Showing posts with label Lower East Side. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lower East Side. Show all posts

04 February 2025

'Monk' indicted for assault

Gang leader caught after shootout with Pinkertons

On this date in 1904:

Eastman
A New York grand jury on February 4, 1904, indicted gang leader Edward "Monk" Eastman for assault and attempted murder. He was charged with attacking and trying to kill agents of the Pinkerton Detective Agency, who confronted him after he robbed a drunk man of some cash two days earlier.

Eastman, his pal Christopher Wallace and other members of Eastman's gang ventured beyond the confines of their usual Lower East Side territory in the early morning of February 2. On Forty-second Street in Midtown, they spotted a drunk young man counting out cash in a doorway. Eastman and Wallace advanced. Eastman delivered a devastating punch to the man's abdomen, while Wallace grabbed the money.

Two Pinkerton agents, George F. Bryan and John Rogers, then jumped out at the robbers. A scuffle occurred, handguns were drawn and shots were fired. Additional Eastman gangsters rushed in to help Eastman and Wallace escape the Pinkertons. The group ran off on Forty-second Street toward Broadway. But they ran right into New York Police Officer Healy.

Once arrested, Wallace confessed to attempted grand larceny and is believed to have cooperated in the case against Eastman.

At trial in April, it was revealed that the Eastmans' robbery target had been a wayward son of the wealthy Wetmore family and the Pinkertons had been hired by the family to watch over him.

Eastman was convicted of felonious assault. General Sessions Court Judge John W. Goff sentenced him on April 19 to ten years in Sing Sing Prison, the maximum term allowed. The cooperative Wallace was sentenced to just two and a half years for his part in the crime.

While held at Tombs Prison in Manhattan awaiting transfer to Sing Sing, Monk Eastman was interviewed by New York reporters. He expressed just one concern: several of his pet pigeons had eggs that were ready to hatch and he hoped to learn "how they came out" before he was taken out of the city.

Sing Sing Admission Register

He entered Sing Sing on April 22. He would serve better than seven years of his sentence before being released. 

Much more on Monk Eastman and other gangsters of Manhattan's Lower East Side can be found in the 2023 issue of Informer: The History of U.S. Crime and Law Enforcement (available in magazine, book and electronic formats).

Sources:

  • Edward Eastman, no. 54863, Sing Sing Prison Admission Register, received April 22, 1904.
  • "Monk Eastman in pistol battle," New York Evening World, Feb. 2, 1904, p. 2
  • "'Monk' Eastman now indicted," New York Evening World, Feb. 4, 1904, p. 3.
  • "Monk Eastman on trial," New York Sun, April 13, 1904, p. 12.
  • "Monk's pal gets light sentence," New York Evening World, April 21, 1904, p. 7.
  • Statement of commitments to the Sing Sing State Prison during the month of April 1904.
  • "Ten years for 'Monk,'" New York Daily Tribune, April 20, 1904, p. 6.

02 October 2023

Gangsters of Lower East Side

Informer's October 2023 issue, entitled "Gangsters of New York's Lower East Side," includes twelve feature articles and eleven sidebars related to the gangland history of the area known as the "greatest breeding ground for gunmen and racketeers... this country has ever seen." The issue also includes several articles on other subjects.

Magazine (left) and book covers.

Thomas Hunt, Justin Cascio, Patrick Downey, Michael O'Haire, Steve Turner and Matt Ghiglieri contributed articles.

The Informer issue is available in seven formats. Print magazine and electronic (PDF) magazine editions can be obtained through the MagCloud service. Hardcover and paperback print book and Kindle ebook formats are listed with Amazon. EPUB ebook and abridged audiobook editions are sold through Google Play Books.

Lower East Side history articles focus on the following subjects:

  • The Whyos gang.
  • Bandits' Roost photograph.
  • John McGurk's "Suicide Hall." (Sidebar on gambling.)
  • Monk Eastman. (Sidebar on Eastman's killer.)
  • Mafia boss Nicola Taranto. (Sidebar on rumored Mafia headquarter on Mott Street.)
  • Paul "Kelly" Vaccarelli. (Sidebars on Irving Berlin, Sirocco and Tricker, Torrio and Vannella, Bellantonis of Broome Street.)
  • Chinatown Tong Wars.
  • Frank Lanza businesses.
  • "Johnny Spanish" Mistretta
  • Meyer Lansky's youth. (Sidebars on Mutty, Lucy and Kitty; Dutch Goldberg; Gurrah, Lepke, Curly and Bugsy; Red Levine.)
  • Killings on Second Avenue.
  • Narcotics racketeers.

The issue is illustrated with numerous photographs and a dozen maps. It runs 174 pages (including covers and ads) in magazine format and 370+ pages in print book format. The auto-narrated audiobook omits some material unrelated to the main subject. It runs about eight and a half hours. This is the thirty-third issue of the journal, first published in 2008.

For more information, visit Informer's website.

04 January 2023

'Uncle Charlie' and the Jewish Mob

In Uncle Charlie Killed Dutch Schultz, author Alan Geik tells of his family's connection to noteworthy Jewish-American gangsters of New York City. These eastern European immigrant outlaws, whose adventures were preserved through many years of Geik kitchen table discussions, became the foundation of a uniquely American organized crime network.

Determined to escape by any means the poverty and congestion of their Lower East Side slum neighborhood, when merely boys they turned to crime and combined into Prohibition Era gangs. They graduated from petty offenses to bootlegging and hijacking to labor racketeering and beyond. Eventually, they branched out into casino gambling, stolen goods fencing and professional murder. Along the way, they violently tangled with each other, with outside gangs, with strikebreakers and with American Nazis. Ultimately, they entered into a cooperative agreement with Italian-American gangsters and formed a monopolistic rackets syndicate, an entity Geik describes as "the biggest cash flow business in American history - organized crime."

Workman
The "Uncle Charlie" of the book title, refers to Charles "Charlie the Bug" Workman, a professional assassin. Linked with rackets boss Louis "Lepke" Buchalter and with Brooklyn killers later referred to as "Murder, Inc.," Workman eventually served twenty-three years of a life prison sentence for the October 23, 1935, murder of Arthur "Dutch Schultz" Flegenheimer. Workman was released from prison in March of 1964. Geik reports that his own first conversation with the man he knew as "Uncle Charlie" occurred about that time.

While the title focuses on Workman and the earliest chapters are confined to the New York area, the book is more wide-ranging. Geik discusses crime figures Arnold Rothstein, Meyer Lansky, Abe "Kid Twist" Reles and others. And he ventures out to such places as Cleveland, Las Vegas and Havana.

Uncle Charlie Killed Dutch Schultz: The Jewish Mob: A Family Affair was released in November 2022. It is available in paperback (284 pages) and Kindle ebook editions through Amazon.com.