it's like the research. good morning, everybody. welcome to the session. i'm jeff urban. i'm the education director here at the roosevelt presidential library and museum. and on behalf of the fdr presidential library and museum, i'd like to welcome you all to the 20th anniversary of the roosevelt reading festival. now, fdr planned for the library to become the premiere research institution for the study of the entire roosevelt era and the library's research room is consistently one of the busiest of all. the presidential libraries. this year's group of authors

reflects the wide variety of research done here and at similar institutions throughout the country. so let me just quickly go through the through the lay of the land here. we are going to talk for about 30 to 40 minutes or so, and then there'll be some time to do questions and answers. we are in the c-span room, so if you're going to ask a question, we need you to come up to the microphone. don't ask the question until you get to the microphone. ask the question. and then the author will respond. okay. so we want to make sure that we get the question on audio. and it is my pleasure to introduce our next author, david pietrusza. he's the author of many books, including 1932 the rise of hitler and fdr two tales of politics, betrayal and unlikely destiny. roosevelt sweeps the nation. 1936. landslide and the triumph of the liberal idea, ideal and gangster

land. a tour through the dark heart of jazz age. new york city. he has appeared on morning joe, the voice of america, the history channel, american heroes channel, espn, npr and c-span. he's spoken at the fdr presidential library in the past at the john f kennedy library and also at the truman presidential libraries as well as grant's cottage state. historic site, the national baseball hall of fame and museum and various institutions, universities and libraries and festivals. across the country, he lives in new york state. and here to talk with us about his recent book is david pietrusza. thank you. i think the first question i often get about the book is, is why? first off, thanks to all the

great people here for for having me, this is an honor to be here. everyone is so nice and it's an event i look forward to even when i'm not speaking. i show up as a spectator. that's how much i like it. but anyway. so why write a book like this? if you are like a presidential historian and and such well before that i was doing baseball history and i the book i'm the gangster and all around underworld figure arnold roth, steve. and a few years ago, a couple of years ago, i got a call from somebody i had been doing one of these things on on cable tv where you argue about the events of the day. and and he says, i am doing a i do a radio show now about broadway and could you come on and talk about arnold rothstein on broadway and times square? and i said, yes, i can, because right after writing the book about arnold rothstein, in which

is now about 20 years ago, i had conducted i was hired to do a walking tour of times square, arnold rothstein's times square. okay. and because it's times square, where you keep your hand on your wallet. i was stiffed on payment for that tour. but i kept all my notes and more remarkably, i could find them in the hovel that passes for my office. and so i thought, well, why don't i just i'll do the interview you and maybe i could publish a little pamphlet. i tend to get carried away. and one of the reasons i could get carry the way is because unlike today's newspaper papers, which leave out all sorts of detail, particularly about crimes and criminal laws and locations, the newspapers then were just full of detail holes and they had plenty of details to be full of in the prohibition

era in times square. and then i took the thing forward and did like a part to in the book about the upper west side, which i was quite surprised to learn was really mobbed up back there because, you know, it's a direct shot from times square or from the upper west side to where the action was in times square. so we, the newspapers would tell you all the details and they would tell you not only the street, that something occurred and they would tell you the street number and they would tell you the apartment number. i found a guidebook which for 1920, which listed the the addresses of famous people in the city. so it would tell you where under secretary of the navy, franklin roosevelt lived. okay. imagine that in today's world. and and so one of the things i

said, i said, please let me speak about this book at the roosevelt reading, first of all, is i promise i will bring in politics front and center to that, because the we talk about intersect banality now in politics and there's an intersection an ability or overlap about this story and about how gangsterism worked in the twenties in times square. and so you've got the usual murderers and shakedown artists and speakeasies and bootlegging. but you also have all you have politics. this is a big factor which plays into it. they need protection and it goes into sports where they are fixing certain sporting events and it goes into the theater where every gangster appears,

seems to have a showgirl girlfriend and not all gangsters, not just gangsters. maybe franklin roosevelt doesn't, but william randolph hearst certainly does. his first wife and then his second wife, marion davies. so you see this over and over again, you off. you also see that often the plot lines of early 1930s movies which seem sort of fanciful and hackneyed, really are based on today's headlines or yesterday's headlines in that case. so with politics, the coroner stone of the story is tammany hall that the democratic organizer nation which runs everything really in new york city at that time and for a very long time and which franklin roosevelt makes his early reputation in the new york state senate as being a forceful opponent of and with the most prominent type in to the

violence. and gore, in this era area and in this era, is the tammany boss of the lower east side, a guy named big ten. sullivan. sullivan, again, intersectionality, overlap. sullivan aside from running the lower east side and being a state senator and a congressman was also a partner in a west coast vaudeville chain, of all things. so he had an office for his chain at 1440 broadway. and so sullivan also protects the up and coming young gamblers, one of whom is arnold rothstein. and another is a guy named beans. rosenthal. rosenthal has a gambling house at 104 west 45th street, and he gets tired of being shaken down by a police lieutenant. also protected by sullivan called lieutenant charles becker. becker is one mean and crooked

cop. and rosenthal says, do you know who i am? i'm a friend. i'm a protege of big tim. and you're picking on me and i'm not going to take it. whereupon his. his gambling house is wrecked by the police. this happens one more time, and rosenthal, this is a bad timing for tammany. because to him, because manhattan at that point is one of those rare intervals. when manhattan has a republican d.a. so he's going to go to the d.a. and he's going to go to the press. trouble in reverse city and becker and big tim sullivan. big tim sullivan by the way, ironically, is the father of the first gun control law in the united states. the sullivan act. okay. and also involved in the murder of bnc rosenthal, which is the first drive by shooting in united states history. they just sort of go by him

after after higher thing, some killers through another gambler name bridges webber, who had a farrow house at 102 west 42nd street, which is now a whole foods. okay. the one by bryant park. so rosenthal is no more. becker goes to the chair. he's the first. so many firsts in this case. the first. and i think only cop to go to the chair in the united states of america. so we have that. and sir. but surviving this mess is arnold ross rothstein and rothstein. there many, many sites that one can visit, which were associated with him in new york city, most notably the park central hotel, very near to carnegie hall, big

hotel still in business now, 200 west, 56 street and he his is killed in the upper upper room there. by another gambler named george mcmanus. well, that's my theory, anyway. and it was the it was the days of their theory as well, but not the juries, but pretty much i think the fix was was in there too, to let him go. now, rothstein was involved in like i say, rum running with loan sharking, bootlegging, speakeasies, fixing things with these the great middle man of things. and and one of the middle man. well, there's a there's an adjunct or a detour from the rothstein story, which i'll and he has a relative of a relative

of his is a cousin and is married to a guy named george ringler. and george ringler was a sort of he would get around in political circles again, politics. a you also worked for the new york daily news as sort of a of rum photographer and a go to guy and a guy who would feed stories to the reporters and stuff like this. he showed up in the story as as a fellow who served the summons because there was an entertainer at this time by the name of frank tenney, a blackface entertainer. and you could you can listen to a recordings of his act not in blackface on youtube. well, one is called george or frank tinies. first direct recording, and the second is called frank and his second recording. and it's remarkably funny, but

as a person, not so funny and so he, after beating up his beautiful girlfriend, imogene wilson, is accosted by a new york daily news photographer. in times square and beat him up to whereupon george ring will serve him with a summons on behalf of the beat up photogs offer. ringler is also connected to mayor james j. walker, the mayor. the corrupt mayor of new york city who has removed from office eventually by governor franklin delanoe roosevelt and ringler is so close to walker, he accompanies walker up to albany to argue his case and try to save his his office. but if you think ringler going up to albany is impressive, i will tell you what is

impressive. if we happen to have george wrangler's granddaughter sitting in the front row, randy ringler. so you weren't expecting that, were you? so since she's got she's got information which we're not going to discuss further, even though this this meeting is hosted by the feds. okay. another politic, sheehan, who is involved in the rothstein story, is a guy named morris kantor. he has an office at 152 west 42nd street. he's the assemblyman on the upper upper upper west side, somewhere past, i think, columbia university. okay. he's in there for a couple of terms. he's rothstein's attorney at the end. he's fixing everything for him. and when arnold rothstein is shot at the park central hotel and is dying at the polyclinic hotel, which, by the way,

valentino died at, and marilyn monroe was treated at, and when rothstein, in his dying, kantor produces shows up at the deathbed and says arnold, remember that. will you ask me to prepare? a few weeks ago, and you never got around to signing? i happened to have it right here. sign here. this was contested by arnold's relatives, but that that's the sort of fellow that morris kantor was and the sort of people that were often infesting politics at that time, which is why tammany was about to collapse. they also had to vet arnold rothstein's papers, which randi may have with her. i don't know, though, she says. now was it was the 17th district

court leader of of tammany and manhattan, a guy named nathan birken, the name of the tammany guys were not dumb. bergen was the best entertainment lawyer in the country. he represents. and you name all the stars of the silent era. you name all the studios. he represented them all. he was hot stuff. he was good. oddly enough, his grandson, jonathan bergen, is now the congressional cochairman for the new york state republican party. so the story never seems to seems to end. bill fallon, another ronald rothstein lawyer, had been an assistant d.a. in westchester county. he was born right near the church of st mary. the virgin in times square, which, if you've ever in times square, go see it, because it's the hidden gem of times square. it's beautiful. but he was he was he became

rather this dissolute, shall we say, quite flamboyant, great lawyer, great jury fixer, etc., etc. up at the hotel bel clair in april 19, 26, a mr. free woman burst into the room where he is and throws some form of acid into his face. remarkably, um, they get him to a hospital and not only isn't he not blinded, he's not even scarred, but he's he's he is sort of the type of lawyer that is portrayed like in the musical chicago. he is he is. he is. when arnold when the william randolph hearst is bringing charges or when they when they're bringing jury charges against fallon. at one point, he puts hearst on trial. he says they're picking on me. the hearst papers are picking on me. and you know why?

because i have the secret birth certificates of the twins that was fathered by william randolph hearst and marion davies. there was no birth certificate. there were no twins. there were no children. he was acquitted. so those are the sort of people we're dealing with. and last but not least, um, in 19 the early 1930s, there's a judge, judge joseph force crater who goes to dinner at billy haas's chop house on times square and then steps into a taxicab afterwards and disappears and is never seen again. force is one of the many, many, many corrupt judges in new york city at that time, a product of tammany hall, but connected to some pretty respect, double names. he had been the secretary to the

senator, robert wagner, the father of social security in the lab. wagner, a labor relations act. and then he moved on from that to being a supreme court judge appointed to that position by governor of franklin delano roosevelt. now, there are some theories as to what happened to the crater. none of them stand up to absolute proof. he may have been propositioned by legs. dimond, who had a grudge with them and taken to coney island to have some sense beaten into him. and they beat a bit too much sense into him. and he was buried under the boardwalk. that's a theory or that. one of the things which i talked about intersectionality or didn't talk about prostitution, that he may have gone to one of polly to adler's infamous or

famous brothels in the city and had not survived the evening in a different form and was dumped in the hudson river. but you pay your money and you take your your choice. and what happened to him speaking easy's it is our just everywhere particularly in the west fifties texas. guinan is is the most famous speakeasy operator hostess there are movies made about her while she's doing this helen morgan, who was a big musical comedy star, she stars in the original showboat. and like a day after, showboat opens her speakeasy is raided. okay, that's how commonplace this this was. a another big speakeasy operator is a guy named larry fay. fay operated a bunch of taxicabs and he would send the taxi cabs up to montreal, and then they

would come back with booze and such and such like this. and so he owned the alpha club on west 45th street. and then later on when he sort of down on his lucky's operating the casablanca on casa blanca on west 56th street. and when he has to cut the employees wages, the doorman shoots him dead, shoots and dead. he had $0.10 in his pocket when he died. crime does not necessarily pay. he's also noted for something else. before it was unpopular or before it was really popular in some places and then really unpopular everywhere else. he would festoon his speakeasies and taxicabs with giants. swastikas. okay, so anyway, goodbye to larry fay. other speakeasy operators who you may have heard of are jimmy durante, arnold rothstein has a -- game operate in the basement

of his club. durant and billy rose. billy rose was a great showman. he did that movie in the fifties with jimmy durante called jumbo, and he was at one point, mary to fanny brice. he ran a speakeasy called the backstage club, which he was proposition to buy. one of these days, dumb. and those guys i'd like to i'd like to buy a share of your establishment mr. rose. i'm not interested. so it's raided by the cops? everything is smashed up. same thing happens again. finally, he gets the message. but it's really not a them and those guys who's doing this. he's doing it at the behest of arnold rothstein. so rothstein gets a cut, the police get a cut. everything like that. being married to fanny brice. okay. fanny brice had been married

earlier to a guy named nicky arnstein. if you remember the movie. what they left out of the movie largely was that nicky arnstein was a confederate and a great admirer of arnold rothstein. he was a con man in his own right. as i talked about jewelry, robberies, there were also a lot of government bonds, robberies back then. the bonds were not were bearer bonds. so you could just cash them in. so if you got a shipment of bonds coming up from wall street to a bank or something, they would be hit and then and robbed and and arnstein was involved in this went on the lam at one point and then got sick of being on the lam, turned himself in and arnold rothstein gave them some advice. why don't you, instead of just turning yourself in, in some boring way, they would have a police parade down fifth avenue every year.

why don't you get in a car and ride down in the police parade? pass the commissioner of police. he did. the police were not amused. he did go to the leavenworth, but for bail money, arnold rothstein provided that bail money to r to fanny brice. but he he also said because it wasn't just altru. so he said, while we're here, i have an importing business and you have a new apartment. why don't you buy all your furniture from me? and he did. and it was seriously, seriously overpriced. she was she was not amused, nor was a woman name. and nichols and nichols produced wrote a show in the 1920s called abe's irish rose. you know, the old plot jewish guy marries irish girl.

uh, she god knows where the first of anything starts, but she she had the first big hit with that. it was the longest running show in broadway history for a long time. it was a big hit, but it wasn't at first. and like all those broadway show musicals or movies in the twi, it's like if if we only can stay on the show is going to have legs. it's going to be a hit. i believe in it. and she goes to arnold rothstein for money to keep it going, because rothstein actually financed the building of the selwyn theater on 42nd street. he would put the money up for just about anything if he could make money back. and he says, sure, i can lend you the money. and she says, do you want a piece of the show? uh, no, i. i just want the money back with interest soon on time. and also, while you are here,

you know, i'm in the insurance business. i'd like you to take out some insurance policies on your life with me as the beneficiary. this was common practice by him. she was not amused if she if he had taken the original deal, he could have made a really big fortune on it. as it was. he only only cleared about $3,000 then. but that's the sort of of wheeling and dealing which was which was going on there. as i said, a lot of showgirls involved in these things. everybody had a showgirl, chorus girl, girlfriend, legs, diamond did when the marx brothers are on broadway in their second show called the coconuts at the lyric theater, harpo decides, oh, i got a new gag. i'm going to try and catch groucho unaware and see if i can get him flatfooted and not know

what to do. and the stage. so i'm just going to have a blond run across the stage and i'm going to chase her honking my horn and well, actually, groucho knows exactly what to say, but that's not the point of the story. the point of the story is afterwards someone says, harpo, do you know who that chorus girl is associated with? no, that's legs diamond's current girlfriend. why don't you get another blond? and so he did. but all of those things would be going on in the or they also make they also make a show called room 349. that's the room number of where rothstein was killed at berkshire central at the what is now the neither land or theater just below fort street. and it's not a very good show. it lasts for a handful of performances. it's done very, very soon after

his death. the names are changed, of course, to protect the guilty. what is remarkable is that his mistress is in the show, a woman named inez norton. so these these are indeed wild, wild times. sports. there's a guy named a gangster who most people have forgotten, but was big then. his name was own or only the killer. madden when you got a nickname in these circles like the killer, yes, he did. and he went to sing. sing for about eight years or so. but he comes out and becomes the big bootlegging guy of the west side and also involved in sports with a couple of associate, big bill duffy and frenchy dimanche. so they they promote a guy from italy called primo carneiro, a big giant of a guy who really can't box his way out of a paper bag. but if you have friends like

only madden and big bill duffy and frenchy dimanche, you will become heavyweight champion of the world because fights are fixed. how are they fixed? well, in one case, a friend of only madden is a guy named george raft. the actor. the actor. and before he became an actor was a an associate of guys like only madden, but also worked in texas, gein and speakeasy, as perhaps the foremost charleston dancer in america. see if you could find on youtube where he does a brief charleston. he's he's good. at one point, he is is propositioned or asked by madden to go to a guy named eddie big boy peter sent a fighter to throw a fight against carneiro and to threaten them. but he doesn't want to threaten them, so he just slips them on making and makes him a little shaky before the fight.

these are and oh, this happens at the hotel claridge on west 44th street, which is the headquarters of lucky luciano. know, so all these things connect and go around in circles that keep happening and happening. the jewel robberies. amazing, amazing thing. numbers involved in the 305 thousands and dollars in jewel robberies, 265 murder was of showgirls. again having. oh one one of the showgirls is insured. the jewels are insured by arnold rothstein. but just before she's robbed and murdered, the policy lapses. okay, these are these are tough times. the tough times, the. one of the jewel robbery in that $305,000 robbery is a woman named buda godman.

and then she they robbed something from a guy named harry glenn by of the glenn b hair net manufacturing fortune big money in hairnets so she she's involved in that she gets caught and one of our associates commit suicide eyed she shows up in our story a couple of decades before that when she comes in from chicago with a rich businessman, they check into the and sonia hotel and the place is rated by detectives except they're not detectives. not detectives. this is a badger game. this is a blackmail operation. and they want to shake this guy down for money. he says, i don't care. i'm not paying. and then she has to take it on the lam. she comes back into the city where she becomes the mistress of one charles, a star, ohno,

who was the owner after 1917 of the new york baseball giants member horace stoneham, moved the giants to san francisco. go. horace stoneham was a stockbroker who was involved in a operation type of operation called a bucket shop. what's a bucket shop? a bucket shop is when you go in and you say, oh, you should buy anaconda copper. and they know it's a stinker. they know it's overvalued, and you give them the money and they don't buy the stock because they know it's a stinker. it's been inflated by rumors and it's going to go down, in fact. and then they may throw additional rumors and press reports in as to how bad the company is. and then they say, oh, i think you should get out before it goes lower. and they return a little sliver of the money that you paid in for it and keep the rest of it. horace stoneham was involved in

that and. these sort of operations were protected by tammany hall and they were protected by by arnold rothstein. so you have all of all of those things going on as well. i think i'm about ready to be yanked off in terms of this. so there's much more it's in the in the book and i'll be around later on to discuss anything you want and to discuss anything you want, to talk about. now to the microphone. okay. if there's any questions, come on over and have at it. huh. i guess my main question and i'm guilty of it myself is why are we so fascinated by such bad people? how. when you are baptize christ, the priest asks the infant, do you

reject satan? do you reject the of evil or evil? has a certain glamor? that's why it succeeds. that's why satan is so successful. because because he no, he doesn't come to you with someone who's repulsive to tempt you. he comes with all those showgirls. you know, he comes with this with the bubbly, the champagne, the good, the twenties. why the twenties? why do we talk about the twenties so much? because they're sort of a fun era. it's it's it's fun. but then the bad way as but as i like to say about sin, sin is like eating at mcdonald's. it seems like a good idea at the time, but you always regret. next question.

thanks very much. can you talk just a little bit about fdr involvement with tammany hall? how he maneuvered with them around them, against them in his state legislature time and his time as governor. well, in they have the back when they had united states senators elected by legislators, there was a deadlock. fdr is a big part of the deadlock. the democrats had the majority. in the legislature, which was unusual at the time and a deal is made eventually putting another democrat in in the meantime he you know creates gets a lot enmity from him a hall but then i think he's well he's a -- politician and he realizes if you're going to, you know, not move to wyoming or somewhere, you you better make your peace with tammany hall. and so by time of the 1920

convention, sinn and he's already been a member of the wilson administration and he's learning the ropes more and more and he's also picked up a guy named louis howe who's going to say, cool it, franklin, you know, you know, don't, don't shoot all your ammunition here. you know, you've got to live to fight another day. he's palling around with al smith at the 1920 convention. at some point, he gives him a vote or two. and smith become he's really at that point becomes a protege of smith smith builds him up at the 1924 convention. at the 1928 convention, makes him the governor really and when tammany dedicates a new wigwam or or headquarters on union square you know franklin roosevelt is there he's not hands off any more and he's appointing guys like judge

crater to the bench. you know, he doesn't have to. but he you know, the politics is the art of the politics. and you do what you do. i think he also appoint a particularly nefarious friend of mayor walker to a judgeship around that time and probably many, many more. and then, you know, even when walker is going down, he's kind of careful as to not go too far. and that, you know, get too inflammatory against them because it's a it's a balancing act. but once he's in the white house, then all the patronage goes to other people like la laguardia or to flynn in the bronx. thank you. thanks. yes. just a fun thing that if you comment on is damon runyon was sitting with at lindy's with

arnold rothstein all the time taking notes. so his stories that people would have a lot of fun reading are actually based on all of these real life characters. and then and dolls. nathan detroit was based on art of rothstein, and they became mendez instead of lindy's and the cheesecake and the strudel. and so i think if you follow all the daymond run stories because he loved that and sports that you will you're seeing that now at at some point not too far into the lindy story and there's a lindy's at times square now which is related but there were sort of two lindy's on opposite sides of broadway after a while and the first one where arnold rothstein was and he got the phone call to go to the park central hotel. come on up. we got something to discuss. and by the way, i'd like to kill you. well, i don't think he wanted to kill him. i think it was some sort of accident. it was whatever that that's a that's an interesting thing. was that a mob hit? that was a mob hit, right?

no mob hit. blows your -- head off. it doesn't shoot once in the stomach. so you can wander down the stairs. we picked up by the police and go to the hospital. that's not professional. that's an amateur who does that? that's that's, you know, whatever. but at the other lindy's across from carnegie hall these these things go on in times square or the park central albert anastasia in 1956 of murder, inc., is killed in the barber chair there. and also, i think in 1956 or around that time, there's a crusading newspaperman who i met later on, a guy named victor rozelle, if you remember him, he went after the union's corruption and hammer and tongs. and one day he came of a radio broadcast nearby, is standing in front of lindy's.

and this is in the fifties. this is in the roaring twenties. and a goon throws acid in his face and he is not as lucky as as bill fallon. and but he goes on of the the goon is killed by the mob. good to silence him. rozelle goes on to continue writing a column for decades afterwards and to become head of an international newspaper reporting association. as i say, i, him and i looked into his face and saw those sunglasses which were covering the scars. and i do not admire those guys, thank you. i guess we adjourn to the lobby. indeed.

we do. you can have your book signed out there in thei am delighted h

thornton celebrating the release of -- up what sex workers, milk