by Bruno, Joe
DeMange and Herman Stark, with Madden's blessing from Hot Springs, moved The Cotton Club downtown to 48th Street and Broadway, to a space formerly occupied by The Harlem Club. The new Cotton Club was an immediate success. It had its grand re-opening on September 24, 1936. Cab Calloway and Bill “Bojangles” Robinson performed that night, as did Avis Andrews, the Berry Brothers, and the gorgeous Katherine Perry, who was so light-skinned she could easily pass for being white.
Because it was so accessible with its new Midtown location, The Cotton Club was raking in the cash. In the third week alone, it grossed more than $45,000, and in the first 16 weeks, the average weekly gross was $30,000.
The prices in the new joint were higher than The Cotton Club's in Harlem. A steak sandwich rose from $1.25 to $2.25. Scrambled eggs with Deerfield sausage rose from $1.25 to a $1.50 and lobster cocktails went from $1.00 to $1.50.
Still DeMange and Stark kept packing them in.
One price that did decrease was The Cotton Club's cover charge. In Harlem, in order to keep the “undesirables” away, the cover charge was $3 per table. However, since blacks very rarely crossed the “Mason-Dixon Line” of 110th Street, The Cotton Club's cover charge was $2 per table during dinner time, and nothing after that.
The Cotton Club continued to thrive until the summer of 1939, when the Internal Revenue Service served the club's management with indictments for income tax evasion. The indictments hit the Cotton Club Management Corporation, including Herman Stark, president, George Goodrich, accountant, and Noah Braustein, secretary-treasurer, with four counts of failure to pay and embezzlement of taxes. If convicted, all three men faced up to 25 years in prison, and fines of up to $20,000 apiece. Amazingly, because he was just listed as an employee, Frenchy DeMange escaped the indictment. At trial, the Cotton Club Management Corporation was found guilty, but the three officers escaped conviction. Still, Stark had to fork over a hefty fine to the government, in addition to $3,400 owed in back taxes.
At the start of 1940, it was obvious that The Cotton Club, and Herman Stark, had money problems. Besides the high midtown rent and the effects of the Depression, the unions, especially the musician union, had a stranglehold on Stark and his profits. Before his problems with the I.R.S., Stark was skimming money off the top to make up for any shortfalls the unions and the high entertainment payrolls caused. But with the government watching The Cotton Club like a hawk, skimming was now impossible.
The Cotton Club closed its door for good on June 10, 1940. Stark and DeMange gave no official reason, but as one columnist put it, the main reason was, “the lack of the famous, old filthy lucre.”
Yet, that explanation would be too simplistic. Of course, money was a problem, but also America's taste for music like Duke Ellington's and Cab Calloway's was changing too. The younger generation of Americans was enthralled with the new jazz and “swing” styles of white bandleaders like Tommy Dorsey, Artie Shaw, and the “King of Swing,” Benny Goodman.
The Cotton Club was a great idea whose life span had run its course. The black entertainers who had cut their teeth working at The Cotton Club, people like Duke Ellington, Cab Calloway, Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, and Lena Horne, all went on to establish long and wondrous careers. But the concept of a nightclub with all black entertainment no longer appealed to the white mainstream of America.
The Cotton Club closed because it was a concept that had blossomed, then like a gilded rose, slowly withered away. Still, the impact of The Cotton Club on society will linger for as long as song and dance remains an integral part of our American culture.
Dewey, Thomas E. – The Special Prosecutor From Hell
He was a mean-spirited runt; a little man with a large mustache that seemed to dominate his snarling face. However, liberal Republican Thomas E. Dewey, a man who made his bones as a Special Prosecutor in New York City and who would stop at nothing to further his skyrocketing career, was just an eyelash away from becoming President of the United States.
Dewey was born on March 24, 1902 in the little town of Owosso, Mich. Dewey's father was the editor and publisher of the local newspaper: the Owosso Times. Dewey Senior's mission in life was to right the wrongs of the political world, especially the tyranny of Tammany Hall, a corrupt Democratic political machine based in New York City, but with tentacles that reached all around America. Dewey Junior admired his father's zeal, and this later motivated Dewey to go after organized crime figures in New York City with a vengeance that not always adhered to the letter of the law.
But first Dewey wanted to sing.
Dewey was a talented operatic baritone, and while he was attending the University of Michigan he joined the Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia, a national fraternity for men of music. Dewey was also a member of the University of Michigan Men's Glee Club. Following in his father's footsteps, Dewey wrote for The Michigan Daily, the university's student newspaper. However, Dewey was better at singing than he was at writing, so much so, that in 1923, Dewey finished third in the National Singing Contest. However, Dewey soon developed throat problems, and although he briefly considered a career in music, he opted to become a lawyer instead.
With his father's money, Dewey traveled to New York City, and he enrolled at the Columbia Law School. One of his classmates was the radical socialist/communist Paul Robeson, who became a singer and actor of some note, in between moving to and from the country he really loved: Russia.
However, Dewey was no idealist like Robeson. After he graduated law school in just two years, Dewey decided to hang up his own shingle and go into private practice, which he did from 1925-31. In 1928, Dewey married actress Frances Hutt. After their marriage, Dewey's wife quit acting, and they eventually raised two sons: Thomas E. Dewey Jr., and John Martin Dewey.
In 1931, Dewey was named chief assistant to George Medalie and was given the official title of Chief Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. This was the springboard Dewey needed to further a political career which knew no boundaries and counted heavily on legal improprieties.
In 1933, Dewey’s first major case was the prosecution of former pickpocket Irving Wexler, better known as Waxey Gordon. Gordon was a protégé of Arnold Rothstein, considered “The Godfather” of the modern gangster. In 1928, after Rothstein was killed over a large gambling debt, Gordon took over Rothstein's operations, in bootlegging and in the gambling business. Gordon's partners in crime included such illustrious gangsters like Lucky Luciano, Louis “Lepke” Buchalter, Gurrah Shapiro, and Meyer Lansky. Even after cutting in his partners, Gordon was said to have made over $2 million a year in profits.
However, Gordon and Lansky hated each other, and after Dewey unsuccessfully tried to prosecute Gordon for his crimes, Lansky, with the blessing of Luciano and Buchalter, funneled information, including specific documentation, to Dewey that showed that maybe Gordon was not paying his fair share of his income taxes.
Using the same tactic the government had utilized against Al Capone, Dewey, now in the possession of books that said Gordon had hidden $5 million in taxable income over a 10-year period, lowered the boom on Gordon. Dewey cross-examined Gordon with such cruelty, spit was proverbially flying from Dewey's mouth and down his copious mustache.
Gordon, basically an oaf with the mentally and vocabulary of a 10-year-old, was no match for Dewey on the witness stand. After the most one-sided trial that could possibly occur, Gordon was slapped with a 10-year prison sentence.
Dewey next set his sights on Dutch Schultz.
By the time Dewey was ready to prosecute Schultz, it was alleged that District Attorney William C. Dodge was not aggressively going after the mob and crooked politicians, and in New York City there were plenty of both. In 1935, Dewey got a bump up in rank, when Governor Herbert H. Lehman, bypassing Dodge, appointed Dewey as Special Prosecutor in New York County (Manhattan). With the backing of Governor Lehman, Dewey assembled a crack staff of more than 60 assistants, investigators, process servers, stenographers, and clerks. New York Mayor F
iorello H. La Guardia contributed 63 of his best police officers to the cause, and Dewey was on top of the prosecutorial world.
Dutch Schultz, born Arthur Flegenheimer on August 6, 1902, was the most visible mobster in New York City. However, Schultz was only one of a nine-member National Crime Commission which included Italians gangsters Lucky Luciano and Frank Costello, as well as fellow Jewish mobsters Meyer Lansky, Bugsy Siegel, and Louis “Lepke” Buchalter.
During Prohibition, Schultz made millions in the sale of illegal beer and was nicknamed “The Beer Baron of the Bronx.” In the early 1920s, Schultz bulldozed his way into the Harlem numbers rackets, pushing aside notable black number kings Madame Stephanie St. Clair, Bumpy Johnson, and Casper Holstein.
Noted crime author and former cop Ralph Salerno once said, “Schultz asked the black numbers to a meeting in his office. When they came in, Schultz put his forty-five on the desk and said, ‘I'm your partner.'”
Holstein backed off quietly, but St. Clair and her muscle Johnson, decided to fight back against Schultz. Johnson went as far as to visit Lucky Luciano downtown in Little Italy to plead his case. Luciano admired the spunk of Johnson, but he told Johnson that Schultz was his partner in other endeavors and that he had to back his partner. Luciano advised Johnson to tell St. Clair it was in their best interest to work under Schultz in the Harlem numbers game. St. Clair refused at first, but after the word was put out on the Harlem streets that St. Clair was to be shot on sight, she agreed to Luciano's proposition.
Schultz also made a ton of cash taking illegal bets on sporting events. Schultz owned the Coney Island racetrack in Cincinnati, Ohio, where the daily three-digit Harlem number was derived from the last three digits of the total mutual handle for that day. Schultz was able to manipulate those daily numbers by having his numbers wiz, Otto "Abbadabba" Berman, determine which three-digit numbers were bet heavily that day. Then Berman would call the track before the last race to change the last three digits to numbers which were bet lightly, or maybe not at all. Schultz also had a vast array of illegal slot machines placed all over New York City, which pumped out cash like water gushing down Niagara Falls.
As much money as he had accumulated, Schultz dressed like a broken-down valise.
Luciano once said of Schultz, “He has all the money in the world, but he dresses like a bum.”
Schultz claimed he never spent more than two dollars for a shirt in his life.
“Only queers wear silk shirts,” Schultz said.
The Feds had their first shot at Schultz, when they indicted him for income tax evasion. But the wily Schultz went into the wind for several months, and when he did turn himself in, his lawyer was somehow able to move the trial venue to the sleepy upstate town of Malone, New York.
Schultz went to Malone months before the trial, and he contributed money to local causes like he was the Salvation Army. Schultz, a non-practicing Jew, even converted to Catholicism in order to garner the support of the Malone locals, who were overwhelmingly Catholic.
The trial was a slam dunk for Schultz, and he walked out of the Malone courtroom with a loopy smile on his face, as a free man.
However, a prosecution captained by the mighty Dewey was a different proposition for Schultz.
When Schultz got word that Dewey had him in his crosshairs, Schultz called for an emergency meeting of the nine-man National Crime Commission.
At this meeting Schultz said, “Dewey will not stop until all of us Commission members are in jail.” Schultz then slammed his hand on the table for emphasis, “We have to take Dewey out!”
The other commission members were skeptical of Schultz's demands. But they decided to table Schultz's request to see how easy it might be gunning down Dewey. They gave the chore to Albert Anastasia, a ruthless killer, and one of the bosses of Murder Incorporated. Anastasia was known on the streets as the “Lord High Executioner.”
In order to clock Dewey's movements, Anastasia borrowed a baby from a friend for several days. Anastasia pushed the baby in a carriage around 214 Fifth Avenue, the posh apartment building where Dewey lived. As Anastasia strolled the streets pushing the baby carriage, he was able to ascertain Dewey's exact weekday morning movements.
Dewey exited the apartment building at 8 a.m. sharp every weekday morning. Surrounded by a phalanx of bodyguards, Dewey would walk a few blocks to a neighborhood drug store for his morning coffee and to make a phone call from a pay phone in the back. While Dewey was alone in the back of the drug store, his men stood guard like mastiffs out front.
Anastasia figured he could be waiting at the counter when Dewey entered, and then kill Dewey before Dewey could reach the pay phone in the back. Other Murder Incorporated killers would take care of Dewey's bodyguards in front of the drug store.
The following week, after Schultz was asked to leave the room, Anastasia presented his plan to the rest of the Commission. Even though the deed could possibly be done, it was decided that if they did kill Dewey, all hell would break loose on their rackets. The only one, besides Schultz, who voted for the hit was Gurrah Shapiro.
Manhattan D.A. Frank Hogan later said, “I suppose they figured the National Guard would have been called out if Dewey was killed. And I guess they wouldn't have been far wrong.”
When Schultz was called back into the room and told the bad news, he exploded into a rage. “Dewey's got to go!” Schultz said. “I'm hitting him myself within 48 hours.”
This did not please the rest of the Commission members too much. They immediately decided that Schultz, for the greater good of the Commission, was the one who had to go.
Luciano and Lansky figured that since Schultz was Jewish, Jewish gangsters were the proper choice in ending the life of a Jewish mob boss. Lansky decided to use two of Murder Incorporated's best men: Charlie “The Bug” Workman and Mendy Weiss. The place for the hit was set to be Schultz's hangout: The Palace Chop House in Newark, New Jersey. A nobody named Piggy, who was familiar with the Newark streets, was selected as the getaway driver.
On October 23, 1935, at approximately 10:15 p.m., Piggy parked a dark sedan outside The Palace Chop House. Workman and Weiss exited the car, guns drawn. They entered the restaurant and found the front room empty, but there was lively chatter coming from the back room. When the killers entered the back room, they spotted Schultz's top men, Lulu Rosenkrantz, Abe Landau, and Abbadabba Berman finishing the remains of their last supper.
With blazing guns in both hands, Workman and Weiss opened fire. Landau and Rosenkrantz returned fire after they were hit, but they were turned into Swiss cheese and rendered quite dead.
“It was like a Wild West Show,” Workman said later.
However, Dutch Schultz was nowhere to be found.
After Workman emptied his .38, he dropped it to the floor, and then he rushed, holding his .45, into the bathroom where he found Schultz in a stall. Workman fired the .45 twice. Schultz ducked the first slug, but the second slug found its mark just below his chest. The bullet blasted through Schultz's stomach, large intestine, gall bladder, and liver, before falling on the floor next to him.
Schultz was rushed to the hospital, and he was in the state of delirium, talking utter nonsense, until he passed away the following evening.
Before Schultz died, a telegram was delivered to his death bed. It read, “As ye reap, also shall ye sow.”
It was signed “Madame St. Clair.”
With Schultz out of the way, and Dewey still very much alive, Dewey turned his sights on the second-most visible mobster in New York City: Charles “Lucky” Luciano.
Luciano was a high-ranking member on the National Crime Commission, and he metaphorically spat in Dewey's face by showing up almost every night in swank nightclubs all around town with a knockout broad on each arm.
The problem was, Luciano, along with his close friend Meyer Lansky (who was a quiet homebody and didn't irk Dewey as much as Luciano did), were almost untouchable, because of the several layers of insulation they had placed between the
mselves and the crimes committed on the streets by their underlings. Plus, both Luciano and Lansky had several legitimate business interests, with savvy accountants, who made sure the proper amounts of taxes were paid to the government.
So what was Dewey to do?
Simple. Deway decided to frame Luciano for one of the few crimes Luciano wasn't committing.
At the time, Luciano lived in a swank apartment (room 39D) at the Waldorf-Astoria, under the name of Mr. Ross. Dewey was cutting a wide swath through New York City; first going after the gambling rackets and then setting his sights on prostitution.
On January 31, 1936, Dewey ordered his men to raid more than 80 brothels, pick up every prostitute in sight (even ones walking the streets), arrest pimps of all colors and nationalities, and bring them one-by-one into his office in the Woolworth Building.
The broads were hardened hookers with colorful names like Sadie the Chink, Jennie the Factory, and Polack Francis. The pimps were low-level street hustlers who kicked up their money to mobsters, who in turn kicked it up the ladder, until some of it allegedly made its way into the hands of a “Mr. Ross.”
All of the arrestees had one thing in common: they did not want to go to jail.
So even though Luciano detested prostitution and never had his fingers in its dirty pie, it was possible that some of the dough kicked up to him by his captains had originated in sex dens. All Dewey had to do was to prove it in a court of law, whichever way he could.
In mid-1936, spurred on by the testimony of hookers and pimps who had never even met Luciano, Dewey ordered a warrant for Luciano's arrest on the charge of running a huge prostitution ring. Luciano, outraged at being charged with something he had nothing to do with, dodged the warrant by traveling down to Hot Springs, Ark., to a resort run by his old pal Owney “The Killer” Madden. After making untold millions in the rum running and gambling enterprises, Madden had retired from the rackets, and re-invented himself in Hot Springs as a successful businessman and hotelier.