroys the building. Making the evacuation slightly easier is the fact that, as the Tonawanda News reports, "the wildcat and the Russian wolf had been removed to another place some weeks ago." Rebuilt from scratch?

Although Perew appears to hand over ownership (or only management?) of the hotel in February 1921, he operates about a dozen Goose Island houses of ill repute, and a Perew Hotel on the three mile road (two mile?). In 1937 (immediately after his Goose Island establishments are shuttered by police) Perew accuses Chief Criminal Deputy Amedeo L. Coppola of shaking him down for $200 a month in bribes, and takes him to court in a trial that is a local sensation. He will live at 46 Sweeney until his death in 1946.

Niagara Hotel and Vincio Tojan, back to White Star (1921)

In a 1921, 46 Sweeney is called the "Niagara Hotel," and its "Vincio Tojan" says he is the new proprietor when he is arrested in a  March 20th, 1921 raid by dry agents" disguised as intoxicated farmers." In May 1921 Theodore Stann and the White Star Hotel are mentioned in another article.

1930 Perew is mentioned as owner of the White Star Hotel, desribed as a "two-story frame structure."

White Star Hotel to Silver Sails Restaurant: Saunders years

1934 White Star Hotel mention.

In June 1935 and October 1937, Charles Bradley of the White Star Hotel appears as "proprietor" in the News.

In December 1938 the White Star Hotel is "open under new management" of Dorothy Saunders according to this want ad.

1939 is advertising the White Star Hotel with "You'll Have a High Old Time at Dorothy Saunders White Star Hotel. Good food. Good drinks. Good fun." 

In 1940 a Niagara Gazette item calls it a "three-story structure."

By 1950 the building is condemned as "unfit for human  habitation," and the remaining lodgers are evicted.  May 1951 is the actual eviction. Joesphine Saunders is the owner. Much is made of the poor children of the two families in the "basement apartments" who are liberated from the squalor and (in one case) shuttled to Lockport.

Josephine "Pammy" Saunders purchases the building from Perew.* A large investment in a shiny new restaurant in the basement is made, and the "Silver Sail Restaurant" is up and running. It is advertised in 1952 with Dorothy "Thompson" as proprietor.  I am assured by a descendant that no monkey business was happening at 46 Sweeney in this era. (This photograph of John Saunders tending bar in front of a "No Dancing" sign seems to support this claim.)

1958 disorderly conduct.

1960-11-14 brawl with Niagara Falls out-of-towners and 20+ locals, some of a motorcycle gang.

Josephine Saunders is granted a liquor license for the Silver Sail as late as 10/19/1965. She dies 4/29/1966.

Alexander's Lounge: Enter the Vergos (c. 1967)

Wild times return to the old haunt with the arrival of the Vergos brothers in our story: the club's namesake "Alex," and Peter. The first time their name appears in print in the Tonawanda News is May 1967 in an ad for a "Waitress for Alexander's Lounge, between 21 - 35 years old," and a cook.
An August 1969 melee causes brother-owners Alex G. and Peter G. Vergos to be charged by State Liquor Authority with "improper conduct" and "disorder"; In 1972 charges against Alex of sexual abuse of a "go-go dancer" are dropped. In 1979 another disastrous fire strikes the (3-story) building. Perhaps this fire is what results in the shorter building we know today?

Alexander G. Vergos dies January 21, 1994.

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*This information is from a Saunder family member. Uncertain year - Dorothy Saunders was operating it by 1939. 

Items

The Log Cabin (Hotel), White Star Hotel owned by Capt. James Ennis, article (Ton News, 1897-10-08).pdf

White Star Hotel owned by James Ennis, no address, article (Ton News, 1897-10-08).pdf

Wonderfully descriptive article relates a chance encounter by two wheeling dandies with Capt. James Ennis and his "Log Cabin," "a famous resort on theā€¦

One more case of small pox, White Star hotel, article (Ton News, 1908-05-07).pdf

One more case of small pox, White Star hotel, article (Ton News,1908-05-07).pdf

A Chicago sailor to blame, William Malloy, who "was removed to the pesthouse at Niagara Falls this morning. His case is medium in severity."

White Star Hotel, seen from Tonawanda Power Co construction (HST, Archive P-2471, 1928-08-02)

White Star Hotel, seen from Tonawanda Power Co construction (HST, Archive P-2471, 1928-08-02) .jpg

From the collection of the Historical Society of the Tonawandas