The Epic of New York City

by Edward Robb Ellis

  Sengier lived in a suite in the Hotel Ambassador on Park Avenue. Early in the morning of August 6, 1945, his phone rang. A man’s voice suggested that he stay close to his radio that day. At last Sengier heard the flash: An American bomber had dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima.

  The war in Europe had ended the previous May 7. By now the news ticker around the Times Tower was operating again, and crowds gathered day after day to watch it. A replica of the Statue of Liberty loomed high on a traffic island in the middle of Times Square. One-third the size of the original and made of white plaster, the statue had been used to promote war bond sales. Nearly half a million people thronged the square at 7 P.M. on Tuesday, August 14, 1945, when the Times flashed official word from President Truman that the Japanese had surrendered.

  The war was over. A total of 891,923 men and women from New York City had donned uniforms to serve their country. Of this number, 16,106 were killed in action, died of wounds, died of injuries, died non-battle deaths, or were reported missing.

  Chapter 48

  WILLIAM O’DWYER SWEATS

  WILLIAM O’DWYER was born My 11, 1890, in a cottage in Bohola, County Mayo, Ireland. Both his parents were teachers, a fact which helps explain his love of learning. He studied for the priesthood in Spain, quickly learned Spanish, changed his mind about taking orders, and decided to try his luck in America. In 1910 he landed in New York, a husky and ambitious twenty-year-old.

  He held a variety of jobs over the next seven years and then became a policeman. Once, while wading into a gang of roistering sailors, he slipped in snow and was beaten to a pulp. Another time he shot and accidentally killed a drink-crazed man who pulled a gun on him. During his eight years on the force O’Dwyer was out of uniform most of the time, for he chauffeured a police inspector and served as plainclothesman. During off-hours he studied at the Fordham University Law School, passed the state bar examination, and was transferred to the police department’s legal bureau.

  In 1925 O’Dwyer resigned from the force to become a clerk in a law office. The next year he opened his own law office on Court Street in Brooklyn. For extra income he worked as a sports promotor, bringing Irish soccer teams to New York. This brought him into contact with Mrs. William Randolph Hearst, who wanted Irish teams for her milk fund benefits. Through her he met Joseph V. McKee, then president of the board of aldermen. When Jimmy Walker resigned and McKee became acting mayor, one of the first persons to appear at City Hall and offer congratulations was Bill O’Dwyer, who had become active in Democratic clubhouse politics. The young attorney said, “Joe, I’d sorta like to be a magistrate.” On December 7, 1932, O’Dwyer entered public life as a city magistrate.

  He got off to a good start and took an especial interest in juvenile delinquents. When LaGuardia became mayor, he made O’Dwyer presiding judge of an experimental adolescent court in Brooklyn. Now the squarely built, black-haired, blue-eyed Irishman received ever more requests to speak at civic functions. In 1937 Governor Lehman appointed O’Dwyer to the unexpired term of judge in the county court of Brooklyn. When this interim service ended, he won election to a full fourteen-year term. Instead of remaining on the bench, however, he was elected district attorney of Brooklyn after promising to rid it of crime. Years earlier one of his brothers had been killed by a thug during a restaurant holdup, and Bill O’Dwyer had declared himself an enemy of all criminals.

  As previously noted, the nation’s underworld had merged into a crime syndicate, whose members called it the Combination. It had no supreme boss but was ruled by a board of directors. In its table of organization, power descended from these directors to vice-presidents to top gangsters to lesser mobsters. Each syndicate-controlled mob was known as a troop. Troop members were called punks. The directors dictated what kinds of crime the various gangs might engage in and parceled out geographical areas for their operations.

  Now and then some rash mob leader or punk tried to open up in forbidden territory or keep more than his allotted share of the take. If the offender was important, he was tried in a kangaroo court; found guilty, he was summarily executed. Lesser offenders were tracked down and killed by syndicate assassins.

  A group of hoodlums from the southern part of Brooklyn, long a spawning ground for vice, proved so efficient at assassinations that they became the syndicate’s official firing squad and did their dirty work the length and breadth of the land. Their overlord was Joe Adonis, a director of the Combination. His chief executioner was Albert Anastasia, who took part in almost thirty killings, was arrested for murder five times, was twice tried for homicide, but nonetheless continued to strut around Brooklyn a free man. Anastasia’s right-hand man was Abe “Kid Twist” Reles, who had a hand in fourteen murders, was arrested forty-two times, but was convicted on only seven occasions—for assault, petit larceny, parole violation, disorderly conduct, and juvenile delinquency.

  A reporter called the entire syndicate Murder, Inc., and the catchy title caught on in newspapers and magazines. However, it did not accurately describe the Combination, which preferred profits to murder. Board members sternly forbade murder for personal reasons. Assassinations were ordered only for business reasons. And only the Brooklyn executioners truly qualified for the title of Murder, Inc.

  Most syndicate directors were Italian, and as their fortunes rose, the influence of Irish politicians fell. Mayor LaGuardia was making good his promise to wipe out Tammany Hall. From 1934 to 1949 Tammany was headed by one weak boss after another, and its decline was symbolized by the sale of the Tammany Hall building in 1943. Italian vice lords saw their opportunity. They had money. Tammany was falling apart. The syndicate gave campaign funds to Tammany politicians and thus won control of them. In the past the underworld had bought protection. Now it bossed the bosses.

  When Bill O’Dwyer ran for district attorney, he promised not to take orders from party bosses, but of his first forty appointments, thirty-three came from lists supplied by Democratic district leaders. When he took office in 1940, John H. Amen, a special prosecutor, was investigating the six Brooklyn waterfront racketeering unions controlled by Albert Anastasia. O’Dwyer now launched his own probe of Anastasia. Amen suspended his investigation and gave all his records to O’Dwyer. Two weeks later O’Dwyer dropped his probe of Anastasia and never reopened it. He said that he was too busy with murder cases.

  Early in 1940 Kid Twist Reles was arrested for the 1933 murder of a small-time hoodlum. In an effort to save himself, Reles offered to tell all he knew about Murder, Inc. O’Dwyer and his assistant, Burton B. Turkus, agreed to strike a bargain with Reles, promising him leniency if he would name names. Reles eagerly gushed names and facts and figures, his confessions wearing out relays of secretaries. He talked about 1,000 homicides in every corner of the United States, spelled out details of 85 murders in Brooklyn alone, and implicated every mob in the Combination.

  Using this information, O’Dwyer prosecuted dozens of hoodlums and sent four to the electric chair. He soon won the reputation of a great gang buster, but none of the syndicate’s six board members was prosecuted—except for Bugsy Siegel, who was indicted in California. O’Dwyer produced Reles before a California grand jury but refused to allow him to testify at Siegel’s trial.

  While confessing, Reles said truthfully that he had taken his orders from Anastasia. He declared that he had been with Anastasia when details of a murder were being planned. Curiously, O’Dwyer didn’t even seek an indictment against Anastasia. Reles knew that the syndicate knew he was confessing and would try to kill him. For twenty months the singing gangster was guarded by Acting Captain Frank C. Bals of the New York police department, a close friend of O’Dwyer’s, and by six other cops.

  Reles was locked alone in a room at one end of a corridor of the Half Moon Hotel at Coney Island, and once an hour a policeman would stroll down the hall to look in at him. About 7 A.M. on November 12, 1941, Reles’ body was found on a balcony 5 floors below his room. Dangling against the hotel wall was a sheet. O’Dw
yer, who knew that Reles was terrified of gang retribution, said that he had fallen to his death while trying to escape.

  That same month O’Dwyer ran for mayor of New York, only to be beaten by LaGuardia. On Pearl Harbor Day, less than a month after Reles’ death, O’Dwyer telegraphed President Roosevelt to offer his services in the national emergency. He was commissioned a major, took a leave of absence as district attorney, and two years later rose to the rank of brigadier general.

  While O’Dwyer was away, criminals consolidated their hold on Tammany Hall. Frank Costello, one of the most important board members of the syndicate, became friendly with district leaders and handed out money where it would do him the most good. Using his influence with these leaders, Costello helped make Michael J. Kennedy the boss of Tammany Hall in 1942. Kennedy, in turn, helped Costello’s good friend, Thomas A. Aurelio, win the Democratic nomination for justice of the state supreme court. New York District Attorney Frank Hogan had ordered his men to tap telephone wires leading into Costello’s seven-room penthouse at 115 Central Park West, and they overheard Aurelio thank Costello for the nomination. Hogan released the shocking revelation to newspapers, but Aurelio nevertheless was elected a justice.

  When O’Dwyer got out of the army, he ran for mayor again. Opposing him were Jonah Goldstein, the Republican candidate, and Newbold Morris, who ran at the head of a No Deal ticket launched with LaGuardia’s endorsement. Morris described the O’Dwyer regime in Brooklyn as “a rotten mess.” Goldstein startled New Yorkers by accusing O’Dwyer of visiting Costello’s penthouse during the war. In spite of all this, O’Dwyer won easily.

  Then the triumphant Irishman dropped into City Hall to pay his respects to LaGuardia. The dumpy little mayor jumped up, grabbed O’Dwyer’s left arm, and laughingly pushed him into his own chair, shrieking, “Now you’ll have a perpetual headache!” On January 1, 1946, O’Dwyer was sworn in as mayor, and Fusion government came to an end.

  LaGuardia was a sick man, but he nonetheless served as director general of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, discussing its affairs with Stalin, Tito of Yugoslavia, and the Pope. Not surprisingly, he became embroiled in several controversies and finally resigned when he could not get a $400,000,000 food fund he demanded. LaGuardia turned out a column for the newspaper PM, wrote editorials that were used as advertisements by a furniture store, broadcast his opinions on national affairs for Liberty magazine until he was fired for “reckless and irresponsible statements,” and sold milk via radio by airing his views on city affairs. At last he entered a hospital for an operation but failed to recover. On September 20, 1947, riddled with cancer, the greatest mayor in the history of New York died in his sleep.

  As LaGuardia had predicted, O’Dwyer suffered a perpetual headache. A tugboat strike paralyzed the port, caused a fuel shortage, and frightened the new mayor into declaring an emergency, which almost resulted in panic. War veterans complained about the difficulty of finding a place to live. There was a smallpox scare in 1947, and 6,350,000 New Yorkers were vaccinated. O’Dwyer couldn’t even see all his department heads every day because there were so many of them. Finally, his rugged Irish frame bending under his burdens, the mayor was hospitalized for a fortnight, suffering “almost complete nervous and physical exhaustion.”

  Many years later O’Dwyer told Philip Hamburger of The New Yorker magazine, “There were times when I was mayor when I wanted to jump. . . . You know, the city’s too big. It’s too big for one government. . . . You would look out over the city from some high place above it, and you would say to yourself, ‘Good Jesus, it’s too much for me!’ . . .”

  In 1949 O’Dwyer hesitated about running for reelection but finally entered the race. This time his only major opponent was Newbold Morris, who now had the endorsement of the Republican, Liberal, and Fusion parties. Morris warned the voters that if New York were to be saved from “plunder and corruption,” O’Dwyer must not be reelected. In spite of this, Bill O’Dwyer trounced him at the polls.

  Before taking office a second time, O’Dwyer flew to Florida for a rest. He also took this opportunity to marry Sloan Simpson, a beautiful model. His first wife had died. Like O’Dwyer, Miss Simpson was a Catholic and had been married before, but because the Catholic Church had never recognized the validity of her marriage, she was free to wed again. New York reporters flew to Stuart, Florida, to watch the fifty-nine-year-old mayor and the thirty-three-year-old model join hands in wedlock. O’Dwyer came back to Manhattan to be sworn in as mayor for the second time on January 1, 1950, and twelve days later returned to Florida, suffering from nervous exhaustion and a virus infection.

  All his previous municipal headaches throbbed faintly by contrast with the Harry Gross scandal, which now rocked the city. The Gross case began in September, 1949, when Ed Reid, a Brooklyn Eagle reporter, overheard a man say at a bar, “A new boss has taken over the bookie joints in town. Guy called Mr. G. They say he was put in business by three top coppers.” Reid began digging. He thought it curious that thus far in 1949 not a single bookmaker had been sent to jail from gambler’s court in Brooklyn. He found there were 4,000 bookies in the entire city. One had been arrested 50 times in 12 years but had never served a day in jail. It became increasingly clear that bookies were buying police protection. Reid wrote an 8-article exposé that began running in the Eagle in December, 1949. It touched off one of the greatest shake-ups in the history of the police department.

  Miles F. McDonald, the Brooklyn district attorney, and his assistant, Julius Helfand, launched a probe of gambling and police corruption. They used forty young policemen fresh out of the police academy, reasoning that the rookies had not had time to establish friendships in the force or to become a part of the corrupt system. Of course, veteran policemen soon realized the department was being investigated. Among the old-timers called in for questioning was Captain John G. Flynn, who later shot himself to death in a Brooklyn police station.

  O’Dwyer resented McDonald’s probe. Although the mayor didn’t denounce it publicly, he let word get around that he disliked the idea. Once he offered to help McDonald, but the Brooklyn district attorney said he could work better alone. O’Dwyer now expressed his resentment by making a public display at Flynn’s funeral.

  Unofficial word filtered through the police department that the mayor wanted as many cops as possible to take part in the ceremony. More than 6,000 policemen, one-third of the entire force, marched in a silent demonstration against McDonald’s probe. They were led to the church by the mayor and his appointee, Police Commissioner William P. O’Brien. Referring to the policeman who had killed himself, O’Dwyer said, “Nobody had the guts to say he was a clean man, but six thousand policemen walked by his children to tell them so. I am not opposed to the gambling investigation in Brooklyn. I have aided it when asked. But I am opposed to witch-hunts and the war of nerves made popular by Hitler!” Newspapers denounced the demonstration as a farce, and O’Dwyer squirmed.

  He was taken off the hook by Edward J. Flynn, Democratic boss of the Bronx and a national Democratic committeeman. Flynn hurried to Washington and conferred with President Truman. Soon it was announced that the President had nominated O’Dwyer as the new American ambassador to Mexico. In February the mayor had declared, “As God is my judge, I shall serve the four years to which I was elected.” In August he announced his imminent departure for Mexico, saying, “My reasons for going are good. Although I am in no position to say what they are now, when the true story is told you will understand.”

  Columnist Robert Ruark wrote:

  If I were O’Dwyer I wouldn’t have let myself be chased out of New York with anything short of a submachinegun until my term expired. The departure looks a touch peculiar. . . . Did he jump or was he pushed? Was it heart trouble, cop trouble, gambling trouble or the firm foot of Democratic Boss Ed Flynn, whose state ticket would profit by having a mayor to elect this fall? Or was it a combination of all? Whatever it was, Bill’s subjects don’t like the sm
ell. . . .

  Before resigning, O’Dwyer handed out $125,000 in raises to his close friends on the city payroll. To James J. Moran—the first deputy fire commissioner who was known as the mayor’s alter ego—went a $15,000-a-year lifetime appointment as a commissioner of the city’s water supply board. Moran was later convicted of conspiracy and extortion for heading a shakedown racket involving fire department permits for fuel-oil installations.

  On September 2, 1950, O’Dwyer sent the city clerk this note: “Dear Sir: I hereby resign as Mayor of the City of New York. . . . Very truly yours, William O’Dwyer.”

  Thirteen days later Harry Gross was arrested. The flashy young gambler said to the arresting officers, “I gotta hunch there’re going to be a lot of worried people in the city soon.” This was a Gross understatement. He masterminded a bookmaking ring extending from Brooklyn to other nearby counties, bribed policemen up and down the line, handled more than $20,000,000 a year, and made an annual net profit of $2,000,000.

  He said that in 1945 and again in 1949 he had contributed $20,000 toward O’Dwyer’s campaign expenses. He said that he paid these sums to James J. Moran and accused Moran of soliciting funds for O’Dwyer from all the bookies in town. Later it was disclosed that when O’Dwyer had been in the army, Moran had handled his personal finances. Gross also said Moran had invited him to a gathering to meet O’Dwyer, but Gross had been unable to attend because he was sick. Gross declared that the mayor had met with seven or eight of the city’s leading bookmakers.

  When Gross’s confession was made public, more than a dozen civic and political groups demanded that O’Dwyer be recalled from Mexico, but the new ambassador wrote that he was busy with “highly secret, restricted matters.” Police Commissioner O’Brien, for his part, charged that the Brooklyn gambling probe was inspired by Communists. This was at a time when Communists were attacking the Brooklyn prosecutors as “Fascists.” The investigation O’Dwyer had denounced as a “witch-hunt” now boiled over like a witch’s stew.