Before I begin: Check out the Wikipedia entry on ‘Black & Tan Clubs’, and you’ll find that Wikipedia, which is often wrong but never in doubt, claims that the first ‘black and tan club ...

In the 19 th century, Canal Street—epicenter of The Hooks, a hard-bitten section of the city sandwiched between the Erie Canal and Lake Erie—had earned a rightly skeevy reputation as a hive of ...