Germans and Italians Join Forces Again

Without knowing anything about this defunct club in Ridgewood, let me just say that this is the kind of thing that I like to see on your average New York block, the kind of thing that is fast disappearing from the cityscape. Why? Because is speaks of the past, lets us know that New York is a city with a history. Because it's evocative of a sense of community, or, at least, a community that once existed in that particular area. Because the building is not cookie-cutter awful. It's ain't pretty, exactly, but it has personality.

Actually, maybe too much personality. Apparently, this club, at 6060 Metropolitan Avenue, was at the center of a 24-count indictment filed in the Supreme Court in Queens County in April 2005, charging that the Mob ran a gambling ring out of at least three Queens bars, one of them being the above. Italians working out of a German club. Now, for the Mafia, that's pretty clever.