  |
||
| William F. Kenny |
1927 USPC |
|
| 44 East Twenty-Third Street, New York, NY 10010 | ||
|
|
|
Good bet that "A.D." in the USPC record stood for Andrew Dougherty, Co. a card distributor located about 7 blocks north on 30th Street and 4th Avenue. |
|
William F. Kenny was a
multi-millionaire contractor of New York City (built power
plants). In 1926, construction was completed on the two
penthouse floors of Kenny's building at 44 East Twenty-Third
Street & 4th Avenue (now 304 Park Avenue South). In those
penthouse floors was Kenny's "Tiger Room." The place was
decorated with the tiger motif throughout and had a card room
(Kenny liked to play poker).
The tiger motif was chosen
because the location was the social gathering place of the most
powerful and wealthy of the Tammany Democrats--whose symbol was
a tiger. Kenny was a lifelong friend of Al Smith, Governor of
New York when the chips were ordered and was Smith's principal
financial backer during his run for president in 1928.
|
||
|
Below is from New Yorker Magazine, October 2005: |
||
|
|
||
|
Below is from the Hartford Courant, 29 May 1927: |
||
|
|
||
| Below is from the Baltimore Sun, May 11, 1928: | ||
|
|
||
| The follow obit is from the New York Times, August 14, 1951: | ||
|
|
||
| A pic of the Kenny Building today at 304 Park Ave. Park South. The pic on the right shows the location of the Tiger Room. | ||
  |
||
