Antero Pietila
2007-07-18 07:00:00.0
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BALTIMORE -

When Sidney Weinberg died last week at 89, his obituary got the rough outline right. Sure he did World War II duty on a battleship, became an accountant and shared his blessings with charities.

But that wasn’t the half of it. During the decade right after the war Weinberg served as a confidant to gamblers and gangsters, hobnobbed with Jerry Lewis, Damon Runyon and Lenny Bruce, and guarded the financial secrets of Baltimore’s shady nightlife.

Weinberg’s seat of power was a backroom in the legendary Club Charles. It was one of the best supper clubs on the East Coast and was located at Charles and Preston streets, right across from Baltimore’s leading whorehouse.

Weinberg was fresh out of service when he got summoned to the Club Charles in February, 1946. Seems that someone put a good word in for Sid. He had played softball at Easterwood Park, a storied working-class neighborhood in West Baltimore that was a way station on the Jewish community’s historic trek to the northwest. He knew nothing about accounting, but that could be fixed.

The reason for Weinberg’s summons was that the previous club accountant could not explain a $70,000 shortfall in the till. That was plenty of dough in them days, but nothing compared with the contents of three safes that Weinberg and the club’s owners counted on his first night. They totaled $1,670,000 in cash. Now that was something in 1946. Still is.

“The Club Charles was a gambling joint,” Weinberg told me at one of our encounters at Miller’s Delicatessen in Pikesville, arranged through the late Milton Bates, another Easterwood Park boy who had dabbled in progressive politics with Sidney.

The club was on a circuit that launched several entertainment careers. Jerry Lewis, Dean Martin and Joey Bishop came through. So did Lenny Bruce.

Weinberg recalled that the owners warned the comedian to go easy on f-words. “Baltimore is a provincial town, it’s not accustomed to such language” Weinberg reported them as saying. Bruce, however, peppered his routine with so many obscenities that the club had to terminate his engagement by buying out his $100-a-week contract.

It wasn’t a total loss for Bruce. He fell in love with a girl from Pearl’s whorehouse across the street. Pearl was famous for offering a frequently changing selection of bored housewives and fresh Southern girls to Baltimoreans and visitors seeking relief from the pressures of everyday life. Wealthy businessmen went to Pearl’s place, so did leading politicians.

The madam was married to a racetrack figure from Pimlico, whose habitués frequented the Club Charles. Damon Runyon was fascinated with them. The writer came down every week from New York, with Weinberg picking him up at the nearby Penn Station. Runyon would then spend hours at the club, seeking inspiration for characters in his stories.

When we met a couple of times, I was hoping that Weinberg would spill the beans on how the numbers game operated in Baltimore in that period. Instead, he clammed up. He safeguarded confidences and took his secrets to the grave.

He did reveal, though, that gambling czar Ike Sapperstein became a 25 percent owner in the Club Charles by simply winning a poker game.

It all ended in the early 1950s, when a whirlwind of lifestyle changes hit America.

Weinberg remembered one Tuesday night toward the end. The Club Charles was empty of patrons, and the few people around watched television, laughing at Milton Berle’s routines.

Except that comedian Jackie Gleason didn’t laugh. “That tube is gonna kill us all,” he muttered. “You just wait and see.”

Antero Pietila is writing a book about how bigotry shaped the Baltimore metropolitan area. He can be reached at hap5905@hotmail.com.