Joe Bruno's Mobsters - Six Volume Set (26 page)

Someone yelled, “Police! Suicide! Look out! He's going to jump into the river!”

What happened next has been disputed for years; but in fact, no one who wasn't connected to the ruse had actually seen Brodie jump off the Brooklyn Bridge. What is certain, is that the three men in the rowboat rowed to where Brodie was floundering in the East River. When they got to Brodie, they dragged him by his shoulders into the rowboat. The men then rowed back to the pier on the Manhattan side of the Brooklyn Bridge, where they were met by Patrolmen Lally. Patrolman Lally immediately put Brodie under arrest.

“On what charge do you arrest me?” Brodie said.

“For jumping off the bridge and endangering your life,” Patrolman Lally said. “You better come with me.”

“OK, I'll go
wid you, but I guess I'll get the $200,” Brodie said. “I can jump off de highest bridge in de world now.”

Immediately, there were skeptics as to whether Brodie had
actually jumped off the bridge; some argued it was all a stunt. Soon, word began circulating in the streets of Lower Manhattan that Brodie had pulled off the caper, not for $200, but because a man named Moritz Herzberg had offered Brodie to buy him a saloon, on the basis that after the stunt, Brodie would be famous and so would his saloon.

Even though the
New York
Times
, which employed two reporters who said they actually saw Brodie jump, reported Brodie's swan dive off the Brooklyn Bridge to be quite true, in fact they were all in on the caper. What really happened was this:

One of Brodie's confederates on the Brooklyn Bridge, upon receiving a signal from another accomplice on the dock, dropped a dummy loaded with iron clippings into the water below. At this point, Brodie was hiding under a pier in a small rowboat. As soon as the dummy hit the water, Brodie dove from the rowboat into the water, and
he swam to the spot near where the dummy had sunk. Brodie's three pals in the rowboat rowed to where Brodie had swum, and they picked him up.

The rest is history.

Suddenly, a nobody named Steve Brodie became an instant star in New York City. Trying to cash in on his fame as much as he could, Brodie became the centerpiece of an exhibit at Alexander's Museum. To further inflate his fraudulent image, Brodie performed a series of stunts similar to the one he staged at the Brooklyn Bridge. In each stunt, Brodie was pulled from the water after a purported jump from a severe height, but not once did anyone not involved with Brodie actually see Brodie make the jump. After each stunt, Brodie received more newspaper coverage, which further amplified his daredevil image.

Brodie pulled one stunt too many, when after one faked jump, he disappeared
completely, leading the suckers who bought Brodie's exploits in the first place to believe that he had died by drowning. When Brodie resurfaced in a Bowery bar a few weeks later, the newspapers figured they had been had, and they refused to give Brodie any more press coverage.

Brodie tried to resuscitate his image by actually trying to perform a stunt he said he would do. Brodie considered himself a strong swimmer, so he announced to the world he would swim the rapids in Niagara Falls. Dressed in a rubber suit, Brodie was lowered by a rope
into the frigid waters. But as soon as Brodie’s toes settled into the drink, panic set in. Brodie, in a frenetic state and figuring his daredevil days were over, begged to be pulled back into the boat by the rope. And that he was.

So much for Steve Brodie – daredevil.

Not being able to fool the public any longer, Brodie figured it was time take up Moritz Herzberg's offer of buying Brodie a saloon. In 1890, Brodie opened “Steve Brodie's Saloon” at 114 Bowery near Grand Street. The saloon became an immediate success with the sporting crowd. Boxing celebrities like John L. Sullivan, Jim Jeffries, James Corbett and Tom Sharkey (all of whom later would become world heavyweight champions) frequently hung out in Brodie's joint. Brodie was always on hand to shake a hand; sometimes even tending bar himself.

Behind the bar was a huge oil painting
which showed Brodie courageously making his imaginary swan dive off the Brooklyn Bridge. To add veracity to a mendacious non-event, next to the oil painting was a framed affidavit signed by the “boat captain” who supposedly had fished Brodie from the East River.

Surrounding Brodie's oil painting were nonsensical signs, spouting such inanities as, “The Clock is Never Right,” and “We Cash Checks For Everyone,” and “$10,000 in the Safe To Be Given Away to the Poor,” and “Ask the Bartender For What you Want,” and finally, “If You
Don't See What You Want, Steal It!”

Steve Brodie's Saloon consisted of three separate rooms. The front room was reserved for the neighborhood ra
bble who had swaggered inside for a cool libation. The two back rooms were for Brodie's pals and members of the press whom Brodie had on his pad.

And there were plenty of them.

The entire floor of all three rooms was inlaid with silver dollars, to give the impression that only the rich and mighty bent an elbow at Steve Brodie's Saloon, which was certainly not the case. But image is everything, so Brodie kept the press up to their gills in booze, and he stuffed a few bucks in their pockets to boot.

Tour buses made Steve Brodie's Saloon one of their must stops (Brodie paid the tour bus drivers well too).

As soon as the tour bus arrived in front, the tour guide would proudly proclaim, “Ladies and Gentlemen, you are seeing one of the most historic scenes in this great city. That, ladies and gentlemen, is Steve Brodie's Famous Saloon. You have all heard of Steve Brodie, the man who made that terrible leap for life from the Brooklyn Bridge to the East River below and lived to tell about it.”

CA-CHING!

Soon, the entire tour bus crowd rushed inside Steve Brodie's Saloon to see a piece of history, and of course, to spend a few bucks buying Steve Brodie's booze.

Every once in a while, when the mood hit him, Brodie would wear a tattered suit, which he claimed was the exact one he was wearing when he made his “fearless jump.” Then, if someone bought a round of drinks (and someone always did), Brodie, his chest puffed out a full two feet, would solemnly regale the crowd with a blow-by-blow description of his gallant leap into the murky waters of death.

Quite frankly, Steve Brodie had no shame.

In 1894, Steve Brodie, still trying to capitalize on his ill-founded f
ame, appeared in a play called
On the Bowery
, staring, of course - Steve Brodie. The play originally was conceived to star a local 5-foot-2-inch pugilist called “Swipes the Newsboy” (real name Simon K. Besser). However, Swipes accidentally killed a fellow boxer in the ring, which subsequently landed him in jail, because at the time boxing was illegal in New York City. So in stepped Steve Brodie, and the part was rewritten to accommodate Brodie's interesting life.

The play opened in Philadelphia, made a stop in Brooklyn,
and then finally found its home at The People's Theatre at 199 Bowery, right down the street from Steve Brodie's Saloon. The play was basically a hokey mess of disjointed scenes, one of which took place in an exact replica of Steve Brodie's Saloon. Predictably, at the play's climax, Steve Brodie jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge to save the heroine named Blanch, who had been hurled into the frigid waters of the East River by the wretched villain Thurlow Bleekman.

In
On the Bowery
Brodie even got a chance to display his singing talents, or lack thereof. His heart-rendering rendition of
My Pearl
caused tears to flow from theatergoers eyes. The words of which were:

My Pearl is a Bowery girl,

She's all the world to me,

She's in it with any girls 'round the town,

And a corking good looker, see?

At Walhalla Hall she kills them all,

As waltzing together we twirl.

She sets them all crazy, a spieler, a daisy,

My Pearl's a Bowery girl.

Applause!! Applause!! No tomatoes, eggs, or shoes, please. This is a respectable establishment.

With the play a resounding success, Steve Brodie's Saloon was even more popular than before. With his newfound wealth, Brodie substantially upgraded his attire. Brodie now lorded over his saloon resplendent with a five-carat diamond ring on his finger, diamond studs instead of buttons on his shirt, and a gold watch and chain, hooked onto his belt loop and slipped into his front pants pocket.

But alas, Brodie's wea
lth and success were short-lived.

O
n January 31, 1901, Steve Brodie died from complications due to diabetes. The man who had “jumped” from the Brooklyn Bridge was only 40 years old when he left this earth.

However, after Brodie's death he became more famous than ever
before. Not wanting to disparage a dead man's name, the rumors of Brodie's chicanery concerning the Brooklyn Bridge dive became almost non-existent. In fact, a new American phrase was coined: “Pulling a Brodie,” or, “Taking a Brodie,” which meant doing something dangerous, or maybe even suicidal.

In 1933, Hell's Kitchen actor G
eorge Raft portrayed Brodie in
The Bowery,
a film directed by Raoul Walsh. In this movie, Raft (Brodie) attempts to stage a fake jump off the Brooklyn Bridge. With a crowd of 100,000 people congregated at the bridge, and with a dummy all set to be thrown in the river, the dummy inexplicably disappears.

Raft's young accomplice, aptly named Swipes (played by child actor Jackie Cooper) tells Raft, “They were hip to us so they copped it.”

Raft shrugged his shoulders, and not wanting to disappoint the panting crowd, he made the daring jump into the drink himself.

And
to the applause of the crowd, George Raft (Steve Brodie) survived.

Kiddies,
this happens only in the movies.

C
onnors, Chuck – The Mayor of Chinatown

Chuck Connors was a
scam artist of the highest caliber and the most famous white man in Chinatown history. Because of his gregarious nature, Connors was called the “Mayor of Chinatown,” even though Chinatown had its own elected Chinese Mayor, Tom Lee, the leader of the On Leong Tong.

George Washington “Chuck” O'Connor claimed he was born on Mott Street in Chinatown, b
ut most likely was born in 1852 in Providence, Rhode Island.

Telling the truth was never Connors'
s strong point.

When Connors was a teenager, he changed his last name from O'Connor to Connors. Rumor had it that “Connors” had less of an Irish ring to it than “O'Connor,” and the Irish were strongly associated with the poli
ce for whom Connors had no fondness.

Connors'
s early nickname in Chinatown, for some reason, was “Insect,” but he soon was called “Chuck” by everyone, because he loved to cook chuck steaks by hoisting them on a stick and searing them over small fires he set in the streets of the Bowery and Chinatown. At various times in his wacky life, Connors was also called the “Sage of Doyers Street,” and the “Bowery Philosopher.”

As a young boy, Connors enjoyed tormenting the Chinese men by pulling on their pigtails,
and then making his getaway by sprinting through the streets, usually with an angry Chinaman chasing him with a big knife. As a teenager, Connors learned to speak Chinese, which eventually endeared him to the Chinatown population.

As he grew older, Connors became a professional pugilist,
and then a bouncer at Scotchy Lavelle's joint at 6 Doyers Street. Connors also frequented Tom Lee's dive at 9 Bowery, affectionately called “The Dump,” which was said to have “the dirtiest species of white humanity ever to be found.” (Strangely enough, even though there were dozens of bars in the Chinatown area, some even owned by Chinese men like Tom Lee, hardly any Chinese people frequented these places, preferring opium dens as their mode of relaxation and inebriation.)

During this time, Connors palled around with a Chinatown street thug named Big Mike Adams. Whereby Connors was playfully mischievous concerning his actions with the short and slim Chinese male population, Adams was downright deadly. Working as an enforcer for the local tongs, Adams bragg
ed he killed a slew of Chinamen by decapitating them with his huge knife. Once in full view of dozens of witnesses, Adams forced three Chinamen onto their knees in broad daylight. Then, as the crowd screamed in horror, he decapitated them one by one. Adams's big piece of work was when, working for a rival tong, he decapitated Hip Sing Tong leader Ling Tchen.

After it became clear Adams was out of control, Connors kept his distance. As Adams became more belligerent against the Chinese, Connors developed a closer relationship with them. Adams lost much face when he was attacked on Pell Street by a drunken Hip Sing gangster named Sassy Sam. Adams, supposedly a tough guy, ran through the Chinatown streets screaming like a little girl, as Sassy Sam, swinging a Chinese ceremonial sword
, chased Adams. This sign of weakness was Adams's undoing.

A few weeks later, Adams was found gassed to death in his Chinatown apartment. With the windows and doors in Adams'
s room closed off, someone had inserted a small rubber tube into the room's keyhole. The rubber tube was attached to an open gas jet in the hallway. That someone was believed to have been Chuck Connors, who did the job as a favor to his Chinese friends.