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Authors: Alix Kirsta
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extravagant in the history of New York, and the slimy trail of waste, recklessness and corruption is unparalleled since the days of Boss Tweed,” he raged. Mayor Walker, whose early background was as a composer of Broadway show tunes, including the hit song Will You Love Me in December as you Do in May ? far from being rattled, cavalierly dismissed La Guardia’s reformist zeal: “A reformer is a guy who rides through a sewer in a glass-bottomed boat”. When La Guardia challenged New York State Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt to use his powers to order a clean-up of the city, Roosevelt declined, and Mayor Walker, still the city’s darling “Mr Broadway” was re-elected.
Roosevelt’s failure to tackle organised crime while holding the post of New York State Governor seems a mystery given his integrity and later political achievements. However, given the dates and pending challenges in his political career, there is an explanation, though it does him little credit. Until 1932, Roosevelt had allowed the Tammany Democrats to run New York City their way: this benevolence has been explained by the fact that in 1930 he needed their votes for his re-election as State governor; crucially, he also depended on Tammany’s goodwill if he was to win the Democratic Party’s nomination for the 1932 presidential election. However, by 1932, once he was nominated as the party’s presidential candidate, Roosevelt began to realise it was time for him to be seen as his own man, capable of a tough stance against crime and corruption now endemic in his state.
By 1932 it was obvious how much Roosevelt needed to be tough about. In the lead-up to Roosevelt’s campaign for the presidency and Fiorella La Guardia’s second successful 1933 bid to become Mayor of New York, a series of crimes soon set the stage for one of the biggest battles against political corruption and organised crime in the modern history of New York City. In the words of one historian: “a crime-fighting extravaganza” was about to take place. The inability of police investigators and prosecutors to solve three major crimes, all involving gangland connections, would ultimately swing public opinion against Mayor Walker, and prove to have massive repercussions on the judiciary and the Manhattan District Attorney.
The first such crime was the fatal shooting, on election day 1928, of the wealthy gangster and gambling czar Arnold Rothstein. Rothstein, who had known links to Tammany Hall, was a major wheeler-dealer and crooked financier famous for conducting business in his customary booth in Lindy’s restaurant on Seventh Avenue near Broadway. His biggest claim to fame is the allegation that he masterminded the so-called “Black Sox” scandal, the fixing of the 1919 World Series, by bribing members of Chicago’s White Sox baseball team. Rothstein, who operated a chain of gambling houses, owned banks, employed his own tipsters and provided bail and legal representation to his employees, was immortalised by the writer Damon Runyon as the Nathan Detroit character in Guys and Dolls . Rothstein was also the inspiration for F. Scott Fitzgerald’s character Meyer Wolfsheim, the millionaire gambler who finances bootlegger Jay Gatsby in The Great Gatsby .
The shooting took place in the luxury Park Central Hotel in mid-Manhattan, allegedly in a suite occupied by a well-known bookmaker, George McManus. An early theory for the killing was that the two had fallen out over Rothstein’s delay in paying back a hefty gambling debt, which allegedly had prompted McManus to shoot Rothstein in a drunken fury. Rothstein managed to stagger to the hotel lobby and was taken to hospital where he died two days later refusing, in time honoured tradition of omerta - the mafia’s oath of silence - to name his killer. Although there were no witnesses to the murder, McManus was eventually charged and put on trial: lack of hard evidence led to his acquittal. Throughout the following year, despite
Roosevelt’s failure to tackle organised crime while holding the post of New York State Governor seems a mystery given his integrity and later political achievements. However, given the dates and pending challenges in his political career, there is an explanation, though it does him little credit. Until 1932, Roosevelt had allowed the Tammany Democrats to run New York City their way: this benevolence has been explained by the fact that in 1930 he needed their votes for his re-election as State governor; crucially, he also depended on Tammany’s goodwill if he was to win the Democratic Party’s nomination for the 1932 presidential election. However, by 1932, once he was nominated as the party’s presidential candidate, Roosevelt began to realise it was time for him to be seen as his own man, capable of a tough stance against crime and corruption now endemic in his state.
By 1932 it was obvious how much Roosevelt needed to be tough about. In the lead-up to Roosevelt’s campaign for the presidency and Fiorella La Guardia’s second successful 1933 bid to become Mayor of New York, a series of crimes soon set the stage for one of the biggest battles against political corruption and organised crime in the modern history of New York City. In the words of one historian: “a crime-fighting extravaganza” was about to take place. The inability of police investigators and prosecutors to solve three major crimes, all involving gangland connections, would ultimately swing public opinion against Mayor Walker, and prove to have massive repercussions on the judiciary and the Manhattan District Attorney.
The first such crime was the fatal shooting, on election day 1928, of the wealthy gangster and gambling czar Arnold Rothstein. Rothstein, who had known links to Tammany Hall, was a major wheeler-dealer and crooked financier famous for conducting business in his customary booth in Lindy’s restaurant on Seventh Avenue near Broadway. His biggest claim to fame is the allegation that he masterminded the so-called “Black Sox” scandal, the fixing of the 1919 World Series, by bribing members of Chicago’s White Sox baseball team. Rothstein, who operated a chain of gambling houses, owned banks, employed his own tipsters and provided bail and legal representation to his employees, was immortalised by the writer Damon Runyon as the Nathan Detroit character in Guys and Dolls . Rothstein was also the inspiration for F. Scott Fitzgerald’s character Meyer Wolfsheim, the millionaire gambler who finances bootlegger Jay Gatsby in The Great Gatsby .
The shooting took place in the luxury Park Central Hotel in mid-Manhattan, allegedly in a suite occupied by a well-known bookmaker, George McManus. An early theory for the killing was that the two had fallen out over Rothstein’s delay in paying back a hefty gambling debt, which allegedly had prompted McManus to shoot Rothstein in a drunken fury. Rothstein managed to stagger to the hotel lobby and was taken to hospital where he died two days later refusing, in time honoured tradition of omerta - the mafia’s oath of silence - to name his killer. Although there were no witnesses to the murder, McManus was eventually charged and put on trial: lack of hard evidence led to his acquittal. Throughout the following year, despite
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