475. Spas: Where Killers Make Nice, Cops Wink, Waters Burn, and Roses Turn to Stone

 BROWDERBOOKS

The front cover of my forthcoming historical novel, Forbidden Brownstones:

And now, an incident from last Thursday.  The phone rings and I answer, expecting a scam.  

A woman's voice: "May I speak with Mr. Robert Lagerstrom?"

Me: "He died two years ago,"

Her: "Oh my God.  Are you Mrs. Lagerstrom?"

Me: "No, I'm the cleaning lady."

Her:  (Resignedly.)  "All right."  (Hangs up.)

     SPAS: WHERE KILLERS MAKE NICE,

     COPS WINK, WATERS BURN,

     AND ROSES TURN TO STONE

That there was something suspect about our American spas hit me when, researching the legendary Waldorf Astoria Hotel for my nonfiction title New Yorkers, I learned that notorious mobsters like Bugsy Siegel and Lucky Luciano lived there under false names, rubbing shins with more respectable residents like ex-President Herbert Hoover and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.  And when, in 1936, the feds came for Luciano, the desk clerk warned the mobster, who instantly took off for -- of all places -- Hot Springs, Arkansas.  Long noted for its thermal springs, Hot Springs in those days was also a favorite mob hangout, and Luciano felt comfortable in going there.  But another fed agent nabbed him there, and he ended up in prison for running a massive prostitution ring in NewYork.

      My knowledge of spas was, and is, limited.  I knew that President Roosevelt died at Warm Springs, Georgia, in 1945.  I first set foot in a spa in the summer of 1952, when I visited my young French friend Claude at Vichy, where, like many of his compatriots, he went annually to partake of its healing waters, but I myself did not taste thereof or bathe therein.  Years later, visiting my friend Bill in Saratoga Springs, New York, where he taught the rigors of modern philosophy to the charming demoiselles of Skidmore College, we visited the spa there off season.  It was completely deserted, but one site bore a chalked inscription: "good for poopie."  Though it figured prominently as a summer resort in the history of New York City, I have never visited Saratoga Springs in season.

      What drew my attention to American spas recently, and specifically to Hot Springs, Arkansas, was a review by Jonathan Miles in the New York Times Book Review section of Sunday, August 9, 2020.  Entitled "Sleaze City," Miles's article reviewed David Hill's book The Vapors: A Southern Family, the New York Mob, and the Rise and Fall of Hot Springs, America's Forgotten Capital of Vice.  This long title promises, and the book evidently delivers, an eye-opening account of a little town in the Bible Belt that became -- for a while -- a glittering center of vice, corruption, and fun.  And oh yes, there were thermal springs that reputedly enhanced your physical health and well-being, if you drank their waters, bathed in them, or inhaled them in a steam room.

                            A bathhouse in Hot Springs today.

                                             daveynin

                        

      The Vapors was a "hot" night club that out-glittered and out-flashed anything that Vegas could offer.  Liberace played in a front room, while oil tycoons gambled fantastic sums in the officially illegal back-room casino.  Much in Hot Springs in those days was "officially illegal," but everyone -- the mayor, the cops, maybe even the preachers -- winked.  It was a fun place, drawing five million visitors a year.  

      "The only rule in Hot Springs," Virginia Clinton Kelley once wrote, "was to enjoy yourself."  And she added, "Hot Springs let me be me with a vengeance,"  And who was Virginia Clinton Kelley (full name: Virginian Dell Blythe Clinton Dwire Kelley)?  A local resident and trained nurse who raised two boys there, one of whom grew up to be the forty-second president of the United States.  Yes, Bill Clinton grew up in Hot Springs, Arkansas, where his mother's favorite hangout was the Vapors.  And she died there in 1993, a year after her older son became president.

      The Vapors opened in 1960, but Hot Springs was "hot" and wide open long before that, as in the 1930s, when Lucky Luciano was arrested  there.  A prominent visitor back then was Owney Madden, who ran the famous Cotton Club in New York.  Not for nothing was he known as "The Killer," but in Hot Springs this graduate of Sing-Sing married the postmaster's daughter, organized illegal gambling, took up golf, was generous to civic causes, and behaved himself to the extent of not killing anyone.  A photo of him in an outsized cap shows a leering young man you wouldn't want to meet in a dark alley, or even on a well-lit street.  Said Mae West of him, "Sweet, but oh, so vicious." And where did he die in 1965?  In Hot Springs, of course.

Owney Madden, a 1931 mug shot.

      In its heyday Hot Springs played host to gamblers, bookmakers, con artists, prostitutes, politicians on the take, and legendary mobsters like Al Capone, who also refrained from killing anyone there.  To which I'll add one more name: Clifford H. Browder, Sr., my father.

      A corporation lawyer who worked for the International Harvester Company in Chicago with a specialized knowledge of railroad law, he was also a great outdoorsman, a hunter and fisherman and, alas, a heavy smoker who knew that smoking was undermining his health.  As he got older and his health deteriorated, he went once a year to Hot Springs to experience the famous thermal springs.  The fact that he, a rigorously honest citizen, went there purely for the springs, says a lot.  Corruption and vice can flourish, unnoticed by honest, hard-working citizens who want only to go about their daily lives.  My father wasn't there for gambling and vice, may not even have been aware of them.  I can imagine him sitting quietly at his hotel in the evening, reading Field and Stream magazine, or chatting with fellow sportsmen likewise there for the springs, while gamblers gambled, prostitutes solicited, and Al Capone cavorted.

A 1902 postcard with a view of a fountain at Karlsbad, Austria (now in the Czech Republic).  Written in the margin in English: "It is weird and wonderful to watch this continually spouting medicine.  A flower placed in this water becomes stone in 8 days.  Water is so hot it burns one's tongue."

      Europe has had spas from time immemorial, though to my knowledge they were never the playpen of mobsters.  They were, certainly, more than healing centers.  Their organizers knew to make them cultural centers and amusement parks, with concerts and theaters as well as the inevitable and quite legal gambling casinos.  There was something relaxed about them, with the usual social barriers less rigorous, more porous.  In Henry James's charming story "The Siege of London," an American woman of doubtful reputation is out to marry a very respectable young English baronet.  And where did they meet?  At a spa.  And in Thackeray's Vanity Fair the "fallen" woman Becky Sharp haunts the spas of Europe, no doubt on the lookout for just such a lucky involvement.  European spas were respectable, yet dubious characters could hope to interact there with their betters, who might become their friends, their spouses, or their victims.

      There are those who assert that the thermal waters of the spas are no more healthful than ordinary water, when heated.  But the spas are not about to disappear.  They are part of the European way of life, and have too much tradition, hope, and money invested in them to yield to pettifogging critics who may, or may not, mount valid criticisms.

Source Note:  Much in this post comes from Jonathan Miles's article "Sleaze City," in the Book Review section of the New York Times of Sunday, August 9, 2020.  Supplementing it are various online articles on Owney Madden, Hot Springs, European spas, etc.

Coming soon:  City in Lockdown: Who's Down and Who's Up

©   2020  Clifford Browder