SNUFFED OUT IN A BOWERY WINE CELLAR (1917)
Brownstone Detectives investigates the history of our clients’ homes.
The story you are about to read was composed from research conducted in the course of one of those investigations.
Do you know the history of YOUR house?
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When we discovered a set of NYPD archive photographs showing the aftermath of a murder in the wine cellar of a Bowery tenement, it came attached with just a street address as a clue. Armed with this information, we started our investigation, tracking down the story of the murder from newspaper archives. We present that story – and these original pictures – to you today. This brief story details exactly what allegedly happened and how the subject came to be discovered murdered in his wine cellar. The story is from the New York Tribune of Friday, 19 January 1917. – The Brownstone Detectives
“The telephone bell in Dominick Bononeolo’s undertaker’s shop, at 294 Elizabeth Street, rang at 7:30 last night. The undertaker himself responded in his soothing tones.
“‘Go down cellar,’ commanded a harsh masculine voice, ‘and see that everything is well with Dominick.’
“The undertaker tried to explain that an hour before he had seen Dominick Maestropaolo descend into his wine cellar beneath the undertaker’s shop and that he had seemed in the best of health. The telephone had gone dead, however, except for central’s thin query.
“Bononeolo’s son, Giuseppe, who is about twenty year old, went down. One of the iron doors was open. A flickering gas flame set monstrous cask shadows dancing uncouthly on the whitewashed walls.
Giuseppe called.
There was no answer.
The wine bottler (was found) sprawled upon his back between two casks. His throat had been cut, and a long knife lay on the floor.
“Maestropaolo lived at 209 Fifth Street.
According to the Evening World of Fri., 19 January 1917, “Maestrolaolo came to this country fifteen years ago from Palermo and worked as a tailor’s presser by day and a wine maker and merchant at night.”
See the online NYPD archival photograph collection HERE.
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Brownstone Detectives is an historic property research agency. Our mission is to document and save the histories of our clients’ homes. From our research, we produce our celebrated House History Books and House History Reports. Contact us today to begin discovering the history of your home.
