Rothstein (53 page)

MAYOR JAMES J. WALKER married his mistress, Betty Compton. La Guardia appointed Walker as impartial arbitrator for the garment industry at $20,000 per year. Compton and Walker divorced in March 1941, and the Mayor of the Jazz Age returned to the Church. “While it is true-too awfully true-that many acts of my life were in direct denial of the faith in which I believed,” he confessed to a Communion breakfast, “I can say truthfully that never once did I try to convince myself or others that my acts were anything but what they were. Never once did I attempt to moralize or rationalize…. The glamour of other days I have found to be worthless tinsel, and all the allure of the world just so much seduction and deception.”

He died at age sixty-five on November 18, 1946.

FATS WALLER’S career developed nicely after Rothstein’s death, branching out into radio and motion pictures. Returning from Hollywood, where he filmed Stormy Weather with Lena Horne, he contracted pneumonia. He died at age thirty-nine on December 15, 1942.

THOMAS “FATS” WALSH, A. R.‘s erstwhile bodyguard, was shot following a card game on March 6, 1929 at Miami’s Biltmore Hotel.

JOSEPH A. WARREN, the police commissioner fired for failing to solve A. R.‘s murder, was already in poor health when Jimmy Walker pushed him out the door. The strain of his old friend’s betrayal aggravated Warren’s condition, and he sought treatment in a Connecticut sanitarium. He died from a paralytic stroke in August 1930 at age fortyseven. Walker appointed his widow to a $4,000-a-year position with the sanitation commission.

DR. JOHN B. WATSON, to whom A. R. referred Carolyn Rothstein in 1927, wrote The Psychological Care of the Infant and Child the following year. It remained the bible of child-care books until supplanted by Dr. Spock. Growing alcoholism aggravated his family relationships. His son William committed suicide after Watson violently questioned his decision to also enter psychology. Granddaughter, actress Marlette Hartley, blamed her alcohol and psychological problems on him. He died of cirrhosis of the liver in 1958, after ordering his unpublished papers burned.

CHARLES WEEGHMAN, the first to link A. R. to the 1919 World Series fix, never recovered financially from losing his Chicago restaurant chain. In 1927, Weeghman’s old baseball colleagues, Jacob Ruppert, Harry Frazee, and Harry Sinclair, bankrolled his modest bar and grill at 23rd Street and Fifth Avenue. It failed, as did two other Manhattan restaurants he opened. Weeghman returned to Chicago and died of a stroke at age sixty-four on November 1, 1938.

Bo WEINBERG, the mobster who took George McManus into hiding, continued as Dutch Schultz’s righthand man. On September 31, 1931 he was one of four men posing as police who gunned down Mafia Boss of Bosses Salvatore Maranzano at his Park Avenue offices. In February 1932, Weinberg orchestrated the fatal machine-gunning of Schultz rival Vincent “Mad Dog” Coll in a West 23rd Street pharmacy phone booth. In 1936 the Dutchman discovered Weinberg plotting with his adversaries, Lucky Luciano and Newark mob boss Abner “Longy” Zwillman. Schultz murdered Weinberg, encased his body in cement and dumped him in the East River.

WILLIAM WELLMAN, onetime “boy manager” of Madison Square Garden and manager of A. R.‘s disastrous Middle Village, Queens real estate holdings, barely survived his boss. He died of what the New York Times termed a “throat affection” at New York’s Knickerbocker Hospital on April 7, 1931.

Rothstein and Wellman’s housing development eventually caused other deaths-and profits. In December 1934, a group of youngsters were sledding on ice that had formed on the site’s excavations. The ice broke and two brothers (aged nine and twelve) died. The next year New York City obtained 74 of its 127 acres in return for $334,000 in back taxes, planning to turn the area into parkland. It turned out that the entire development had been an elaborate hoax. A. R. had constructed what Mayor LaGuardia would later term “fake houses” on the site, structures built without even foundations. The idea was to sell the land to the city, but as vastly more expensive, “improved” property. “Armed guards and dogs kept investigators out but we finally got photographs and exposed the whole thing,” said LaGuardia. Presumably, the dogs were not actually armed.

Rothstein and Wellman had actually been sitting on a legitimate fortune. Later that year, New York City started extracting peat moss on the grounds, eventually earning $500,000 from its sale.

GOVERNOR CHARLES S. WHITMAN’S governorship witnessed a few modest accomplishments: expansion of the barge canal, completion of the Catskill Aqueduct, establishment of the State Police (then known as the State Constabulary), compulsory physical and military training in New York’s schools, and coordination of the state’s war efforts-but nothing ever overtook his involvement with the Becker-Rosenthal case.

In 1916 he won reelection against judge Samuel Seabury. Seabury counted on support from former President Theodore Roosevelt, who had once told Seabury, “The truth is not in Whitman,” but T. R. doublecrossed him. In 1918 Whitman (now on the Republican and Prohibition tickets) narrowly (987,438 votes to 975,200) lost to Tom Foley protege President of the Board of Aldermen Alfred E. Smith.

When Fiorello La Guardia captured City Hall in 1933, Whitman and Seabury were among La Guardia’s inner circle. He died at age seventy-eight at his University Club quarters on March 29, 1947.

In 1992 his granddaughter-in-law, Christine Todd Whitman, was elected Governor of New Jersey. She served as head of the federal Environmental Protection Agency, under President George W. Bush, in 2001-3.

DAVID ZELSER, the Des Moines gambler who posed as Curly Bennett, in 1923 opened a cigar store back in Des Moines, a city Ban Johnson was soon to charge was at the heart of nationwide gambling. He died in 1945 at age sixty-eight.

CARL T. ZORK, Abe Attell’s henchman during the World Series fix, dropped dead in a downtown St. Louis tailor shop on January 17, 1947. He was sixty-eight.

Chapter 1: “I’ve Been Shot”

1 insurance policy: Rothstein, p. 252.

1 list of companies: NY Sun, 10 November 1928, p. 3; NY Times, 9 November 9 1928, p. 27.

2 “To understand it … a thousand enemies.”: NY Times, 10 Nov., 1928, p. 19.

2 “with a passion … he stood alone.”: Ferber, p. 195.

3 Lindy’s. In August 1921 immigrant Leo Lindemann opened Lindy’s as a simple deli. Only after Al Jolson urged him to install seats did he convert Lindy’s into a restaurant. “Because [Arnold Rothstein] spent so much time in Lindy’s, many people thought Rothstein owned the restaurant,” noted Ed Weiner in The Damon Runyon Story, “Even the newspapers reported that Lindy’s was the property of the slain gambler. Naturally, Leo Lindeman … was distressed at the printed misstatements and threatened to sue the papers for libel. He asked Damon [Runyon] for advice. For over a week, in every story he wrote on the murder, Runyon printed the names of the actual owners of the restaurant, and offered conclusive proof that Rothstein was in no way affiliated with Lindy’s, except as a paying customer. Ironically, the so-called bad publicity the restaurant received as a result of the Rothstein shooting made Lindy’s a Broadway institution with a national reputation.”

3 “Mr. Rothstein comes … little black book.”: Clark, p. 182; Katcher, p. 3.

3 “Nobody knows … hold of all of it.”: Bloom, pp. 184, 207-09; Salwen, p. 230; Hoyt, p. 171; Clark, p. 86.

4 “if you have … making money.”: NY Sun, 5 November 1928, p. 29; Clarke, p. 302; Chafetz, p. 424.

5 betting, drugs: NY Sun, 3 December 1928, p. 20; Katcher, pp. 327-08.

6 “Arnold was very … only for him.”: Clarke, p. 284; Katcher, p. 6; Brooks, p. 10.

7 “Place … Circle 3317.”: NY Eve. Post, 5 November 1928, p. 8; NY Sun, 17 November 1928, p. 5; NY Times, 4 December 1929, p. 24; Katcher, pp. 3-4; Hoyt, p. 213. Scher thought the call came at 10:45, but he was clearly incorrect.

7 “Tell A. R…. with him.”: Bloom, pp. 206-08; Clarke, p. 285; Rothstein, p. 250.

7 “There are phone calls … who listens?”: Katcher, p. 3.

7 “I’m going … halfhour.”: Rothstein, p. 250.

8 “Rothstein … waiting for his cheese.”: Fowler (The Great Mouthpiece), p. 206.

8 Meehan’s apartment: Rothstein’s Time Square world was geographically very compact. The Congress Apartments are just two blocks south of the Park Central. The 15-story brick apartment house, its once-gleaming marble lobby still remarkably intact, is almost untouched save for seven decades of grime. Recently its mezzanine housed a talent agency for go-go girls, a far cry from the site’s previous use, Grace Reformed Dutch Church.

8 $10/hour: Albany Times-Union, 10 November 1928, p. 2; Betts, p. 235.

9 Nate Raymond: NY Daily World, 6 November 1928, p. 16; NY Sun, 6 November 1928, p. 1; NY Eve. Post, 11 November 1928, p. 2; NY Times, 8 November 1928, p. 31; NY Times, 6 November 1928, p. 2; Blackie Sherrod, “The Days of Titanic Hustles,” Dallas Morning News, 4 November 1999; Davis, p. 227; Ginsburg, pp. 261, 268, 271; Fried, pp. 2-5; Chafetz, p. 425.

10 “The sky … limit.”: NY Sun, 6 November 1928, p. 1

10 Total of losses: Albany Times-Union, 6 November 1928, pp. 1, 4; NY Daily News, 9 August 1940, page unknown; Katcher, pp. 319-22; Crouse, pp. 143-44; Betts, pp. 131-32.

10 “He was not a … how he squawked.”: Albany Times-Union, 10 November 1928, p. 2.

11 “Why you low rat … welch this time.”: Albany Times-Union, 6 November 1928, p. 4.

11 “Is this the … “; “couple of days.”: Katcher, pp. 321-22.

11 “Arnold…”;”… sweat a little.”: NY Times, 6 November 1928, p. 2; NY Sun, 5 November 1928, p. 29; NY Daily Mirror, 5 November 1928, p. 2; Chafetz, p. 426.

12 NY Daily World, 5 November 1928, p. 2; NY Sun, 22 November 1928, p. 1; NY Daily Mirror, 5 November 1928, p. 2.

12 “McManus wants to see … be right back.”: NY Times, 6 November 1928, p. 2; Katcher, p. 3; Crouse, p. 141.

12 “walking down … “; “… are taking him away.”: NY Times, 6 November 1928, p. 2; NY Times, 18 November 1928, p. 24; NY Times, 3 December 1929, p. 26; Katcher, pp. 4-5; NY Times, 3 December 1929, p. 26; Clarke, p. 286; Rothstein, pp. 245-46. Park Central hotel physician Dr. Kenneth Hoffman also testified that Rothstein rebuffed numerous inquiries regarding his assailant. Hoffman’s recalled that each time A. R. responded, “I haven’t anything to say.”

13 $1,025 cash: NY Times, 5 November 1928, pp. 1, 14; NY Times, 3 December 1929, p. 26; Clarke, p. 302. Eugene Reiman returned to Lindy’s five minutes after Arnold. Whether A. R. had definite plans for extra cash-or simply desired it on general principles-was never explained.

14 “Come on, Monk…”;”… trouble from here on in.”: Fowler (Beau James), pp. 230-32. Coincidentally, twenty-two-yearold showgirl Starr Faithfull was Jimmy Walker’s neighbor on Greenwich Village’s St. Luke’s Place.

Chapter 2: “Nobody Loves Me”

15 “You hate me.” … “… leave Harry here.”: Katcher, pp. 18-19. Rothstein biographer Leo Katcher places the date at 1888 and A. R.‘s age as six. This cannot be correct. The trip would have had to occur before Esther Rothstein’s pregnancy with daughter Sarah.

15 San Francisco trip: ibid. pp. 18-19.

15 Abraham Rothstein: NY Times, 21 November 1939, p. 26; Crouse, p. 135. Katcher writes that “orphaned early by his father’s death, [Abraham Rothstein] had left school to support his mother and his brothers and sisters.” Both Harris and Rosa Rothstein actually lived long enough to witness their son’s marriage.

16 “Abe the Just”: Alexander (Jazz Age Jews), pp. 23-24.

16 “My father … have tried to do.”: Katcher, p. 12.

17 “When we married … of course, came later.”: Katcher, pp. 14-15; San Francisco Evening Bulletin, September 5, 1879, p. 4; San Francisco Morning Call, 23 December 1883, p. 7; death certificate, Esther Rothstein. Jacob Rothschild operated J. S. Rothschild & Co. with offices at 22 Sansome Street in downtown San Francisco and in Independence, California. The Rothschilds lived on Turk Street, near to downtown. Leo Katcher incorrectly gives Esther’s maiden name as Kahn, her father’s name as Simon, and the year of her marriage as 1878.

17 Birth of siblings: The Rothsteins lived at 202 W. 86th Street just before the turn of the century and at 63 W. 93rd Street just after it. A. R. still lived at home with his parents at both addresses Arnold’s relationship with his family was not uniformly bad. “He was as fond of his brother Jack as of any other human being,” Arnold’s wife once recalled. (Rothstein, p. 248)

17 “Why, my son?” … “… I ever really cried.”: Katcher, p. 18-19.

18 “He did not like . . that superiority.”: Crouse, p. 135.

18 “I’d do all the … with numbers.”: Katcher, p. 18.

18 “I’ve had enough . . Let Harry be a Jew.”: Katcher, p. 20; Lacey, p. 77.

19 “We saw it everywhere … Israel of Old”: Quoted in Cohen (Tough Jews), p. 48 and in Fried, p. 37 fn.

19 Gangs and gang members: Asbury (Gangs of New York), passim. Sullivan was as Irish as he sounded. Smith was actually a Solomon.

19 Price list: Asbury (Gangs of New York), pp. 228, 331; Rockaway, p. 102. This matter-of-fact listing of crimes for hire was nothing new. In the 1880s Piker Ryan advertised prices: “punching $5; both eyes blacked $4; nose and jaw broke $10; jacked out (knocked out with a blackjack); $15; ear chewed off, $15; leg or arm broke, $19; shot in leg, $25; stab, $25; doing the big job [murder], $100 and up.”

20 “I likes to …” … … my knucks off.”: Fried, pp. 25-43; Sante, pp. 197-235; Rockaway, pp. 87-105; Cohen (Tough Jews), pp. 41-46; Morris (Incredible New York), pp. 281-83; Connable and Silberfarb, pp. 224-45; Logan, pp. 69, 73; Rockaway, pp. 93-105; Root (The Life and Bad Times of Charlie Becker), pp. 43-44; Harlow, pp. 501-06. Not all early-twentieth century New York gangs were Irish or Jewish. Paul Kelly (nee Paulo Antonio Vaccarelli) oversaw one of the city’s earliest Italian gangs, allying himself politically with Tammany’s Big Tim Sullivan. Perhaps in gratitude, State Senator Sullivan sponsored the nation’s first Columbus Day holiday.

20 East Side criminals. Fried, pp. 25-28.

20 “Almost any child …” … “King of the Vice Trust”: ibid. pp. 7-19. Not just the cadets were Jewish; so were many of the girls. A 1908-9 Magistrates Court survey of New York City prostitutes revealed that of 581 foreign-born prostitutes arraigned, 225 were Jewish.