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Liquor, Lust and the Law: The Story of Vancouver’s Penthouse Nightclub

by Aaron Chapman

Contrary to what the Chamber of Commerce would have you believe, the three most important cultural institutions in Vancouver are MacLeod’s Books, the Sylvia Hotel, and the Penthouse Nightclub. Aaron Chapman’s lively history of the last of these – written in razzle-dazzle journalistic prose and illustrated with 160 archival images (too many of which are unfortunately similar) – is at base the story of the four Filippone brothers, who began the establishment in 1947 and brought the city two generations of internationally important musicians. (One night Frank Sinatra ended his concert at the Orpheum Theatre by telling the thousands in the audience to meet him at the Penthouse for drinks.) In the case of Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, and so many others, the Filippones also helped batter down some parts of the racial barrier.

So diverse was their clientele that, in the author’s words, “patrons, honest and dishonest, blended together on any given evening. Club owners and musicians mingled with cabinet ministers and newspaper editors.” The joint closed at 5 a.m., when it was getting on toward breakfast time anyway.

The eldest Filippone brother, Joe, was the only one born in Italy and the only one who retained the original spelling of the family name: Phillipone. He was a short, cigar-chomping, egg-shaped extrovert, much given to plaid as a fashion statement. The nightclub grew out of the private parties he threw in his penthouse apartment atop the family’s taxi and courier business. 

In those days, Vancouver sex-trade workers, before repairing elsewhere with their clients, used the club as the place to conduct preliminary negotiations. They felt safe under Joe Phillipone’s almost parental watchfulness. Following a sensational court case, the authorities shut down this informal system, driving prostitutes back out onto the streets – with tragic long-term effects. Chapman explains all this in careful detail without letting his prose lose any of the zippiness that seems entirely appropriate.

Joe Phillipone was shot to death by a robber in 1983. The Penthouse is run now by his nephew Danny Filippone, who has rebuffed property developers, created a friendlier environment, and promoted the club’s historical importance. In Chapman’s tactful words, he has done so “without any of the notorious police investigations that his father and uncles faced, but has kept the sense of fun and mischief that occasionally results in attention from the authorities.”

 

Reviewer: George Fetherling

Publisher: Arsenal Pulp Press

DETAILS

Price: $24.95

Page Count: 160 pp

Format: Cloth

ISBN: 978-1-55152-488-7

Released: Dec.

Issue Date: 2013-1

Categories: History

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