Odd this day
At somewhere between 4 and 6am on this day 41 years ago, a gentleman by the impressive name of James ‘Jimmy the Beard’ Ferrozzo came to an unusual and frankly unpleasant end. Variously described as a bouncer, an assistant manager, and a longtime employee of San Francisco’s Condor Club, he had mounted the establishment’s piano in order to ~ahem~ enjoy the company of his girlfriend. Unfortunately, it was a rather special piano.
The Condor Club was — and still is — a bar in San Francisco, which became famous in 1964 for having topless dancers, one of the most famous being Carol Doda, whose trademark was to descend, in a state of semi-undress, from the ceiling on top of a spangled grand piano which had its own hydraulic lift. A documentary about the, er… pioneering Doda came out this year to mark the 60th anniversary.
But we’re here to talk about Jimmy. Then 40, he was… presumably in a not-entirely-clothed state himself, along with his 23-year-old girlfriend, Theresa Hill. As the San Francisco Chronicle delicately put it, he was
crushed to death … when an elevator piano accidentally rose to the ceiling while he was entangled atop it with a young woman
Police theorized Ferrozzo may have accidentally tripped the piano’s ‘up’ button. It takes about 90 seconds to reach the ceiling.
That last bit seems an unnecessary detail, but it does make one wonder at what point they were distracted from the matter at hand and realised Jimmy was at risk. Whatever happened, the piano reached the ceiling, and he was squeezed against it to the point of asphyxiation. Theresa, apparently, was treated for bruises. None of my sources say so, but one assumes she was traumatised, too — not least when you know that:
the club’s janitor, found the couple pinned between the piano and the ceiling 15 feet off the ground at 7:30 a.m.
…meaning that she might have been there three hours already, and:
Firemen were unable to free them until about 10:15 a.m.
When this story featured on reddit, it included this, which appears to hang in a frame on the wall of the club itself (although the version that appears on their age-restricted website is different).
This may seem in questionable taste, but in 2010 the New York Times reported that this is an establishment which offers
specialty drink Sex on the Piano
…which
commemorates [the] gruesome 1983 incident
…so I’m not sure good taste is high on their list of priorities, are you?
