Saratoga Springs Preservation Foundation
Preservation Matters
Samantha Bosshart, Executive Director
January 4, 2013
Saratoga’s Casinos Spotlighted at Preservation Foundation Annual Meeting
Everyone loves the Canfield Casino. And, most everyone knows its celebrated history as “The Club House” built in 1870 by John Morrissey, subsequently acquired and upgraded by Richard Canfield, and closed by the authorities in 1907 in response to the nation-wide anti-gambling sentiment. Today, it is one of Saratoga Springs’ greatest landmarks.
But what about Saratoga’s other casinos – the ones that operated on or near Saratoga Lake as mafia-controlled night clubs from the 1920s through the early 1950s? With names like Piping Rock, Arrowhead, Riley’s, Meadow Brook and Newman’s, these “lake houses,” as they came to be known, catered to the rich and famous, just as the Canfield Casino did. Unfortunately, no lake house buildings remain to remind of us that fascinating chapter in Saratoga’s history. However, there are people like local author Joseph Cutshall-King who remembers this history. He chose to do further research and write The Burning of Piping Rock, a historical mystery novel substantially rooted in fact, in order for others to remember this part of Saratoga’s history.
This Tuesday, January 8, at the Annual Meeting of the Saratoga Springs Preservation Foundation, the author will discuss the history that went into the writing of his novel, including the history and architecture of these lost gambling establishments. His lecture at the Dee Sarno Theater at the Saratoga Arts Center is free and open to the public.
The Burning of the Piping Rock is built on a foundation of historical events. The Piping Rock was a mafia-controlled nightclub and casino located at the northwest corner of Union Avenue and Gilbert Road, now where the Piping Rock Circle development is today. It was shut down in wake of the famous United States Senate Kefauver Commission hearings on organized crime.
The Piping Rock burned to the ground on the night of August 16, 1954, the same day Alfred Vanderbilt’s Native Dancer defeated First Glance, another Vanderbilt horse, by nine lengths at the Saratoga Race Course just a mile or so away. The casino, seized for back taxes and later sold, was uninsured at the time of the arson.
Cutshall-King’s father, a pharmacist in Fort Edward, told his 12-year-old son in 1959 that he had sold scotch tape and cellophane wrapping paper to a mafia member nicknamed “Harry the Torch” which he used to set the fire to the Piping Rock. Those items were used, his father explained, because being made of cellulose fiber they had the same basic composition as wood and so would never be detected.
Forty years later, Cutshall-King’s memory of that conversation would provide the basis of his novel. “Why would an arsonist drive all the way up to Fort Edward to buy scotch tape and cellophane wrapping paper from my father? And why was the arsonist burning a defunct casino that hadn’t been open since 1951? What was in that defunct casino that would make someone want to destroy it?” Cutshall-King wondered. “So, there it was! I had a mystery on my hands: Why was the Piping Rock burned in 1954?”
Thousands of words later, he “solved” the mystery – at least in literary form. He published the novel in 2011.
“I did a lot of research in addition to using family memories and documents,” Cutshall-King says. “I read biographies of mafia members Meyer Lansky, Joe Adonis, and Frank Costello, who owned the casino as a front for prominent socialites of Manhattan and Long Island’s Gold Coast.”
The U.S. Senator Estes Kefauver’s committee report on organized crime published in 1950 that severely crippled the mafia nationwide was a “goldmine,” Cutshall-King says. “Saratoga has its own chapter.”
In researching his novel, Cutshall-King made extensive use of the Saratoga Room at the Saratoga Springs Public Library, and he returned there to research the history and architecture not only of the Piping Rock but four other casinos of the era: Arrowhead, Riley’s, Meadow Brook and Newman’s. He will share what he’s learned in his lecture Tuesday night.
I know very little about the gambling history of Saratoga’s and want to know more. I hope all who have this curiosity will join me Tuesday for what I’m sure will be an interesting journey into Saratoga’s storied past.
The Annual Meeting will start at 7:00 p.m. at the Dee Sarno Theater at the Saratoga Arts Center, 320 Broadway. The Foundation will thank several outgoing board members for their commitment and service, elect new board members and officers, and share accomplishments of the past year. Reservations are encouraged. Please contact Sara Boivin, Membership & Programs Director, by phone (518) 587-5030 or email sboivin@saratogapreservation.org.
Founded in 1977, the Saratoga Springs Preservation Foundation is a private, not-for-profit organization that promotes preservation and enhancement of the architectural, cultural and landscaped heritage of Saratoga Springs.
(518) 587-5030
info@saratogapreservation.org
