Letters from Purgatory

Ninety –six years ago on the morning of April 13, 1914, Harry Horowitz, Louis Rosenberg, pictured in the illustration above, and Jacob Seidenschmer along with Italian co-hort Frank Cirofici, were led down the hallowed halls of Sing Sing prison to meet their fate in the electric chair.
All four men, none barely a quarter century old in age, were found guilty of murdering gambler Herman Rosenthal, who was killed in front of the Café Metropole on a hot summer evening in July of 1912.
The men were tried as a group in November of that same year, and the hearing had lasted only a week; their verdict and fate took only a mere thirty minutes before the jury reached a decision. The four were stunned but stood stoic as the death sentence was handed down.
The case against the gunmen was overshadowed in many ways by the highly publicized trial against Charles Becker, the former Police Lieutenant implicated and charged with ordering Rosenthal’s murder. The end result rang almost as a judicial afterthought in the wake of all the attention Becker’s case had gathered, and possibly at least two innocent lives were extinguished, that of Jacob ‘Whitey Lewis’ Seidenschmer and Dago Frank Cirofici’s, as its shadowy legacy.

Harry Horowitz, underworld moniker: Gyp The Blood, and Louis Rosenberg, aka Lefty Louie, were no angels, with arrest records and buoyed street reputations to prove it; but in the sixteen months spent in Sing Sing following their conviction they filed numerous appeals in an attempt to reverse their collective fate. Influential members of the Jewish Community tried to have the executions stopped and appealed for clemency. It was the first time such highly publicized criminals of Jewish descent were to be executed, and feared the effect it would have on a community that itself already felt like it had been put on trial in the aftermath of the Rosenthal / Becker affair. The scheduled executions marked a new heightened awareness and sense of shame of the serious criminal problem the Jewish community in New York, especially on the Lower East Side, had on their hands.

With the execution date finally set, Louis Rosenberg wrote one last statement, which was signed by all four men and delivered to the office of their attorneys, Wahle & Kringle, at 230 Broadway.
The tone is obviously somber, but it does take into question how much public scrutiny, press bias, and municipal political motivation (especially for District Attorney Charles Whitman) had influenced their fateful outcome.
While Rosenberg is at times hazy in his appeal (the New York Times printed it verbatim), it also points directly at what most writers and historians have since concluded; that gamblers Bald Jack Rose, Louis ‘Bridgey” Webber, Sam Schepps and Harry Vallon were actually the men behind Rosenthal’s killing, not Charles Becker, with Vallon himself as the triggerman while Horowitz and Rosenberg possibly stood by. And that the gambler’s sworn testimonies were perjuriously a well-woven tale of conspiracy and frame up of all those convicted.

On March 29, the New York Times published Rosenberg’s statement in full. It read as follows:

Correspondence Department
Sing Sing Prison

Public Opinion:

I. We ask the public to answer to themselves these questions. Did public opinion convict us?
II. What created public opinion?
III. When Jack Zelig was arraigned for trial before Judge Malon in June 1912, charged with an offence for which the penalty is fourteen years in State prison, was there one person who read his case at the time who did not believe he was guilty and who not have voted for his conviction?
IV. What created belief that Jack Zelig was guilty of that crime?
V. What created that mental attitude in those from whom would have been drawn the jury to try him? Not even the public officials charged with the care of his trial believed him innocent. What do the officials and the public say now about the opinion and belief they had formed on the basis of rumor and misleading inferences gathered from wherever they did?

Zelig was innocent, public officials announced that he was innocent; a Grand Jury said so when they indicted those who falsely accused him. It was only an un-looked for event which enabled him to prove his innocence and escape fourteen years.
We have been accused by persons what of whom the Court of Appeals said is now well known by the public. Whatever we have said and what we now say we ask the public to please believe us that we in no way mean to criticize the court of judicial administration. As we have always said we are not lawyers. We have our records and briefs on appeals and opinions in our case and naturally in the quiet moments we have read and reread the testimony in our case and the opinions of the Court of Appeals.
We are still at a loss to understand why Rose, Schepps, Webber and Vallon are persons not to be believed under oath in the (Charles) Becker case and yet as persons whose testimony in our case should be taken as true and from whom should be accepted in our case the version as the true version of the whole Rosenthal affair and of the motive for this terrible crime.
Of (Morris) Luban the Court of Appeals states that in the Becker case that he is unbelievable and bases such conclusion on the fact that his story is improbable and that he had a motive in testifying for the prosecution, and that motive was his release from prison in Jersey; that he was placed in the company of Rose, Schepps, Webber, and Vallon so as to enable him to talk matters over with Rose, Schepps, Webber, and Vallon, so that his story would dovetail with theirs. Yet in one case, Luban is believed.
(Willie) Shapiro, another one, was the first one arrested and accused of the murder and afterward indicted on the same blanket indictment with us, and in City Prison (The Tombs) with us boys for a long while and could not identify any one of us until he was placed in that same Fifty-fourth Street jail (where Rose, Webber, and Schepps were held after being transferred from The Tombs upon Charles Becker’s arrest and arrival at the notorious holding facility), for the same opportunities for meeting and arranging their harmonious stories, which was condemned by the Court of Appeals in the Becker case?
The same reasons that made Luban unbelievable in the Becker case and more so, as his motive was to save his own life, Shapiro.
Harry Horowitz, Jacob Seidenshner and I swore on the stand we seen Vallon, Webber and a stranger shoot (Rosenthal). Bridgey Webber says he does not know this man, yet it is a fact that this man was in Bridgey Webber’s gambling room and left with them for the scene of the shooting.
We simply ask people who know of the real conditions in New York City if a man had spent his whole life in the gambling business and who was as shrewd and careful like Webber to allow a perfect stranger to enter his gambling room and take midnight trips with him?
Now in the records, on Page 452, Folio 1,354, Schepps states that “ he was told to go as far as he could and not to stop until he got there” He also states that he got $100 from Webber, and from a man he did not know by name $150. Why could it not be that Webber also wanted to get this stranger out of the way?
There is no attempt or intention on our part to create the idea that we are over-brave or any kind of heroes, for our lives and liberty are just as dear to us as anyone else, yet we do not believe we should be the victims to save men who on their own sworn testimony are concerned in the crime. We ask the public to please judge the facts for themselves.
Respectfully
Louis Rosenberg
Frank Cirofici
Jacob Seidenshner
Harry Horowitz

This last statement written a couple of weeks before their deaths contrasts sharply with the seemingly jovial tone of the letters they had sent to Big Jack Zelig in the early fall of 1912.
Jack Zelig had been shot and killed on October 5, 1912 while riding a Second Avenue street trolley. He was due in court the next morning to appear for the prosecution on the opening day of the Charles Becker trail, and quite possibly his statements may of been able to clear the accused gunmen’s names in the Rosenthal murder (though that wasn't Charles Whitman’s intention).

When Zelig’s body was searched at Bellevue, letters from all four alleged gunmen were found in his pockets. They are surprisingly light-hearted in nature, not something you’d expect coming from hardened street toughs; pleasantries exchanged between gentle chaps and not words that emanated from someone who broke people’s backs over his knee on a two-dollar dare in Gyp The Blood’s case:

Tombs Prison, October 3, 1912
Dear Friend Zel: A few lines letting you know I am feeling fine and in good health.
Also Louie and Whitey and Frank. I hope you and your wife are the same. Well, old boy, things look fine. They could not look better. I read your letter and Louie and myself were tickled to death to read it. We have a hell of a time here all by ourselves; do nothing but fool around and kick one another.
Gee, did you see that piece about Louie in to-day’s Journal. We laughed ourselves sick over it. You remember that fellow who said he was stuck up last week on Second Avenue? Well he is up here with us, and we kid the life out of him. Well Zel, take care of yourself and I know you are one who can do that. So I’ll close with regards and best wishes to yourself and your wife.

From your true friend,
Harry
Regards and best wishes from W and F, Answer as soon as possible if you have time.

Lefty Louis Rosenberg’s letter carried the same kind of optimism. It’s quite obvious that the men had faith in Zelig, a much heralded and respected gang leader, who would clear their names and get them out of prison, so kept up a positive front for Zelig’s sake who was reportedly quite depressed about the entire situation his men were in.

Tombs Prison, October 3, 1912
My Dear Pal: I received your letter and I was certainly glad to hear from you, and you certainly know how I more than appreciate what you are doing for me. Zel, old man, I ain’t worrying a bit; I eat good food and sleep good, and also having a little fun up here and will certainly be ready for that big Christmas dinner.
Zel, you tell me you are going to stick to me and to the boys to the end. I know that Zel, as I as know what you are made of, having full confidence in you, old boy, that you will stick to the end. I know that, Zel, as I know what you are made of, and Zel, to tell you the truth, I have got it better than a lot of them bum millionaires have got it outside, and was up last night until 3 A.M. in the morning playing cards and eating lamb chops, but who do think was in our party? But George Richman, that famous jeweler from Second Ave.
He came up here to identify Frosby, and he failed to identify him, he changed his mind and thought he could keep me company for awhile, and I can assure you he is SAFE. My father and his lawyer called me down to the counsel room yesterday and I had a cheerful chat with him. And after I got through with him he said he was convinced that I really have nothing in this case, and he went away feeling much better. Now old pal let me know you are, and how things are on the outside. I will also tell the boys to write to you. I will now close, trusting this will find you in the best of health, as I am present; also hoping this will cheer you up as your letter cheered me up.
I remain your sincere friend and pal,

Louie

Dago Frank Cirofici’s letter, undated, seemed slightly more desperate than those of his cellmates. Cirofici’s predicament was justified; guilty more by association it seemed and was apparently not even present the night of Rosenthal’s murder. But the Italian hood stood by his Jewish comrades with a gangland sense of loyalty though underneath his penned words one could almost sense a shuddering lamb being sent to the slaughter.

My dear friend Jack: I read your letter and Jack I tell you it made me feel kind of bad to think you are taking it so hard on our account, but I know what a true pal you are, so I know what about how you feel. I know the night I heard Gyp and Lefty were arrested I cried like a little baby. I had the blues for a week, before that – the day you turned your pockets inside out – was enough for me.
Do you remember it? Dear pal, I have more faith in you than in any living man in this whole country. I tell you the truth right from my heart. I don’t know you long Jack, and I think if it weren't for you I don’t know what would happen to me. Being a Dago, of course, you don’t know what I know. But time will tell, old pal. Even at that, I was always ready to take anything they handed me and say nothing.
Dear Jack, I ought not to be writing you my hard luck story. Don’t mind it. I am as happy as a lord otherwise. Well, old boy, don’t worry, we will have a grand time up at mother’s house as soon as we all get out.
Let us hope they rush things along. The sooner the better. Be cheerful, Jack. There is not a bit of worrying with the four of us. If I have so much faith in you, I am sure the rest of the boys have the same. I have thought many a time how you and your good little wife, God bless her, have worked making up food for us. Tell her I prayed to-day that I can meet her and shake her hand, with ever so much thanks for her great kindness. I think I write you a nice long letter, and hope to get one in return. I would of written long ago, but I did not know your address. Hoping this will find you and your wife happy, and with my best wishes, I remain your true friend.

Frank Cirofici Room 328
P.S. – Regards to you and Jack Wolf
Better days coming, dear. Good-night.

Big Jack Zelig's death, only two days after these letters were written, had dashed all possible hopes of the four men ever finding their freedom in the wake public outcry and pressure, resulting in the fervor of justice that was to come.

Despite all last minute appeals and reflective editorials in the Yiddish press, nothing could be done to change the minds of authorities in Albany leading up to April 13.
Rabbis were sent to their cells to pray with them in their last hours, and a priest was summoned for Cirofici.
It was determined that Dago Frank was psychologically the weakest of the quartet, and it would be even crueler punishment to have him sit through any of the executions and wait his turn. He blubbered like a baby on his way to the chair. Whitey Lewis and Rosenberg only said a few words, reiterating their innocence and the gross injustice befallen upon them.
Horowitz was the last to go, and kept mum until the end.

Sholem Bernstein

Apologies for the slowing down of posts since the beginning of the new year but as I have mentioned earlier I've been busy with other projects. As most people who freelance surely know, work schedules can be far from concrete and routine.

In that time though I have managed to finish up another portrait to add to the series. This time around is the lesser known Sholem Bernstein, a low level operative of the Brooklyn / Brownsville troop of Murder Inc. soldiers.

Bernstein was a talented car thief whose services were instrumental in procuring getaway cars that would later trace to a dead end in an investigation. Nothing of much importance was ever given to Bernstein further than placing his hands on the ten o'clock and two o'clock behind numerous stolen steering wheels, and pushing down on the gas. Sholem, who some called Sol, drove the getaway car at the fateful murder of candy store owner Joseph Rosen in 1936. Rosen was a former garment industry worker whose trucking business had been forced into retirement by Louis 'Lepke' Buchalter's powerful influence over labor racketeering in New York. Rosen was set up with a small candy store in Brooklyn by Lepke in order to try to help the man support his family. This was after a few missteps Rosen had working for a couple of other trucking companies under Buchalter's control. The candy shop faltered and Rosen, understandably embittered towards Buchalter, demanded financial reprimand and rumors flew that the candy man was looking to blow the whistle on Lepke's empire with one quick visit to Thomas Dewey's office.
Emanuel 'Mendy' Weiss was one of Bernstien's passengers on the Sunday morning of September 13 when Rosen was face down on the floor of the candy store, his body host to seventeen bullet holes. Joe Rosen's murder seemed perhaps inconsequential at the time to Lepke, who had overseen and ordered numerous syndicate hits, all calculated carefully, but this one would later prove to be the foundation of his downfall, and lead to his trip to the electric chair in 1944.

Inevitably Bernstien's minor stature in the underworld of Kings County manifested him into an easy pushover for the borough's District Attorney William O'Dwyer and prosecutor Burton Turkus. Looking at an extended trip to Sing Sing, Bernstein folded like an old accordion and was holed up in room 622 of The Half Moon Hotel in Coney Island soon after; his neighbor in room 623 was Abe Reles. He was one of the four important turncoats under police protection, along with Allie 'Tick Tock' Tannenbaum and Mickey Sycoff, who were across the hall in room 626.

Tannenbaum and Bernstein were key figures in Buchlater's trial for the prosecution. Tannenbaum's corroboration of the Rosen murder, and the eye witness account from Bernstein, sealed Lepke's fate along with Mendy Weiss.
Amazingly enough, court transcripts from the trial detailed that Bernstein's attempted an extortion racket while passing the sometimes agonizingly long hours under lock down at the Half Moon (he, along with the others were there for over a year). This was done through threatening letters sent out to potential victims who shady past he was acquainted with in the old neighborhood. These paper threats passed through the hands of the policemen on duty who were unaware of their content, onto their intended mark. The scam however proved unsuccessful.

Like Allie Tannenbaum and Abe 'Pretty' Levine, Sholem Bernstein disappeared from sight and was never heard from again following the fall out of the trials and subsequent string of executions.
He and Tannenbaum did make court appearances in 1950, when Abe Reles' case and a probe into police corruption was reopened by the serving District Attorney Miles McDonald (O'Dwyer had gone on to be New York's 100th Mayor in 1945). Appearing like hoodlum ghosts out of the past, Bernstein and Tannenbaum made their statements and answered questions then quickly faded away once again, their post-Murder Inc. days still remaining a mystery to this day.

Bullets at The Blue Bird Café

Eighty-nine years ago…on December 26, 1920, Monk Eastman was found face down on the cold winter sidewalk near the 14th street subway entrance facing Union Square in the early morning hours following Christmas day.
The two policemen had counted a total of five .38 caliber bullets entry wounds in Eastman’s stocky, battle scarred body. After a life of so many violent close calls - a man whose life long love of cats may of attributed to an inherited fabled nine lives - these final bullets had found their mark.

A native of Williamsburgh, Brooklyn, Monk Eastman was born Edward Osterman in 1873, and was Gotham’s first great Jewish gang leader.
His life was a storybook affair of pugilism and violence, blood and broken noses, and as a result inadvertently created the turn of the century gangster archetype. Through pure brawn and probably very little brains he had reached the highest levels of power available to him through the closing years of the nineteenth century up until 1904. He also had hit the lowest lows upon his release from Sing Sing in 1908, unable to reclaim his throne in the underworld and idling in small petty crimes and lost in an opium haze most of his waking hours.

It wasn’t until he reached the age of forty-four was he able to regain some semblance of gregarious grace among comrades when he offered his services to the US Army in 1917. He proved to be one on of the most courageous troopers ever enlisted with the 27th Division of the 106th Infantry, known as “O’Ryan’s Roughnecks”, saving countless lives on the battlefields of France through bravery and brash.

He had encountered no runs in with the police after his return from the Great War, and was even granted full citizenship, which was restored in 1919 after a his fellow doughboys drew up and signed a petition and sent it to Governor Alfred E. Smith along with tales of his bravery in order to let him participate in the scheduled victory parade along Fifth Avenue. Initially Eastman, who had enlisted under the name of William Delaney, was going to be denied his place in the victory march after his checkered and violent past was uncovered.

But it seemed old habits were hard to break and the straight and narrow was a difficult trail to stay on after his discharge. In the early morning hours of December 26, Eastman had been spending the evening cavorting at The Blue Bird Café at 62 East Fourteen Street, near the corner of Fourth Ave. An argument had ensued with a Prohibition officer later identified as Jerry W. Bohan. The disagreement, which became quickly heated, was apparently over the tipping amount for their waiter.

His affiliation with Bohan was unclear but obviously the Prohibition officer’s moral stance was possibly a dubious one since Bohan was after all enjoying the illegal swills of a speakeasy and keeping company with Eastman and others. Alcohol fueled misjudgment had played key roles in Eastman’s life in the past; most notably his drunken uptown spree in 1904 where he fired six bullets (all missing their mark) at two Pinkerton detectives following an attempted mugging gone wrong. No longer under Tammany Hall protection, the incident had landed Eastman a Sing Sing sentence for five years, this ending his reign as gang leader and the street glory and respect he would never again regain.

High levels of alcohol were noted in the autopsy report done on Eastman. After some further investigating however following his death, detectives found out that Eastman had been involved in some small time dope peddling and bootlegging, and was also under Arnold Rothstein’s employ as a loan collector.

Jerry Bohan, who turned himself in on January 4 of the following year, claimed self-defense in regards to the shooting. Eastman was apparently quite inebriated and aggressively mouthing off insults and threats as he reached into his inside coat pocket while approaching him outside of the Blue Bird Café near the 14th street subway’s southern entrance. Bohan was quicker on the draw. He was eventually charged with manslaughter and was sentenced to a minimum of three years at Sing Sing.

Though his public profile in the recent years had dwindled considerably, his killing had the newspapers’ full attention of the front page upon his death.
EX-CONVICT, WAR HERO, SHOT DEAD and REFORMED GANGSTER SLAIN trumpeted The Daily News.

Speculative articles ran about how his rehabilitation was perhaps not so genuine and how you couldn’t teach an old dog new tricks, taking the expected moral high ground editorial approach.
The newspaper stories outraged two particular army buddies from the 106th, Hank Miller and John Boland, who put up funds for a military burial after Eastman’s family didn’t come forward to bury their own. Eastman‘s sister Ida had identified his body but never came back to reclaim it. One can only assume that family relations between the former gangster and his blood relatives were strained to the point of disownment.

Coming to Eastman’s defense and extolling his battlefield bravery, Boland announced to the papers a highly colored quote perhaps not so deserved of a man who had at one time had sent so many men to Bellevue Hospital's accident ward that orderlies started to refer to it as the Eastman Pavilion:
“Mr. Eastman did more for America than Presidents and generals. The public does not reward its heroes, now they are calling him a gangster instead of praising him as one of those who saved America. But we’ll do the right thing by this soldier and give him the funeral he deserves.”

On December 30, thousands of mourners showed up for Monk Eastman’s funeral procession including soldiers, women, children, and aging former members of the Eastman gang. He was dressed in full military regalia and laid in a shiny black coffin draped with the Star and Stripes, on which a silver plated inscription read Our Lost Pal, Gone But Not Forgotten.

As a result of his family not being involved in the interment arrangements, a pastor from the South Third Street Methodist Church read the committal service of the dead. Eastman’s sordid and turbulent life had denied him Kaddish and a Jewish burial.

Six polished black cars and twenty horse drawn carriages made their way to their final stop at Cypress Hills Cemetery. With a bugler sounding taps and three volleys of fire, the life of Monk Eastman was over, and Edward Osterman was laid back down into the Brooklyn ground.

The Demise of DUTCH SCHULTZ

Seventy- four years ago today, Dutch Schultz, neé under the very unthreatening name of Arthur Flegenheimer, was shot down at at The Palace Chop House in Newark, New Jersey a couple of months after his thirty-third birthday.

Schultz still remains one of gangland's most infamous figures in the general public mind.
Bronx born in 1902 to German-Jewish parents, he
remains one of the more undesirable characters in the dark, sometimes blemished legacy left by some of the Jewish crime bosses.

Dutch Shultz’s character traits were nefarious at best, despised yet respected by most of the underworld, and considering the bevy of bad apples that lurked in that netherworld, it was a notable achievement. While the Manhattan syndicate, headed and organized by Charles Luciano, Meyer Lansky, Ben Seigel, Joe Adonis and Louis Lepke Buchalter ran their business like boardroom shareholders; Shultz remained an outsider partly by choice. His position and power as a Bronx bootlegger and a highly lucrative numbers racket in Harlem gave him leverage with the higher ups and he knew it. Shultz was smart enough early on cutting them in on the Harlem slot machines and lotteries as a way of paying tribute.
He only had one rule. “I don’t make money off women or narcotics.”

Still something wasn’t quite right with Arthur Flegenheimer. He lacked the dignity and grace that the new mob bosses were trying to instill after tutelage from the late and powerfully influential Arnold Rothstein. Schultz was a overly paranoid and narcissistic jitterbug at the best of times. Despite his growing wealth he still dressed in cheap twenty-dollar suits and two-dollar shirts as he believed clothes were not worth spending money on. His crew was a ragtag of associates of mostly Bronx bred Jews like himself, non of whom he really trusted except for maybe his numbers man, George Weinberg. He was also quick tempered and complex, running his mouth without impunity of repercussion more times than the downtown boys cared for, but they couldn’t deny his impact and the money that he brought in and he was quietly tolerated. Headstrong and careless, Schultz ran into trouble on numerous occasions with the syndicate in its burgeoning years. He also never shied away from conducting personal violence himself when needed and didn't quite seem to grasp the notion of the boss behind closed doors. His renegade ways harkened back to the wilder days of New York gangland than to the current new order proposed by Luciano and Lansky.

In 1932, Vincent ‘Mad Dog’ Coll, a notorious underworld figure in his own right, was also a former partner of Shultz’s who started hijacking the Dutchman’s beer trucks after the two had a major disagreement about profit sharing. A street war ensued and reached its apex when Shultz lured Coll into trap, sending his number one enforcer Abe ‘Bo’ Weinberg, sibling to George, to rid of the Mad Dog problem for good. Weinberg, who was possibly accompanied by other gunmen, cornered Coll in a drug store telephone booth while he was making a call. Trapped in the cubicle of glass and wood with no means of escape, Coll faced the hail of bullets and so went his demise. Dutch was apparently was nearby to ensure the hit was a success, shook off the incident and claimed, "Just another punk with his hands in my pockets."

Shultz was gathering more heat as well as more newspaper ink as his empire expanded, ignoring Lansky’s rule to stay out of the press. Schultz however seemed to revel in the media attention, feeding his power hungry persona, but it was all catching up with him as he caught the attention of Federal officials. In wake of the highly ballyhooed lock up of Al Capone, law officials were now realizing that tax evasion was a substantial, surefire measure of getting mobsters into a court room without any violence or chase. A simple subpoena proved to carry more weight than a handful of .38 calibers and a carload of G-men. Schultz was finally charged with income tax fraud, and the trial was cunningly moved to the small town of Malone in upstate New York at the request of Schultz’s lawyers to avoid character profiling by a New York City based jury. While awaiting trial, he hired a public relations firm to spread his money and give to charities, all throughout Malone, glad handing and baby kissing like a politician on a crooked campaign trail. He built up his profile as a government scapegoat, a family man just trying to make an honest living and the big city huckster charmed his way into the hearts of small town America. The scheme worked. The hayseeds were hoodwinked and the Dutchman was acquitted of all charges. However, more legal troubles awaited him back in New York. Special Prosecutor Thomas Dewey was appointed to break up the rackets by Fiorello LaGuardia, the diminutive Jewish –Italian Mayor whose heart beat to the pulsing rhythm of mid – 1930s New York through a nine year tenure. His inaugural year included a gang-busting crusade with the Dutchman as his first priority, declaring him the city’s top public enemy on radio and to the press. The syndicate shuddered at all of the sudden attention.

During Shultz's time away in Malone, Bo Weinberg had been secretly making arrangements with Lucky Luciano and others to have Schultz's empire taken over, betting that Dutch would be found guilty and never come back. His philanthropist payouts and mounting legal expenses were draining all profits and Weinberg though best that the entire operation should be handed over to a more even-tempered board of directors. Returning to New York, Shultz soon realized he was outnumbered and overpowered by the syndicate, who had given him ample warning to stay out of the press, which he had failed to do and was now faced with a collected cold shoulder from the mob. Feeling betrayed by associates and squeezed out of his Harlem policy games and restaurant rackets, now in the hands of Luciano, Schultz mentally fidgeted about his next move.

With Thomas Dewey still on his tail, Schultz went across the river to Newark, New Jersey to get out of jurisdiction, lick his wounds and plan his comeback. But revenge burned brighter and his first order of business was specifically Bo Weinberg. Lured by the possible prospect of reconciliation with his former boss, Weinberg agreed to a meet. The most common story, though clichéd and cinematic, was that he was taken for a boat ride on the Hudson and fitted with cement shoes. Shultz apparently broke the news to Abe’s brother George, explaining in colorful underworld hyperbole:
“ Sorry George, we had to fit Abe with a cement kimono.”
Abraham Weinberg’s murder was never solved nor was his body ever found.

Thomas Dewey continued his pressure tactics, proving to be the proverbial hair up Schultz’s ass. Shultz reached a point of breakdown and vowed to have Dewey assassinated, pleading with Luciano and co. to support him in this endeavor. For a brief while the hit was even considered as men staked out Dewey’s daily routines and try to determine the possibility of that deadly scenario. In the end, the Italians, along with Meyer Lansky and Ben Siegel, said it would be bad for business. Lepke Buchalter and Jacob ‘Gurrah’ Shapiro were a little more cold blooded in their opinion but were out-voted. Decidedly, Dewey was too high profile political a figure, and the heat would prove to be too much. Schultz, frothed at the mouth and became incensed, walked out and said he would do it himself, thereby sealing his fate.

On October 23, 1935, Shultz was in the Palace Chop House in Newark, with the only loyal remaining associates Bernard ‘Lulu’ Rosenrantz, Abe Laundau, and Otto Berman at his side. Shultz had been at the Chop House’s backroom every night for the last three weeks, using it as his temporary meeting place, unaware that he was being watched. New Jersey boss Abner ‘Longy’ Zwillman got word of Schultz’s locale to the boys across the river. At around 10PM, the hulking figure of Charles 'The Bug' Workman walked into the back room, guns blazing, while Emanuel 'Mendy' Weiss watched the front door and a driver only known as Piggy waited outside in the getaway car. Schultz’s co-horts were shot down, but the Dutchman, who went to relieve himself minutes before and wasn’t present to witness the initial carnage . Workman stormed into the mens room, catching Shultz in rather unflattering and compromising position and shot him.

Schultz was rushed to the Newark City hospital, where he lay dying and raving for a couple of days, slipping in and out of a coma while police tried to question him about his killers. Strangely enough he asked for a priest for his last rites instead of a rabbi. Two women showed up, each claiming to be his wife. Only one, Frances Flegenheimer, actually was.

Schultz began rambling incomprehensible confessional monologues, all of which were transcribed by stenographers who were by his deathbed in rotations day and night and and filled numerous pages of what seemed art first like underworld babble. Investigators tried to find out who shot him through various question periods but with infection setting in and being in a highly fevered state, most of his responses left detectives baffled.

Dutch Schultz’s deathbed ramblings have become the subject of many curious literary scholars ever since, scrutinized for possible hidden meaning and even seen by some as an untended precursor to the Beat literature movement fifteen years later. Disjointed and at times poetic, they are a curious last exit of words from man not exactly known for any scholarly attributes but someone possibly facing his demons at death’s door.

His final rant lasted a couple of hours, ending with:

"…Look out! Mamma, mamma! Look out for her. You can't beat him. Police, Mamma! Helen, Mother, please take me out. Come on, Rosie. O.K. Hymes would do it, not him. I will settle...the indictment. Come on, Max, open the soap duckets. Frankie, please come here. Open that door, Dumpey's door. It is so much, Abe, that...with the brewery. Come on. Hey, Jimmy! The Chimney Sweeps. Talk to the Sword. Shut up, you gotta a big mouth! Please help me up, Henny. Max come over here...French Canadian bean soup...I want to pay, let them leave me alone..."

Shultz then fell into a coma, and passed away quietly two hours later.

Not so Lil' Abner

Here is the latest artwork which has rolled off my drawing table.

At the Real Machers exhibit earlier this year, many had pointed out that Abner 'Longy' Zwillman was missing from the rogues gallery, a fact that I had pre- acknowledged but wasn't able to complete in time for the exhibit opening.

Born in 1899, 'Longy' Zwillman earned his sobriquet rather easily, as the Newark native and eventual boss of New Jersey sprouted to the height of 6' 2 by the time he was pushing pushcarts at the age of sixteen. Like his Manhattan counterpart Meyer Lansky, Zwillman built his empire on smarts more than muscle while managing to stay out of the spotlight for a good part of his career. The foundation of his fortune was built on the early successes of winning the bootlegging wars of the Garden State as well as constructing a significant gambling empire during the 1920's. Zwillman was also a member of what was to be known as 'The Big Six' during the 1930s, comprised of Meyer Lansky, Benjamin Siegel, Charles 'Lucky' Luciano, Frank Costello and Joe Adonis. His influence over the underworld rumblings of Newark led to tipping the Manhattan syndicate on the location of Dutch Shultz which ended in a hail bullets at the Palace Chop House in October of 1935.
Zwillman rolled big for a good part of his life, with a handful of influential politicians and policemen in his pockets. New Jersey has had long history of political corruption to this day, and its genesis may be attributed to this lanky Jewish crime boss. He was also instrumental in organizing the infamous 1929 Atlantic City summit, a who's who of national top ranking crime bosses and regarded by many as the birth of American organized crime.

Zwillman's career was a colorful one; a life that included ties to the burgeoning career of Jean Harlow, a reward offer in the Charles Lindbergh baby case, and also as a renowned philanthropist when it came to matters of his beloved Newark with a long list of charity donations in his name.

The Estes Kefuaver hearings in the early 1950s were hard times for top guns like Frank Costello and eventually exposed Zwillman's checkered past, and his legitimate facade soon crumbled in the following years.
The IRS proved once again mightier with its pencil pushers than a handful of G-men could achieve as Zwillman fought off tax evasion charges. His trial ended in a hung jury, but the trial would return to haunt him. Through wire taps and an unnamed informant, evidence came to light that a jury member was bribed to lean in Longy's direction and deadlock the verdict. The FBI prepared a new case against Zwillman with J. Edgar Hoover's personal blessing to forge ahead, but they would never get their man. By January 1959 Zwillman became increasingly withdrawn and depressed due to pending indictments that he knew he could possibly not squirm his way out of. On the morning of February 27, his wife Mary found him hung in the basement of their West Orange mansion, her departed husband still in his striped robe and silk pajamas as a half empty bottle of bourbon sat nearby. Though ruled as suicide, much has been whispered that Zwillman may of perhaps been been murdered under mob orders who suspected Zwillman may of tried to work out a deal in exchange for exoneration of his charges as to not face the remainder of his life behind bars just as he was turning sixty years old.

As a side note : I would like to encourage more comments from everyone! Sometimes it feels a little like I'm working in a vacuum here (though I know you're out there) so feel free drop in with some thoughts or just to say hello! Thanks.

Tales At the Tenement Museum

Those with an interest in tales and anecdotes of New York's notorious gangland history of the early Twentieth Century descended upon The Lower East Side Tenement Museum this past Monday, August 3, to listen to writers Rose Keefe and Pat Downey who gave informative presentations on the subject and hosted the evening.
This is the second time this year the Museum has hosted an evening dealing with themes of social historical perspectives on crime and gangsterdom - something they seem to have shied away from in the past.




The evening also included a performance from Franklin Abrams (of Monk 1903 fame) with a couple actors who brought the past to life - renacting a scene featuring Abrams as Max 'Kid Twist' Zweifach - some of Zweifach's actual descendents were in attendence as well.




Partners in crime:
Rose Keefe (left) is busy working on a couple of books at the moment - a biography on Monk Eastman (which will also encompass the short life of Max Zweifach) and is also digging into the life story of Benjamin 'Dopey' Fein.

Pat Downey is tapping the keyboard on the life of Legs Diamond, whose colorful underworld exploits intertwined on numerous occasions with Jewish gang bosses like Jacob 'Little Augie' Orgen and Arnold Rothstein among others.
They are pictured here with author Allana Atterbury, who herself is working on new book about Dutch Schultz.

Thanks to Franklin Abrams for sending along these photos as I was personally unable to attend the evening.

Bye Bye Bernie

Bernie Madoff's sentencing yesterday of a 150 years came just as I was putting the finishing touches on this caricature illustration which was intended as a promotional portfolio piece.
The timing was a little eerie to be honest as the idea had been sitting as a half finished pencil sketch for a couple of months before I decided to buckle down and get it finished.
While the nature of this blog obliviously focuses on the Jewish gangsters of years gone by - I thought this was too topical and coincidental to not to include here.

Historical fact and gangland folklore generally finds itself blurred between the lines when discussing larger than life figures of the past like Arnold Rothstein or Meyer Lansky - probably the wisest and sharpest of all of the Jewish gangsters. Perhaps time has been kind to them and are held in nostalgic regard because they had reached their heights without ever pulling a trigger and were admired for bucking the system.
However, the worlds of Rothstein and Lansky were insular, their victims lurking within the confines of its own walls with choices made by people who understood the risk they took by entering its labyrinth. It was an invisible box, seen only by specific eyes, and in which the general public was seldom involved or victimized.

History will not be so kind to Bernard Madoff however, as his victims were not naive gamblers, hotheaded hitmen or rival bootleggers. Madoff's victims were innocent people who had put their lives (financial and otherwise) into his hands and saw their worlds crumble.
Madoff was not obviously a 'gangster' in the traditional sense - but perhaps something even worse.

Abe 'Pretty' Levine

Abraham ‘Pretty’ Levine
1916 - unknown

The first generation of Brownsville's bullies, who had laid down the foundation for The Combination, kept their eyes open in search of young street kids to trap into their web with promises of easy money and street stature. The criteria simple: look for drifting, aimless kids who’ve quit school and perhaps had a tempestuous relationship with their parents, and whom, despite being hard honest people, were trapped in a cycle of low income opportunities. When Harry Strauss spotted the wayward fifteen year-old Abraham Levine, he fit the bill.

Levine was one of the young recruits the Jewish division of Murder Inc. lured into their snare, alongside the likes of Sholem Bernstein, Oscar ‘The Poet’ Friedman and Mikey Sycoff. To kids like young Abe, men like Strauss, Abe Reles, and Meyer Goldstein were neighborhood giants in size seven shoes who were respected and feared. While they saw most of the neighborhood adults as cowering and sheepish, these romanticized hoodlums towered in mistaken idol worship from these misguided teens. This type of hero worship even rivaled the like of baseball’s ‘Hammerin’ Hank Greenberg by many young Jewish kids at the time, depending on what side of the street you were from.
Surrounded by broken nosed mugs and thugs only a mother could love, it wasn’t hard for Levine to earn the moniker of ‘Pretty’. Graced with inviting blue eyes, soft features and wavy black hair, Abe may have quite likely made many a girl do a twirl while strolling along Pitkin Avenue in search of an egg cream.

Strauss put the teenage Levine to work and gave him a partner, Anthony ‘Dukey’ Maffeatore. Dukey came from Brooklyn’s neighborhood of Ocean Hill, the district nudged in as a sub-section of Bedford-Stuyvesant, and where resided the Italian delegation of Murder Inc. whose members were under the supervision of Louis Capone. Dukey’s spoken English was broken at best, and Lil’ Abner and Buck Rogers were his literary accomplishments.
Time passed as Levine and Maffeatore bonded and grew close as friends as well as being criminal colleagues, and handled most jobs thrown their way - running errands, small time extortion, collecting graft, stealing cars and license plates - low level gigs but crucial to the big wheel of operations. They were also the ones who matinee-ed in September of 1939 at the Lowes Pitkin Movie Theatre when the missing Irving ‘Big Gangy’ Cohen’ was spotted on the silver screen in Golden Boy almost two years after his disappearance into the Catskills’ forest.

Levine was picked up and booked on numerous occasions over a period of five years though charges never seemed to stick. According to 1938 NYC Police arrest records, Levine had strayed away from Brownsville and settled in Williamsburg at 104 India Street. His bertillion card listed his occupation simply as a clerk. By that year at the tender age of twenty-two, Levine was becoming a simple family man at heart, marrying young and starting a family now that his wife was pregnant. Fatherhood probably caused him to ponder more than once the implications of his criminal career more seriously and the possible fateful road he could find himself on.

The anxiety of leaving behind a pregnant widow was severe enough that he approached Abe Reles about getting out for good at some undetermined point. In pleading his case to the Brownsville chief, he argued that he had actually never murdered anyone and was really just a glorified chauffeur more than anything else. Reles, not generally know for his ‘warmth’ but still a family man himself, seemed moved enough by Levine’s plea to broach the subject with his colleagues. He was met with fierce resistance, especially from Strauss. Levine had been present at enough jobs to do considerable damage in court if he flipped; case in point the Walter Sage killing in the Catskills. Reles tried to assure them the kid would never sing, and just wanted a better life for him and his new bride while there was still time. The answer was a resounding NO from Goldstein and Strauss, and Reles should know better than to even ask. The discussion wedged a slowly ascending rift between Reles and the rest of the crew from that point on, and Levine was backed into a corner as a result and continued to soldier on despite his dilemma.

By 1940, the Brooklyn District Attorney would take care of the problem for Levine. The mobs of Kings County came under fire once William O’Dwyer opened the books on the countless unsolved murder cases that plagued the borough. Along with prosecutor Burton Turkus, a clean and sweep of Brooklyn’s undesirables and hoodlums included Pretty Levine, after his pal Dukey was picked up and broke down under interrogation and named him as his partner. Levine had recently been rather irked with Reles at the time he was rounded up for questioning. In hopes to get some help with medical bills incurred from his wife and young daughter, Levine went to Reles for a loan. Reles agreed but at the same rate of interest he passed along to anyone else on the street – which left Levine fuming at Reles’s insensitivity to his financial woes after years of loyal service though he had no choice but to accept the offer.
Surprisingly – he held tight-lipped under hot lights without playing stoolie at least for awhile, as he feared Reles more so than he started to loathe him. Eventually he gave in after his wife was jailed as material witness; a simple but effective chess move on the part of O’Dwyer and Levine started to talk. His fears were lessened and his loyalty to the Brownsville mob crumbled once Reles started to sing louder to the law than anyone else in the following weeks.

O’Dwyer knew he only had a small fish in Levine – but he was a step to catching the inner-circle, and he also proved to be a key factor in closing the case of the missing Walter Sage in Sullivan County. At his offering to ante up his plea bargain, he took the authorities up to Loch Sheldrake in the Catskill Mountains to point out where Sage’s body, ice picked and tied to a pinball machine, was dumped into the lake by Harry Strauss. Allie ‘Tick –Tock’ Tannenbaum, also playing pigeon at this point (and the coop was getting empty), corroborated his story. Levine was eventually handed a suspended sentence and shown the door for his collaboration.

In the end, after Abe Reles, under witness protection, was thrown out a seventh story window of the Half Moon Hotel, and all Brownsville’s top brass were singed at Sing Sing, but history has lost its link to what had happened to Abe ‘Pretty’ Levine.
Civilian life was more than likely incognito and whose to know if he pulled up roots from Brooklyn and seeked a better life somewhere else. He was only just twenty-five years old by the time the dust settled, plenty of time to start all over and stay on the straight line.

Puggy Feinstein

Irving ‘Puggy’ Feinstein
1910 – 1939

Puggy Feinstein’s small time ways, a double-cross, and a mere fifty dollars owed to a character named Tiny Benson, proved to have a huge ripple effect and end the lives of violent men who thought themselves untouchable.

Feinstein was an ex-prizefighter and not a very successful one. After his nose was broken for the final time, Feinstein exited the ring and found his trouble on the streets of Brooklyn.

Feinstein was mostly a low-level operative; working outside the stranglehold of the Brownsville and Ocean Hill troop with small time racketeering and gambling operations loosely connected to Louis ‘Lepke’ Buchalter. He was considered a weasel by most who knew him, roaming back alleys, scraping up leftovers and had no real prominent place in gangland.

Puggy’s street sensibilities were not sharp enough to survive; perhaps one too many boxing blows to his noggin dulled his judgment when he decided to double- cross the wrong man - Vincent Mangano. The Brooklyn press had dubbed Mangano "The Executioner" when he was head of a powerful family which later morphed into the Gambino mafia ring. He had held a tight alliance with Albert Anastasia. Anastasia, who lorded over south Brooklyn and the borough’s lucrative docks in Red Hook, was also looped in the triumvirate of Lucky Luciano, Meyer Lansky, and Buchalter. For undecernable reasons Mangano was incensed at Anastasia’s close ties to Luciano and the Manhattan syndicate, but he let word out about Feinstein’s miscalculated mischief towards him and sent the word out that he wanted the hook-nosed Jew snuffed through the syndicate's Brookyln strong armed schtarkes.
Under the orders from Anastasia, and relayed by Buchalter, Feinstein was put on the wanted list for liquidation and the Brownsville Murder Inc. troop got the job.

The only problem for members Harry Strauss, Buggsy Goldstein and Abe Reles was no one knew what Feinstein looked liked. They had never even heard of him until they took Anastasia’s call. On the night of September 5, 1939, fate drew them a hand.
Feinstein happened to walk into Midnight Rose’s candy store at 779 Saratoga just near the corner of Livonia, a hangout and de-facto backroom headquarters for the crew. Feinstein was looking for Tiny Benson, a behemoth of a man from whom Puggy had borrowed fifty dollars and was looking to re-pay his debt. Unaware of the price on his head, he spotted three men who looked like characters Tiny would associate with and who were too busy sipping on egg creams to look up, and proceeded to introduced himself. Strauss, Goldstein and Reles, quietly reeling in their luck, said they hadn’t seen Benson but could probably take him to where he was. Feinstein, either fearless or clueless, agreed to take a ride.

An hour later Feinstein was in Abe Reles’ kitchen (while his mother-in-law was asleep in the next room) tied up in a manner that any struggling would tighten the rope around his neck, eventually strangling its victim. Puggy’s prizefighter instincts had come in handy, albeit briefly, as he fought back valiantly and managed to bite into Strauss’s hand significantly before succumbing to successive stabs from an ice pick and self-strangulation. Feinstein’s body was then driven to a vacant lot by Goldstein and set on fire.

A lobster feast dinner in Sheepshead Bay following the murder of Feinstein proved to be one serving of shell fish too many for his killers.

Seymour ‘Blue Jaw’ Magoon, Goldstein’s protégé, had become a man of all trades for the Brownsville crew by the age of 28; stealing cars, racketeering and strong-arm union jobs mixed with the occasional turn as hit man. The trust he gained made him privy to some rather darker dinner conversations, and which would prove to be undeniably damaging to Feinstein’s killers when Magoon eventually joined the singing choir of Reles, Allie ‘Tick Tock’ Tannenbaum, Sholem Bernstein, and Abe ‘Pretty’ Levine who flipped on their crew in the coming year.

Though Magoon wasn’t present at the actual murder and fiery disposal, Goldstein, whose eyebrows were apparently singed, had called upon Magoon right after looking for a ride to return to a garage and pay for the empty can of gas used to ignite Feinstein. Magoon suggested to Goldstein not to return the gas can at all and simply pay for it and tell the owner of the garage it was lost in order to avoid any suspicion from possible prying detectives once Puggy’s crispy remains were discovered. Proud of Blue Jaw’s forethought, Goldstein asked him to come along to the dinner date. They both soon joined Reles and Harry Strauss and the men discussed openly the night’s earlier murderous events over buttered bits of scampi as casually as yapping over a Brooklyn Dodgers game. Strauss was still in a foul mood apparently over the chunk of flesh Feinstein managed to extract from his finger, now bandaged and throbbing, and couldn’t finish his meal. That evening’s morbid repartee would prove lethal in court in less than a year, after Goldstein and Stauss were picked up for Feinstein’s murder following Abe Reles’s song to Brooklyn's DA, William O'Dwyer.

Magoon had no choice but to flip and coroberate Reles’s story. No one had seen him for awhile, especially during the Brooklyn round ups after indictments came down hard and fast with many running for cover. He had been picked up and held in the Bronx for months prior in connection with the killing of Irving Penn, whom Lepke Buchlater had given the go ahead. Blue Jaw was staring at life and or the chair if he didn’t co-operate in the trial against Goldstein and Strauss.

Apparently Buggsy, his ol’ pal and mentor, shook with grief and disbelief when Seymour, unseen for months, walked into court to take the witness stand. He pleaded with Magoon in front of the entire courtroom to “…tell the truth Sey, tell the truth. My life depends on it!” before collapsing back into his chair. Magoon turned white as a sheet, hunched down in the witness chair in a manner where he wouldn’t have to face Goldstein and proceeded to lay out all the grisly details of Puggy’s demise overheard at dinner in Sheepshead Bay. Goldstein stood up in the middle of all this with tears strolling down his cheeks. “For God’s sake Seymour, that’s some story you’re telling...You’re burning me Seymour.” Blue Jaw wept as well and was dismissed after his damning testimony. Goldstein and Strauss, were quickly found guilty and eventually executed on June 12 1941.


My thanks to the Lloyd Sealy Library /John Jay College Of Criminal Justice (NYC) - Burton Turkus Papers, for providing me with source photograph of Irving Feinstein.

Mickey Cohen

In preparing for the Real Machers exhibit opening next month, I decided to add the 'loveable' Mickey Cohen to the show to round out the selection a little, and this one is fresh off the drawing table...


A little background...
Meyer Harris (Michael) Cohen was born in 1913 in the rough and tumble section of Brooklyn known as Brownsville before the little guy was whisked away by his parents and landed in Los Angeles by the age of six. While Cohen's contribution to Jewish Gangster lore doesn't really fit into the framework for this particular project, his exploits and ties were still wound tightly enough with the New York based mob early on.

Cohen was pint-sized at 5' 5", but stood tall and had bigger matzoh balls than most. After a brief foray as a semi-pro boxer, his fists and Star of David stitched shorts led him to small time thuggery, racketeering, robbery, and bootlegging by the time he found himself in Chicago during Prohibition and operating with outside satellites of the Al Capone gang.

By the mid-30s Meyer Lansky sent Cohen back home to Los Angeles to keep an eye out on Bugsy Siegel when the syndicate sent the blue-eyed one out west to set up shop. Cohen was at Siegel's side as de facto bodyguard for a good part of Benny's west coast days and partnered in the building of the Flamingo Hotel. After Siegel's bullet riddled demise on a warm night in June of 1947, the city of Angels' underworld was suddenly in the Mickster's hands.

Meyer Lansky's number one rule was to stay out of the papers. Mickey Cohen was not so fond of that rule. His exploits in Los Angeles read like the best headlines taken from the pages of Hush Hush and Confidential magazines. He hobnobbed as easily with movie stars and strippers as he did with the oily haired slicksters of the LA underworld, becoming Hollywood's first bona fide celebrity gangster while dodging bullets and bombing attempts. The mainstream press was fascinated as well. Life magazine in 1950 ran a photo essay on him at his Brentwood home, depicting him as 'just a, albeit colorful, normal post war suburban' to middle America.
Despite his size and former boxer mug, he still managed to be an impressive catch when it came to the ladies as well; for those looking for a little spice in their love life the dangerous little bulldog seemed to be the most exciting thing on the Sunset Strip. The real deal.
Cohen eventually served time for tax evasion twice; once at the hands of the Kefauver Commission hearings and again in 1961 where he was sent to Alcatraz.

In later life, he made the rounds of the talk show circuit as the old time mob's (unwanted) mouthpiece. Mickey couldn't help himself as he loved the limelight and attention, and by then the ol' hucktser's hands were relatively clean enough to not do any real damage at top levels, just another aging gangster with tales of the good ol' days of bullets and broads.
The great crime fiction writer James Ellroy also immortalized him in his LA Trilogy of novels as a major character alongside Ellroy's fictitious
He quietly slipped away in his sleep in 1976.

The Other Mr. A

Julius ‘Nicky’ Arnstein
1879 – 1965

With all the recent news on the woes of Wall Street and the arrest of Bernie Madoff and his 50 Billion Ponzi scheme, a modern day ‘Jew Behaving Badly’ if there ever was one, the incidents in question made me think of the colorful and charismatic Nicky Arnstein and his own Wall Street caper.






Arnstein was not completely kosher.
His father was a Berlin born Jew, while his mother was Dutch, and who from Arnstein possibly may of inherited his 6-foot plus lanky frame, a rarity in vertically challenged Jews of the time. Young Julius earned his nickname of ‘Nicky’ from the nickel-plated bicycle he raced during the 1890s, when the sport was all the rage. While his long legs pumped him to his fair share of finish lines, Arnstein was lured away from sports by the dawn of the new century and started to chart more deviously criminal waters.

Nicky Arnstein spent a good part of his mid-to-late twenties as trans-Atlantic shark preying on the unsuspected and gullible. He was charming crook who earned himself the title of ‘confidence man’, a term later shortened to ‘con man’. Hopping aboard luxurious ocean liners with glamorous European destinations, Arnstein swindled and cheated his way through the upper and lower decks hosting various card games and gambling tricks. His one of many advantages was that he was no rough and tumble scallion from the Lower East Side; he came from New York upper crust middle class stock; articulate, well mannered, dressed and read. His wealthy victims were seduced by his toothy grin and sharp wit, and one such traveler, warned of Nicky’s wayward ways, was quoted:
“I don’t give a damn. He’s better company than anyone else aboard ship.”
Arnstein managed to stay out of trouble as long as his sea legs held up, but when he decided to dock into Manhattan’s harbor for the last time, his luck it seemed had remained lost at sea.

By the early 1910s, Arnstein was involved in minor clumsy swindles but nothing much ever panned out. His newfound alliance with Arnold Rothstein during this period made complete sense however. Both were from same side of the street and similar privileged backgrounds. While Rothstein was as shrewd as they come and distrustful of most, the charm and intelligence brimming from Arnstein must have been most welcoming to him in a business riddled with thick- necked thugs and narrow mindedness. To what extent Rothstein employed Arnstein is vague, but The Big Bankroll probably enjoyed having him around.
During this period, Arnstein also met Ziegfeld Follies' top star Fanny Brice (née Fania Borach), with whom he fell head over heels in love, seemingly forgetting he had a wife at home already. Brice’s ragged edges, Yiddish street-wise sensibilities, and biting wit completely charmed the charmer, and the two became quickly inseparable. She was also drawing large salaries at this point as well from her touring schedule and spotlight on Broadway, and being a 'kept-man' probably suited Arnstein just fine.

Arnstein spent most of 1916 behind bars at Sing Sing on a swindling conviction. Brice would visit him on a weekly basis, despite the newspaper stories of her torrid jailbird romance. Arnstein’s ‘bon-vivant’ character continued up river as well, where he was given light duty and appointed prison librarian. In 1918, Arnstein became Mr. Fanny Brice, after his former wife. Claire, granted him a divorce (and whom sued Brice for ‘alienation of affection’).

In the fall of 1919, $5,000,000 in bonds was stolen through a series of holdups of Wall Street messengers carrying securities from one brokerage house to another. As the investigation followed, somehow along the way, Arnstein was pegged as one of the ‘masterminds’ behind the act. When word reached Brice, she chortled loudly:
“Mastermind! Nick couldn’t mastermind an electric bulb into a socket!”

When word reached Arnstein of the possible charges, he was a little more nervous than what his dear Fanny alluded to the papers. With the underworld whispering into his ear that the police was looking for him, he went into hiding. It seemed, according to the Wall Street gunsel when finally picked up, that a mysterious ‘Mr. A’ was behind the holdups, and picked out Arnstein’s photo from a rogues gallery. Arnold Rothstein was also known as Mr. A in some circles, so in there lays the possibility of mistaken identity and or cover up by all involved.
Perhaps looking to protect Rothstein, and whether guilty or not, Arnstein went into hiding. Not even Fanny Brice knew where her man laid his head at night. Arnstein secured the services of lawyer Bill Fallon, known as "The Great Mouthpiece" for his unbreakable streak of winning cases and orator skills. Fallon made arrangements for Nicky’s surrender, who would give himself up only as a gentleman and not as scoundrel. Arnstein insisted not to be taken away in cuffs, to have food sent to his cell from his favorite restaurants, allowed to dress in his own clothes, and would show up to the steps of the police precinct of his own accord. The papers relished in Arnstein’s comedic arrogance, and the NYPD fumed but agreed since they had no luck finding sly Nicky on their own.

Arnstein’s surrender was one of movie magic. He had picked the day of the annual Fifth Avenue police parade, and there was no way he was walking into Headquarters with only a few low level policemen on duty who awaited his arrival. With a reporter from the New York World and Bill Fallon in tow, he hired a top down town car with chauffeur. With pitch perfect timing, Arnstein’s car turned down Fifth Avenue and followed the last platoon of the parade, waving and smiling that infamous toothy grin to the throngs of people lining both sides of the street, most of whom had followed his story with relish in the papers, and joyfully cheered him on. Mayor Cadwallader D. Colden, the Police Commissioner, and other city officials were not amused, angered beet-red by Arnstein’s showmanship, disregard for procedure, and offhanded candor of the serious charges. With a final bow to his fellow New Yorkers, Arnstein ordered his chauffeur to drive to police headquarters.

Arnstein, along with four others (including an inside man) were eventually found guilty of organizing the robberies in a trial that took place a year later in Washington D.C. and ended on May 4. 1921. It was the first of two trails involving Arnstein and the scattered paper trail of stolen bonds. Arnstein was finally sentenced to Leavenworth prison on Federal charges.
Fanny, who stood by him through all of it, and sang “My Man” at all her shows in his honor, divorced him upon his release in 1927. Seems Fanny found out that despite his grand love for his Broadway baby, Nicky couldn’t help sidestepping on regular occasions and was unfaithful.

Arnstein disappeared from public view shortly after his release and subsequent heartbreak. Perhaps the murder of Arnold Rothstein in 1928 sent big enough signals to get out while he could as well.

*************************************************************************************

In 1964, a year before passing away, a possibly frail yet still dandy 84 year-old Arnstein may of attended the opening night of ‘Funny Girl’ on Broadway, the story of Fanny Brice and Nicky Arnstein, and smiled that famous grin all over again. Produced by Brice’s son-in-law, it reached even wider audiences on celluloid in 1968 with Barbara Streisand as Fanny Brice and Omar Sharif standing in as ol’ slick Nick.

Fanny Brice - "My Man" 1921

Blame It On Brownsville

“He was vicious as a Gestapo agent, as casually cold-blooded as a meat-grinding machine in a butcher shop”

- Brooklyn Prosecutor Burton B. Turkus

Harry Strauss, aka ‘Pittsburgh Phil’ aka 'Pep', was only thirty-three years old when he was walked down the hall to face his end in the electric chair at Sing Sing Prison. June 21, 1941 was the day Strauss exhaled for the last time. His execution also marked the passing of probably the most vicious and violent period in Jewish Gangster history.

A shift had seemed to occur in some Jewish criminal behavior with the onset of the Great Depression. With certain character traits leading down in darker and more violent places, the sociopath ante was raised by a few degrees. While no street gangster was a saint by any means, a certain sense of social responsibility to their community seemed to have guided the likes of Big Jack Zelig and Dopey Benny Fein from time to time, and gave thought that a heart did lay underneath the tough exterior and street wise antics.
Perhaps the surroundings in which they were raised had something to do with it. The Lower East Side still echoed much of the daily struggles of its population and therefore bestowed early leaders with a sense of pride in the protection they provided to the street.

However, across the East River in the tough section of Brooklyn called Brownsville, where many Jewish families settled after escaping the narrow streets of lower Manhattan, a meaner, more selfish Jewish thug had emerged.
Some were first or second generation American born.
Some were mere toddlers when The Herman Rosenthal affair had made headlines and threw the Jewish community into a social dilemma.
Some were barely educated.
And some grew to be some of the most brutal hit-men on record.

The Brownsville troop earned top spot by killing other Jews who were led by three brothers named Shapiro. There were no ethnic allegiances in Brownsville – just territory and dollars. A three-headed beast named Abe Reles, Meyer Goldstein and Harry Strauss led this violent and victorious troop of new soldiers for almost a decade during the dirty ‘30s. Of the three, Strauss, was known in certain circles as ‘a piece of work’.

Strauss was an intimidating figure in his camp as his hulking figure towered over most around him who only hovered in at the 5’ 5” zone even with lifts in their shoes. His background leading up to his days at Midnight Roses’ remain as mysterious and his sobriquet is misleading.
Pittsburgh Phil had apparently never been to Pittsburgh.
But Pittsburgh Phil loved his work.
Reports like to claim that Strauss had taken over 500 'contracts' willfully during the heydays of ‘The Combination’, dubbed ‘Murder Inc.' by the press. That unbelievable figure was probably exaggerated by the nation wide media frenzy that ensued once the boys from Brownsville were in court during the second half of 1940 and their dirty laundry displayed.

It seemed however that the actual act of killing didn't bother him at all, and he approached the ordeal in the same casual manner as a butcher hits a fresh side of flank. Without being tied down by family responsibilities like many others in the gang, Strauss criss-crossed America on assignments like a salesman with suitcase full of ice picks and rope. Apparently only one contract failed in the hands of Strauss while on duty in Florida.
Following his victim into a movie theatre, with plans to do him in with the theatre's handy fire axe, his target kept changing seats so often during the film that Harry quit out of disgust and frustration. Most others however were not so lucky; like poor Walter Sage, who was ice picked over thirty-six times, tied to a pinball machine, and dunked into Loch Sheldrake Lake in the Catskill Mountains.
It was however the murder of Irving ‘Puggy’ Feinstein that would prove his undoing when Abe Reles decided to sing to the Brooklyn D.A.
Under the orders of Albert Anastasia relayed by Louis 'Lepke' Buchalter, Strauss, along with Goldstein, tied up Feinstein in Reles’ kitchen while his mother-in-law was asleep in the next room. The rope was fastened and tied in a manner that any struggling would tightened the rope around his neck, eventually strangling its victim. Feinstein’s body was then dumped in a vacant lot and set on fire.
Any possible grace of the old world order in the days of the Eastmans, Zelig, and Fein, was definitely gone.

Harry Stauss was arrested, along with Buggsy Goldstein for the murder of Puggy Feinstein after Reles said a mouthful to the D.A.’s.
Without much to build up a defense on and little hope in beating the trip to the chair, Strauss decided to play the ‘nut card’ during his time leading up to the trial. He stopped shaving and grew out his hair. His ulcer acted up as well and he requested milk on a regular basis. In court he conceded to pleading insanity, playing out the role with courtroom antics such as chewing on his lawyer's briefcase continuously until the prosecutor ordered him to stop and also sent him to a barbers chair before further proceedings. In desperation, Strauss offered to turn state’s evidence in exchange for five minutes in a room with Abe Reles (long enough to cut his throat one could only assume). The authorities didn’t buy it, and neither did the jury buy his instability plea. Strauss, who was tried alongside Goldstein, was found guilty and sent up to Sing Sing to meet his fate. Despite his success as Murder Inc.’s top torpedo, Strauss died penniless, having spent his entire wealth on legal fees and a bounty for Reles's head.