The Nite Owl's Social Club and Fort Pitt Social Club came from ebay sales. David Spragg has spares of the Nite Owl's.

I have 7 different Nite Owls and 2 different Fort Pitt chips. Jim Linduff did the 1st research on them and came up with a possible connection to the Fort Pitt Hotel. There was a big numbers and bookmaking raid there in 1948. The interesting part was Art Rooney ran the Pittsburg Steelers' from his office in the Fort Pitt Hotel at the time. Art was a legendary gambler. Art's brother Jim was called to testify about this raid. I have newspaper articles about the raid. After more research David, Jim, and I discounted this info as to the chips.

I received 2 emails that helped change our minds. One from our "Friend Of The Hobby" saying he did not think the chips were used at the Fort Pitt Hotel. The 2nd one was from a new contributor to the "Illegal Of The Day" posts, Craig Romanovich. He sent me links to 2, 1938 newspaper articles about a much earlier raid on a Nite Owl's Club in a different location.

Links to articles
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=bXEbAAAAIBAJ&sjid=NEwEAAAAIBAJ&pg=3064,680113&dq=ft+pitt+social+club&hl=en
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=oZBRAAAAIBAJ&sjid=eGkDAAAAIBAJ&pg=1875,204068&dq=ft+pitt+social+club&hl=en

And now "The Rest Of The Story."

Pennsylvania:
Nite Owl & Fort Pitt Social Clubs

Around 1938 a guy named Edward W. “Eddie” Schindler opened a place called Eddie’s Smoke Shop in a
2 story building located at 17 South Diamond Street East in Pittsburgh (address sometimes listed as 17 1/2).

Schindler, a Pittsburgh native, was a well known gambling operator in the area of Pittsburgh known as the “North Side” during the 1930’s, 40’s & 50’s (the North Side is an area north of downtown on the other side of the Allegheny River). Around the time Schindler opens his cigar store he starts operating a gambling room above his store on the 2nd floor called the “Nite Owls Club.” Here’s a snip from the 1939 Pittsburgh city directory:

The place is raided in April 1940; a dice table and several card tables confiscated:

My note: Cops beat on steel doors for 30 minutes, which gave the operators plenty of time to get rid of the telephones, burn the race tickets, and dismantle all but a crap table and several card tables. There was a series of 3 steel doors. I think this is the 1st time we've seen this.
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Schindler, later described by the DA as the proprietor, was fined $1000. After this raid I didn’t see any more references to a place called the Nite Owls Club.

The 1940 city directory shows that at some point after the Nite Owls Club closed, it was replaced by the Fort Pitt Social Club:

I’m guessing that the Fort Pitt Club chips were used at this place. The Nite Owls and Fort Pitt chips are very similar in design and were found together at the same Pittsburgh estate sale:

I’m not sure how long the Fort Pitt Social Club was located at 17 S. Diamond--only Eddie’s Smoke Shop
is listed there in 1941.The Fort Pitt Social Club seems to have moved around quite a bit, operating at
several different locations on the North Side. In the late 1930’s it was located at 703 East Ohio and was
raided in early 1939:

In late 1939, early 1940 the FPSC was located at 205 East Ohio, which was just around the corner from Eddie’s. In 1945 it was located on North Diamond St.

Schindler operated gambling rooms at various locations throughout the North Side while maintaining his
cigar shop on South Diamond. He operated a gambling room called the “Greater Pittsburgh Club” at
various addresses in the 1930’s and 1940’s. During this time he seems also to have continued
operating a gambling room above Eddie’s, but no name seems to have been associated with the place
other than when the Nite Owl’s and Fort Pitt were there.

Also, in the early 1940’s Schindler started a business called the “Fort Pitt Music Co.” in the same
building as Eddie’s. The company dealt in juke boxes, pin ball machines and slot machines.

ad from 1948:

Schindler continued operating his enterprises on South Diamond Street until 1948 when a grand jury indicted him for bookmaking, pool selling and establishing gambling places. He was sentenced to 8 months in jail and served 4. Also in 1948, the warehouse of the Fort Pitt Music Co. was raided and 40 slot machines were confiscated.

It was at this time that Schindler closed his businesses on South Diamond St. and the site became a food store called “Stop & Shop.” Schindler moved Eddie’s Smoke Shop around the corner to 21 Park Way West, put in billiard tables and operated there for about a decade before moving to Los Angeles, California in the late 1950’s where he died in 1965, age 63.

Here’s pic of Schindler published in 1950; appears to be a cropped mug shot--looks like the corner of a police ID placard in the lower right of the photo:

Here’s an aerial view of Pittsburgh from the early 1950’s; 17 South Diamond St. was located in the area outlined in red which is shown in detail in the next photo:

Photo from the 1950’s showing the North Side Market building at the intersection of South Diamond and East Diamond--17 South Diamond on the lower left (Stop & Shop sign on building);

Although from in the 1950’s, the view would have been pretty much the same in the 1930-40’s.

pic of store front in 1949 when Stop & Shop opened:

pic from 1965 after the North Side Market building was torn down; buildings on South Diamond St. would soon follow (Carnegie and Buhl still stand):

detail

map from the time period:

Pittsburgh was the 10th largest city in the US in 1940:

This 1938 article was found by Jim Linduff.

Jim Linduff is continuing his research on Pittsburg clubs. In the following email he has two more Pittsburg club names listed for research. OK, where are the chips?

Gene
Over the weekend I spoke with the guy who wrote one of the Rooney bios who teaches at Pitt and who I've known for years. After some looking at his backup, he agreed that while both the Rooney brothers Art and Jim were "around " the rackets all their life, no evidence they were involved in either the Fort Pitt Social Club or the Nite Owl Club directly.

In the course of my research, I now know about several other social clubs in Pittsburgh that must have used chips and am continuing to use my Pittsburgh guys as sources. Joints like The Bachelor Club and the Progressive Club were carpet joints and must have used chips to run their dice, card and board games. There are others.

Stay tuned.

Jim