June 25, 1906: Murder at Madison Square Garden

June 25, 1906: A murder is committed at Madison Square Garden. The victim is the man who designed the building.

The 1st Garden was built at the northeast corner of 26th Street and Madison Avenue, catty-corner from Madison Square Park, in 1879. It had no roof. It was replaced in 1890 with a Moorish-style building, designed by the renowned architect Stanford White, that not only had a roof, but a tower with a roof garden where shows were hosted, and an apartment for White atop that.

Stanford White

White would take showgirls up there, for a pre-movies version of a "casting couch." One of these girls was Evelyn Nesbit. In 1901, the Pittsburgh native had recently come to New York and begun a modeling career. She had modeled for artist Charles Dana Gibson, and became known as the original "Gibson Girl," considered a feminine ideal for the early 20th Century. She was now a chorus girl in the hit musical Florodora. She was 16, and (she claimed) a virgin. He was 46, and already married with a son.

Evelyn Nesbit. Although she is known to have posed

for at least one bare-breasted photo,

she is not known to have ever posed totally nude.

Through his connections, he made her a star. But "Stanny" was no more faithful to Evelyn than he was to his wife. She left him for a man named Harry Thaw, a fellow Pittsburgher and the son of  a coal and railroad baron. They met after he went to see her star in The Wild Rose. They married on April 4, 1905.

White moved on, flaunting his wealth and his women. Thaw was well-known in Pittsburgh, but, in New York, he was not as well-known as White, the nation's leading architect. He wasn't even as well-known as his own wife. He believed that White was keeping him out of the public eye. He also believed that White still had designs on Evelyn.

Apparently, neither was true, but Thaw was, by this point, mentally ill and completely paranoid. He had become addicted to both cocaine and morphine, becoming one of the earliest known people to mix the two in what later became known as a "speedball."

On June 25, 1906, Harry and Evelyn went to see the opening night of a show at the Garden's Rooftop Theatre, Mam'zelle Champagne. Thaw noticed White was also in attendance, and glared at him throughout the show. Finally, upon hearing Eddie Fowler introduce a song titled "I Could Love a Million Girls," Thaw thought of White's apparent attempts to do just that. He walked over to White, and shot him 3 times.

Thaw was unrepentant, yelling, "I did it because he ruined my wife! He had it coming to him! He took advantage of the girl and then abandoned her!" (Another witness thought Thaw said, "I did it because he ruined my life!" rather than "wife!") Only then did he walk out.

At first, the audience took it in stride. Practical jokes were not unusual in such settings at that time, and some suspected that this was part of the show. But then someone noticed that one of the bullets had badly disfigured White's face, and that he really was dead.

An autopsy suggested that White, 52, might not have lived much longer anyway: He had a deteriorating liver, incipient tuberculosis, and Bright's disease, a kidney disorder that is treatable today, but wasn't then. A diagnosis then meant a life expectancy of about 5 years. If Thaw had just left well enough alone, he would have outlived White by many years, and not spent a day in custody.

The newspapers of the time, in their "yellow journalism," loved the story. It had everything they liked: Life, death, crime, wealth, and, of course, sex. And, indirectly, since it was Madison Square Garden, sports. They used the revenge angle to suggest that Thaw should get away with it.

On April 13, 1907, after 2 days of deliberations, the jury announced that they were deadlocked: 7 had voted guilty, 5 not guilty. On February 1, 1908, the 2nd trial reached a unanimous verdict: Not guilty by reason of insanity. 

Thaw was sentenced to life confinement at the Matteawan State Hospital for the Criminally Insane in Fishkill, Dutchess County, about 60 miles north of Midtown Manhattan. While there, he was able to buy accommodations and privileges not given to the place's general population.

On October 25, 1910, in Berlin, Germany, Evelyn Nesbit had a baby boy, Russell William Thaw. She stuck to her story that he was conceived during a conjugal visit to Thaw at Matteawan. Thaw always denied it. Evelyn moved from the stage to movies, still silent at the time, appearing in 11 from 1914 to 1922. Russell appeared as a child actor in 6 of them. However, all of Evelyn's films are now considered lost.

In 1913, Thaw walked out of the asylum, and had an accomplice drive him over the Canadian border. He was extradited the following year, but on July 16, 1915, a jury determined that he was no longer insane, and was set free. He had been in custody, in one form or another, for only 7 years. Evelyn was furious at this: "He hid behind my skirts through two trials, and I won't stand for it again. I won't let lawyers throw any more mud at me." They were soon divorced.

In 1916, she married dancer Jack Clifford, with whom she had a stage act. But she was still known as "The Lethal Beauty," who had been married to "The Playboy Killer." Clifford found himself known only as her husband, and, as a result, both of their careers suffered. He left her in 1918, although their divorce wasn't finalized until 1933. She never married again.

The New York Life insurance company owned the mortgage on Stanford White's 2nd Madison Square Garden, and decided to tear it down to build their new headquarters. George "Tex" Rickard, the top boxing promoter of the era, decided to build his own arena, where he wouldn't have to worry about anybody else's whims. He was lucky that New York Life was willing to sell him the rights to the name "Madison Square Garden": It was already a valuable brand name, which is a big reason why the "new Garden," opened in 1968, has never sold naming rights.

Thaw went into one business after another, failed at all of them, and died of a heart attack in Miami in 1947, at 76. A year before his death, on the 40th Anniversary of the crime, he was interviewed, and was still completely unrepentant: "Under the same circumstances, I'd kill him tomorrow."

In the 1920s, with her film career having stalled, Evelyn opened a tea room in Midtown Manhattan. With Prohibition in effect, it may have been a speakeasy. Like White, she became an alcoholic; like Thaw, she became addicted to a drug, in her case opium. She published 2 memoirs, neither of which sold well. In the 1930s, in her 40s and 50s, she worked on burlesque stages, but didn't strip. At one point, she said, "I wish I were a stripteaser. I wouldn't have to bother with so many clothes."

She moved to Los Angeles, and became an art teacher. When Thaw died, he left her $10,000, about $130,000 in 2022 money. In 1955, The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing was made, a fictionalization of the White-Thaw story. She was asked to be a technical adviser on it, and was paid $10,000, about $108,000 in today's money. She was played by a young Joan Collins, with Farley Granger as Thaw and Ray Milland as White.

Evelyn Nesbit in her classroom, 1954. She was 69 years old.

On January 17, 1967, 2 days after Super Bowl I, Evelyn Nesbit died in a nursing home in Santa Monica, outside Los Angeles. She was 82 years old. Late in life, she said, "Stanny White died. My fate was worse: I lived."

Russell Thaw was Evelyn's only child. He became a pilot, performing stunts, participating in plane races, then serving in the U.S. Army Air Force in World War II, and finally working as a test pilot for McDonnell-Douglas. He married twice, and had 3 children with his 2nd wife. He lived until 1984.

In 1975, E.L. Doctorow published the novel Ragtime, which included a dramatization of the story. It was filmed in 1981, with Elizabeth McGovern as Evelyn (at 19, she fit the role, as Evelyn was 21 at the time of the murder), Robert Joy as Thaw, and, with some appropriateness, noted Lothario Norman Mailer as White.

Other historical figures shown in the film: Robert Boyd as President Theodore Roosevelt, Moses Gunn as Booker T. Washington, Jeffrey DeMunn as Harry Houdini, and, in one of his last film roles, James Cagney as Commissioner Rhinelander Waldo.

Also in the film were Jack Nicholson, eventual Star Trek actors Ethan Phillips and Andreas Katsulas, Mandy Patinkin, Howard Rollins, Mary Steenburgen, Debbie Allen, Jeff Daniels, Fran Drescher, Frankie Faison, Michael Jeter, a young Samuel L. Jackson, and, as both Evelyn's dance instructor and as Eddie Fowler, singer of "I Could Love a Million Girls," dance legend Donald O'Connor.

In 1998, 92 years (and two Madison Square Gardens) later, the story came full circle, as Ragtime was staged on Broadway. New historical characters added to it included Henry Ford, J.P. Morgan, alleged North Pole achievers Robert Peary and Matthew Henson, and anarchist Emma Goldman. Lynnette Perry played Evelyn, Colton Green played Thaw, and Kevin Bogue played White.

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June 25, 1906 was a Monday. The NFL, the NBA and the NHL had not yet been founded. But a full slate of games in what would now be called Major League Baseball was played:

* The New York Highlanders beat the Washington Senators, 2-0 at League Park in Washington. Jack Chesbro pitched a 4-hit shutout. The Highlanders became the Yankees in 1913.

* The New York Giants beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 12-3 at the Polo Grounds.

* The Brooklyn Superbas beat the Boston Beaneaters, 2-0 at the South End Grounds in Boston. Named for a circus troupe, Hanlon's Superbas, because Ned Hanlon had once been their manager, the Brooklyn team became the Dodgers in 1911. In 1912, the Boston team became the Braves.

* The Philadelphia Athletics beat the Boston Americans, 1-0 at Columbia Park in Philadelphia. Rube Waddell pitched a 6-hit shutout. Since Boston's National League team was no longer using the name "Red Stockings," or any variation thereof, its American League team became the Red Sox in 1908.

* The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Cincinnati Reds, 4-2 at the Palace of the Fans in Cincinnati. Redland Field was built on the site in 1912, and was renamed Crosley Field in 1934. Honus Wagner went 4-for-4 with an RBI for the Pirates.

* The Cleveland Naps beat the Detroit Tigers, 3-1 at Bennett Park in Detroit. The ballpark that would become Tiger Stadium was built on the same site in 1912. The Cleveland team was named for their 2nd baseman and manager, Napoleon "Nap" Lajoie. He went 1-for-2 in support of fellow future Hall-of-Famer Addie Joss. Ty Cobb, not yet 20 years old, went 0-for-3 for the Tigers.

* The Chicago Cubs beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 2-1 at West Side Park in Chicago.

* And the St. Louis Browns beat the Chicago White Sox, 6-4 at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis.