on things like research into. good morning, everybody. welcome to this 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 libraries. this year's group of authors reflects, the wide variety of research 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. 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. 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 nation. 1936 landslide and the triumph of the liberal 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, c-span. he has spoken at the fdr presidential library the past at the f kennedy library, and also the truman presidential libraries, as well as grant's cottage state historic site, the national baseball hall of fame and museum, and various instant tuitions, universities and libraries and festivals across

the. and he lives in new york state. and here to talk with us about recent book is david pietrusza david pietrusza. thank you. i think the first question i often get about the book is, which 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 on the gangster and all around underworld figure arnold rothstein. and a few years ago a couple of years ago i got a call 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 in times? and i said, yes, i can, because after writing the book about arnold rothstein, 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 keep your hand on your wallet. i was stiff down payment for that tour. but i all my notes and more remarkably, i could find them in the hovel that for my office. and so i thought, well why don't i just i'll do the interview and

maybe i could publish a little pamphlet. i tend to get carried away and of the reasons i could get carried away is because, unlike today's newspapers which leave out all sorts of details particularly about crimes and criminals and locations, the newspapers were just full of details and they had plenty details to be full of in the prohibition era in times square and i took the thing forward and did like a part to in the book about the upper side, which i was quite surprised to learn, really mobbed up back then because, you know, it's a direct 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 would tell you the street

number and they would tell you the apartment number. i found a guidebook which for 1920, which lists the the addresses of famous people in the city. so it would tell you where under secretary of the navy franklin rose oval lived. okay. imagine that in today's world. and and so one of the things i said when i said, please let me about this book at the roosevelt reading festival is promise. i will bring in front and center to that because the way we talk about intersectionality in politics and there's an intersection quality or overlap about this story and about how worked the twenties in times square. and so you've got the usual murderers and shakedown artists and speakeasy guys and

bootlegging but you also have all you have politic. 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 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 often you also see that often the plot lines of 1930s movies which seem sort of fanciful and hackneyed, really are based on today's headlines or yesterday's headlines. and in that case, so with politics, the cornerstone of the

story is tammany that the organization which runs everything really in. york city at that time and for a very long time and which franklin roosevelt makes his early reputation in new york state senate as being a forceful opponent and with the most prominent type in to the violence and gore in this area and in era is the tammany boss of the lower east side a guy named big tim sullivan. sullivan again intersectionality overlap. sullivan aside from running the lower side and being a state senator and a congressman was also a partner in a west coast vaudeville chain, of all things. he had an office for his chain at 1440 broadway and so sullivan

also up 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 gets tired of being shaken down by a police lieutenant. also by sullivan, and called lieutenant charles becker. becker is one mean, 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 and i'm not going to take it. whereupon his his gambling house is wrecked by the police. this happens. one more time. and rosen thought all this is bad timing for tammany 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 river city and becker and big tim. big tim sullivan by the ironically, is the father of the first gun control law in the united states. the sullivan act. okay and also in the murder of bnz rosenthal which is the first drive by shooting in united states history. they just sort of go by after after some killers, another gambler, name brigid webber, who 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 are many, many sites that one can visit which were associated with him in new york, most notably the park central hotel, very near to carnegie hall. big hall hotel still in business now, 200 west, 56th street. and he has killed in an upper room there by a 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 speakeasies is fixing things with he's great middle man of things. and and one of the men, middle man or. well, there's a there's an agile act or a detour from the rothstein, which i and he has a relative 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 gather round in political again politics. you also worked for the new york daily news as sort a of a room for photographer and a go to 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 a summons

because there was an entertainer at this time by the name of frank tenney a black face entertainer. and you you can listen to a recordings his act not in blackface on youtube or one is called george or frank tinies first recording and the second is called frank day and his second record and remarkably funny. but as a person so funny and so he after beating up his beautiful girlfriend, imogene wilson, is accosted by a new york news photographer in times and beat him up to whereupon george will serve him with a summons on behalf of the up photographer ringler is also connected to mayor james j. walker, the mayor, the corrupt mayor of new york city who is removed from eventually by

governor franklin deleon, now roosevelt and ringler is so close to he accompanies walker up to albany to argue his case and try to save his office. but if you think ringler going up to albany is impressive, i will you what is impressive? we happen to have george granddaughter sitting in the front row. randy. so you are expecting that? are you so since she's she's got information which we're not going to discuss further even though this this meeting is hosted by the feds. okay. another politician who is involved in the rothstein story is a guy named morris kantor. he has an office at 152.

west 42nd street. is the assemblyman on the upper upper upper west side, somewhere past, i think, columbia university. okay. he's 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 at the public clinic hotel, which by the way, valentino died at and monroe was treated and when rothstein is dying, kantor producer is shows up at the deathbed and arnold, remember that will you asked me to prepare a few ago, and you got around to signing i happened to have it right here. so here this was contested by arnold's relatives.

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 of leader of of tammany in manhattan, a guy named nathan birken the name of the tammany guys were not dumb. bergen was the best lawyer in the country. he you name all the stars of the silent era you name all the studios he represented all he was 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, times square, which, if you've ever in times square, go see it, because it's the hidden of times square. it's beautiful. but he was was he became rather this dissolute, shall we say, quite flamboyant great lawyer, great jury fixer, etc., etc. at the hotel bel. in april 1926, a woman bursts into the room or 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 he is. when arnold when william randolph is bringing charges or when they when they're bringing a 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 certificate. there were. no twins. there were no he was acquitted so those are the sort of people we're dealing with. and last but not least, in the early 1930s, there's a judge, judge josephus kramer, who goes to dinner at billy chop house on, times square, and then steps

a taxicab afterwards and disappears and is never again force 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 respectable names. he had been the secretary to senator robert wagner, the father of social security in the lab wagner labor relations. and then he moved on from that to being a supreme court judge appointed to that position by governor franklin delano roosevelt. now, there 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 sense, beaten into him and they beat us a bit too much sense into him. and he buried under the boardwalk. that's a or that one of the things which i talked intersectionality or didn't talk about prostitution that he may have gone to one of polly 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 paid your money. you take your your choice and happened to him speak easy's speakeasy is are just everywhere particularly in the west fifties texas guy conan is is the most famous operator hostess there are movies made about her while she's doing this helen morgan who was a big musical comedy.

she stars in the original showboat and like a day after, showboat opens her speakeasy raided. okay, that's how this this was a 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 al-fayed on west 45th street. and then later when he sort of down his luck, he'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 everywhere else he would his speakeasies and taxi cabs with giant 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 operating in the basement of his club durant and billy rose billy rose was a great showman. he did he did that movie in the fifties with jimmy durante called jumbo and he was at one point married to fanny. he ran a speakeasy called the backstage club, which he was propositioned to by one of these these 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 aids them and those guys who's this he's doing it at the behest of arnold rothstein. so rothstein gets a cut, the police get a cut. everything that being married to. fanny brice. okay fanny brice had married earlier to a guy named nicky arnstein. if you remember the movie. what they left of the movie, largely was that nicky arnstein was a confirm featherweight and a great admirer of arnold rothstein. he was a con man in his own right, as they talked about jewel robberies. there were also a lot of government bonds, robberies back then. the bonds were not were bearer bonds. so you could just cash the man. so if you got a shipment of bonds coming up from wall street to a bank, something, they would

be hit and, then robbed and and arnstein was involved in this went on the lam at one point and then just got sick of being on the lam, turned in. and arnold rothstein gave him 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 past the commissioner police? he did the police were not amused. he did go to leavenworth but for bail money. arnold rothstein provided bail money to a to fanny brice. but he he also said because it wasn't just altruism, 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 overpriced. yes, she was. she was not amused, nor was a woman. and nichols and nichols produced. a show in the 1920s called abbeys irish rose. you know, the old plot jewish guy marries irish girl. uh, she god knows 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 but it wasn't at first. and like all those broadway show musicals or movies in the y. it's like if if we only stay on the show is going to have it's going to be a hit. i believe in it. and she goes to arnold rothstein for money to keep going, because

rothstein actually financed the building of 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 just want the money back with interest soon on time. and also while you 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. so this was common practice by him. she was not amused if she if he had taken the original, he could have made that really big fortune on it as it was. he only. only about $3,000 that. but that's the sort of of wheeling and dealing which was which was going on there. as i said, lot of showgirls

involved in 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, the lyric theater, harpo decides, oh, i got a new gag i'm going to try and catch groucho unaware and if i can get him flatfooted and not know what to do, which on 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, groucho knows exactly what to say. that's not the point of the story. the point of the story is after words someone says harpo, do you know who that chorus girl is associated with? no. that's legs diamond's current girlfriend. well, why don't you get another blond? and so he did. but all of those things would be

going on in the. they also make they also make a show room 349. that's the room number of where rothstein was killed at. berkshire central at the what now? the neither land or theater just below 42nd street and. it's not a very good show it lasts for a handful of performances. it's done very, very after his death. the names are changed, of course, to protect the guilty what is remarkable is that his mistress is the show a woman named inez norton. so these these are indeed wild wild times sports. oh, 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. did. and he went to sing.

sing for about eight years or so. but comes out and becomes the big bootlegging guy of the west side and also in sports with a couple of associates big bill duffy and dimanche. so they they promote a guy from italy called primo carneiro, a big gi tired 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, 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 guy name george raft, the actor. the actor. and before became an actor was a an associate of guys like only madden, but also worked texas guidance speakeasy as perhaps foremost charleston dancer in

america. see if you could find on youtube where he does a brief charles austin 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 peterson fighter to throw a fight against carneiro and to threaten them. but he is to threaten them. so he just slips my mickey and it makes him a little shaky. the fight these and oh, this happens at the hotel claridge on west 44th street, which the headquarters of lucky. so all things connect and go around circles that keep happening and happening. the jewel robberies, amazing amazing numbers involved in the $305,000 in jewelry, robberies, 265 murders as 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. okay these are these are tough times the tough times. one of the jewel robberies in that $305,000 robbery is a woman named godman. and then she they robbed something from a guy named harry glenn b of the glenn b manufacturing fortune big money hairnets. so she she's involved in that. she gets caught and one of our associates commit suicide. she shows up in our story a couple of decades that when she comes in from chicago go with a rich businessman they check into the ansonia hotel and the place is raided by detectives except

they're not detectives. not detectives. this is a badger game. this is a blackmail operation and they want shake this guy down for money. he says, i don't care. i'm not paying. and then she has to take on the lam. she comes back into the city where becomes the mystery of one charles a, though, who? the owner after. 17 of the new york baseball. remember horace stoneham moved the giants to san francisco. horace stoneham was a stockbroker who was involved in the operation type of operation called a shop. what's a bucket shop. a bucket is when you go in and you say you should buy an a car and a 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 that it's going to go down, in fact. and then they both may throw additional rumors and press reports 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. so you have all of all of those things going 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 discuss anything you want to talk about. now to the microphone. okay. if there's any questions, come

on 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. that when you are baptized, the priest, the infant, do you reject satan? do you reject the glamor of evil? evil has a certain glamor. that's why it succeeds. why satan is so successful, because his because he no, he doesn't come. to you with someone who's repulsive to tempt you. he comes in with all those showgirls. you know, he comes with the with the bubbly champagne, the good times, 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 like eating at mcdonald's, it seems like a good idea at the time but you always regret. next question. thanks much. can you talk just a little bit about f.t class involvement with tammany hall? he maneuvered with them around them against them and state legislature time and time as governor. well in, they have the back when they had united states senators elected 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 of enmity from him. a tammany hall but then i think he's well he's a -- good 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 the time of like the 1920 convention and he's already been a member of the wilson administration and, he's learning the ropes more and more. and also picked up a guy named louis howe who's going to say, cool it, franklin, you know, you know, don't don't all your ammunition here. you you've got to live to fight another day he's palling around with al smith at the 1920 convention and at some point he gives him a vote or two. and smith become he's really at that point a protege of smith. smith builds him up at the 1924

convention at the 1928 convention makes him the governor really. and when dedicates a new wigwam or headquarters on union square or you know franklin roosevelt is 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, politics is the art of the politics. and you do what you do think. he also appoints 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 going down he's kind of careful as to not go too far and not 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 laguardia or to flynn in the bronx. thank you. thanks. yes yes. just a fun thing that if you can comment on is damon runyon was with at lindy's with arnold rothstein all the time taking so his stories that people would have a lot of fun reading are actually based on all of these real life characters. and then guys and dolls nathan detroit was based on all of rothstein and mendez and said a lindy's and the cheesecake and the strudel and so i think if you follow all the daymond run stories because loved that and sports that you will, you're seeing now at some point not too far into the lindy story there's a lindy's at times square now which not 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 in and he got the phone call to go to the park central hotel. come on up. got something to discuss. and by the way, i'd like kill you. well, i think he wanted to kill them. i think it was sort of accident. it was whatever or that. that's a that's an interesting thing was that a mob hit that was a mob hit, right? no a mob hit blows. you're head off. it doesn't shoot you once in the stomach. so you can wander down the stairs picked up by the police go to the hospital well that's not professional that's an amateur who does that's that's you know whatever but at the other lindy's across carnegie hall these things go on in times square or at the park central albert anastasia in 1956 of murder inc., killed in the barber chair there. and also i think in 1956 or

around that time, there's a crusading newspaper man who i met later on, a guy named victor frizell, if you remember him, he went after the unions corruption hammer tongs. and one day he came out the radio broadcast nearby is standing in front of lindy's. and this is in the fifties. this is in the twenties. and a goon throws acid in his 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 writing a column for decades afterwards and become head an international newspaper reporting. 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 lobby. indeed we do. you can have your book signed out there in the