Joe Bruno's Mobsters - Six Volume Set (19 page)

On April 12, 1878, Boss Tweed died in the Ludlow Street Jail from a severe case of pneumonia. He was buried in  Brooklyn's Greenwood Cemetery, and due to Tweed's outlandish treachery, New York Mayor Smith Ely would not allow the City Hall flag to be flown at half-mast in Tweed's memory.

No one could account for what became of Boss Tweed's vast amounts of ill-gotten gains. And not surprisingly, there were no reports of a Wells Fargo stagecoach following his horse-drawn hearse.

W
atchmen (Leatherheads) and Roundsmen

The first New York City police force was created in 1845, but before then the streets of New York city were “protected” by a motley crew of incompetents, called Watchmen and Roundsmen.

The Watchmen first came into existence in the late 1700's, when the Dutch ruled New York City. Their job was little more than patrolling the streets at night, looking for any possible disturbances, but mostly avoiding them. They would also call out the hours of the night with such inane declarations as, “By the grace of God, two o'clock in peace.” Or, “By the grace of God, four o'clock and a cold, raw morning.”

Except for a 33-inch club, the Watchmen carried no arms. And they wore no uniforms, except for a fireman's leather hat, which they varnished twice a year, which made the hat as hard as a rock; hence they received the name - “Leatherheads.”
They were also called "Old Charlies," which was also not a term of endearment.

Starting i
n 1829, Watchmen were required by New York City ordinance to call out fires. If they saw smoke, the Watchmen would scream out either the name of his post, or the street name of where the fire was located.

There was also a street curfew, which stated anyone seen outdoors after 9 p.m. was considered to be of  “bad morals.” It was the Watchmen's duty to arrest anyone they caught wandering the streets at night, and then bring them to the local jail to be locked up until daylight.

The Watchmen's pay was a mere $1 a night. They were also paid an additional fifty cents to attend as witnesses at Special Court Sessions. There, they would testify to the particulars of any crime they may have seen while on duty, which, because of their lack of energy, hardly ever happened.

The criminals and gangs of New York City had very little respect for the Watchmen, who numbered only 30-40 in the entire city. The Watchmen were considered not to be very bright, nor very ambitious and were known to be frequently drunk on duty.

Each Watchmen had a post, or watch-box, which consisted of an unanchored wooden shack, where they would frequently fall asleep on duty, usually after consuming large amounts of whiskey. A favorite activity of the young ruffians throughout the city was to catch a Watchmen sleeping in his watch-box, lasso the watch-box with a rope, and then drag it through the streets, whooping and hollering like banshees. The soon-to-be-famous writer Washington Irving was known to be one of these pranksters.

Whereas Watchmen patrolled New York City at night, the crime solvers, or Roundsmen, were the daytime duty men. Roundsmen were considered the plainclothesmen, or detectives of the era, but solving crimes was certainly not their strong suit. Roundsmen were usually common laborers, or stevedores, who could not find work in their chosen fields of endeavor. As a result, Roundsmen were not especially adept at solving crimes, or catching criminals

Roundsmen were paid no salary, and they derived their income solely by serving legal papers, or collecting rewards from citizens for returning stolen property. This led to some very enterprising Roundsmen forming alliances with groups of criminals. The crooks would steal the goods, and the victims would post a reward for the return of their property.  The Roundsmen would then “find” the stolen property, collect the reward, and then split it with the crooks.

Solving murders was very low on the list of the Roundsmen's priorities, since there was usually no reward for finding killers. The only way a Roundsmen could make a profit going after murderers was if the family of the victim posted a reward. And if the Roundsmen was lucky
enough to catch the killer, which was very unusual, he would collect the reward and a further stipend from the city for serving a legal summons on the perpetrator.

Because of their outright incompetence, the Roundsmen and Watchmen were fast becoming an endangered species. It was the 1841 murder of  Mary Rogers that put the final nail in their coffin. With plenty of clues as to who the murderer was, the Roundsmen dragged their heels, long enough that Rogers's killer was never found.

In 1845, the public was fed up with the archaic system of Watchmen and Roundsmen acting as an incompetent and un-industrious quasi-police force. Spurred on by the fury of the press, New York City reformers disbanded the Watchmen and Roundsmen system, and they replaced it with a functional police department, which was then copied by many cities throughout the United States of America.

W
eyer, John (Johnny Spanish)

Johnny Spanish, whose real name was John Weyer, was one of the most feared gangsters in the early part of the 20
th
century. Weyer took the name Johnny Spanish because he was half-Jewish and half-Spanish. On his Spanish side, Weyer claimed to be a descendant of Butcher Weyer, the last Governor of Cuba. Weyer figured “Johnny Spanish” had much more cache to it rather than plain old John Weyer the Jew, so he claimed the name Johnny Spanish as his very own.

Spanish was born on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, and he quickly immersed himself in various street crimes. The short, frail, and morose Spanish was a loner, whose specialty was robbing saloons. When robbing a dive, Spanish liked to throw in the twist of sending a message to the saloon owners first, telling them of his imminent arrival. Spanish's legend grew immensely, when he performed that feat in a joint on Norfolk Street owned by Mersher the Strong Arm.

On the morning of the robbery, Spanish gave Mersher notice that he would arrive at a certain time. And that he did, armed with his usual four guns and an accomplice lurking behind him. Spanish threw a couple of shots through the mirror behind the bar, and then he emptied the till. To add insult to injury, Spanish lined 10 customers against the wall, and he relieved them of all their cash and jewelry. Spanish's notoriety grew, and soon he was accepted into Paul Kelly's Five Points Gang where he continued his shenanigans.

As an addition to his saloon crimes, Spanish found it quite profitable to steal the proceeds from the lucrative stuss gambling games located throughout New York City (stuss was a game which was a variation of the popular faro). Spanish had his eye on one such game, operated by Kid Jigger on Forsyth Street. One day, Spanish approached Jigger, who was known to be a fierce gunfighter, and he demanded half the take from Jigger's stuss game.

“And why should I give you half my stuss graft?” Jigger inquired.

“Because I'll knock you off if you don't,” Spanish said.

Jigger just laughed.

Spanish took offense and told him, “Alright then, I'll knock you off tomorrow night.”

Sure enough, being a man of his word, on the following night, as Jigger strode from his stuss game on Forsyth Street, Spanish opened fire with two guns. Jigger ran back into the building to safety, but the bullets struck an 8-year-old girl who was  playing in the streets, killing her on the spot.

This necessitated Spanish leaving New York city for several months, until the heat died
down. When Spanish returned, he was alarmed to find out that his girlfriend (who happened to be pregnant by who-knows -who), had been stolen by fellow thug Kid Dropper, real name Nathan Kaplan.

Spanish figured he'd settle with his ex-girlfriend first. He grabbed her off the streets, threw her in a taxicab, and then he headed out to the marshes of Maspeth, Long Island. There, Spanish tied her to a tree, and then he emptied five bullets into her pregnant belly. Spanish left the woman there to die, but miraculously, she survived. However, her baby was subsequently born with three missing fingers.

For this atrocity, Spanish was arrested, tried, convicted, and sentenced to seven years in Sing Sing Prison. Upon his release in 1917, Paul Kelly's Five Points Gang had dissolved, so Spanish figured he would take over Kelly's former rackets. The only problem was, Kid Dropper had the same idea.

The two old foes battled over the union protection racket for more than two years. One day in early 1919, the bulkier Dropper cornered Spanish on the street, and he carved him up badly with a knife. Spanish survived, but not for long.

On July 29, 1919, Spanish was entering a restaurant at 19 Second  Avenue, when Dropper and two accomplices opened fire, hitting Spanish several times in the chest.

Bullets working better than blades, Spanish died a few days later in Bellevue Hospital.

W
exler, Irving  (Waxey Gordon)

In the 1920's, Waxey Gordon was one of the richest, most powerful gangsters in New York City. However, after he was set up by his enemies for a fall, Gordon was reduced to selling junk on the streets like a common two-bit criminal.

Waxey Gordon was born Irving Wexler in 1889 on the Lower East Side of Manhattan to Polish/Jewish parents. Not having a great fondness for the New York City school system, Wexler took to the streets, and he became the best pickpocket on the Lower East Side. Wexler was so good at his trade, he got  the nickname “Waxey,” because he was so “light fingered,” he could pick someone's wallet, like his fingers and the wallet were coated with wax. Waxey Gordon sounded better than “Waxey Wexler,” so Waxey Gordon it was, from that point on.

Gordon did what most tough Jewish criminals did in those days. He got involved in the labor rackets (with the Dopey Fein gang), and soon Gordon was “schlammin’,” or breaking heads, with the best of them. To supplement his income, Gordon also did a little burglary and minor dope dealings on the side.

One of the men Gordon cracked heads for was the legendary gambler Arnold “The Brain” Rothstein, who was known to do a little investing in other people's illegal enterprises. It was the beginning of Prohibition, and Gordon hooked up with small-time hood, Max “Big Maxey” Greenberg, who had big ideas, but little cash. Greenberg had left his home in St. Louis for the bright lights of Manhattan, because he heard there were certain people who might bankroll his dream of owning his own bootlegging business. Greenberg needed $175,000 to get started, and through Gordon's connection to Rothstein, Maxey and Waxey approached “The Brain” (on a Central Park bench, no less), about loaning them the cash they needed in return for a piece of the action.

At first, Rothstein turned them down flat. Then, Rothstein had a change of heart, as well as a change of plans. Rothstein saw tremendous potential in the bootlegging business, but what Greenberg and Gordon were planning was strictly small-time. Rothstein said he would loan them
the money, but with very specific conditions.

First, Rothstein would run the operation; no questions asked. Greenberg and Gordon would act as Rothstein’s  main men, using their street contacts as secondary employees, who were needed for such a big operation.

And second, instead of smuggling cheap hooch in boats from Canada, Rothstein saw more monetary potential in shipping in top-notch booze from England. Rothstein purchased six speedboats, and when the cargo ship he hired, carrying 20,000 cases of Scotch, arrived in American waters from England, it would stop several miles off the coast of Montauk, Long Island. There it would be met by the six Rothstein speedboats, each of which would carry nearly 1,000 cases of booze back to shore. After the speedboats made three or four trips from ship to shore, trucks would take the booze to a warehouse in Manhattan, where it would be stored, and then distributed to thousands of speakeasies throughout the city.

This continuing operation brought Gordon much wealth. It was estimated, Gordon earned between $1 and $2  million a year, pure profit for himself. With this dough, Gordon bought several office buildings in Manhattan, a string of speakeasies, and illegal gambling houses.

After Rothstein was killed over a bad gambling debt, Gordon purchased his own fleet of motor boats, to keep the illegal flow of  booze coming from across the pond. Gordon also bought a townhouse in Manhattan on Central Park West and a castle in New Jersey, complete with its very own moat.

Gordon soon formed bootlegging partnerships with the Italian gangs, headed by Lucky Luciano, who was himself  was partnered with Jewish kingpin Meyer Lansky. By this time, Luciano was in the process of organizing Italian gangs throughout the country under one umbrella, and Lansky was doing the same thing with Jewish gangs.

The only problem was, Lansky and Gordon, both Jews, couldn't stand each other and wouldn't even sit at the same table together. Both accused the other of hijacking their bootlegging trucks, and both were right in their assumptions.

What transpired next, was what was known in the press as “The War of the Jews.” Lansky killed Gordon's men, and Gordon returned the favor. Luciano tried to step in to settle the dispute, but to no avail.

Gordon had now been declared “Public Enemy Number One” by the FBI, which put him right in the cross-hairs of Special Prosecutor Thomas E. Dewey. In 1930, it was Luciano's idea to feed Gordon to Dewey on an income tax rap, with Lansky's brother Jake leaking information to Dewey's investigators, about Gordon's financial operations. Gordon was arrested and indicted by Dewey.