So this corner tavern has quite the history. The infamous Thomas Venezia, after serving time for the racket he was running over in Washington Park in the 1990s, ran a bar here back in the early 2000s, until he turned up dead, in the house next door. Read the two part story by Malcolm Gay from the Riverfront Times, Part 1, and Part 2.
I visited the corner, back in 2014, and it’s a quaint little neighborhood, with great examples of the houses that German immigrants built back in the early to mid Nineteenth Century.
WOW! What a story that was Chris. This would make for an amazing docu-drama series or movie. So many characters, so much intrigue. I can barely imagine the pain this caused that girls parents to have such a heinous crime go unsolved for so long. Has there been any update on any of this?
No, the police have declared it a murder-suicide, and that is just the way it goes when a former racketeer is involved on the East Side.