October 23, 1935: Dutch Schultz Is Rubbed Out

October 23, 1935: Mobster Dutch Schultz is rubbed out, along with 2 bodyguards and his accountant, at the Palace Chophouse at 12 E. Park Street in Newark. He was 34 years old.

(The address no longer exists, as the 60 Park Place Building has wiped it out. A restaurant called Dutch's Lounge has opened at 24 E. Park.)

Schultz had asked the Mafia Commission for permission to kill the U.S. Attorney investigating him in New York, Thomas Dewey. They refused, because it would have meant the U.S. government declaring all-out war on them, a war the Mob knew it couldn't win. They thought he might try it anyway, and rival Charles "Lucky" Luciano sent 2 hitmen from Murder, Incorporated to do it. He was shot at 10:15 that night, and died at 2:20 the next morning.

Born on August 6, 1901 as Arthur Simon Flegenheimer, Dutch Schultz started as a bouncer at a Bronx speakeasy, whose owner, Joey Noe, took a liking to him for his ruthlessness in throwing guys out. He joined Noe's bootlegging operation, and took over when Noe was rubbed out in 1928, as part of the Castellamarese War. Schultz may have ordered the 1928 killing of Arnold Rothstein, the gambler who fixed the 1919 World Series; and the 1930 attempted rubout of Legs Diamond, who recovered, only to be killed by another gang the following year.

When Prohibition ended in 1933, Schultz moved into a numbers racket (an illegal lottery) and extortion. But Dewey, remembering how Al Capone was brought to justice, indicted Schultz for tax evasion. So Schultz made his request, and it ended up backfiring.

He didn't die immediately, and was still conscious when he was loaded into an ambulance that would take him to Newark City Hospital (now University Hospital). He had $3,000 in cash (about $64,000 in 2022 money) on him, and gave it to an intern in the ambulance, because, "It's not going to do me any good where I'm going." When it looked like Schultz might live, the intern got scared that Schultz might want the cash back, and gave it to the police.

Schultz lived for 29 hours, and remained lucid long enough for the police to question him, and ask him if he knew who shot him, or if he knew who sent them. Keeping the Mob's code of silence, he wouldn't say.

With a tombstone bearing his real name, he is buried in Gate of Heaven Cemetery in Hawthorne, New York -- the same cemetery as Babe Ruth, Billy Martin, Ralph Branca, Giants owners Tim and Wellington Mara, Heywood Broun, Dorothy Kilgallen, Conde Nast; steel magnate Charles M. Schwab (no relation to the investment guru Charles R.), Fred Allen, James Cagney, Sal Mineo and 1920s Mayor Jimmy Walker.

One of the gunmen, Charles Workman, served 23 years in prison. The other, Emmanuel Weiss, was arrested for a different murder, and executed in 1944. Albert Anastasia, the Commission head, "the boss of all bosses," remained in power until getting whacked himself in 1957.

Lucky Luciano and his business partner Meyer Lansky allowed their friend Abner "Longy" Zwillman, a former bootlegger and the king of Newark's "numbers racket," to take over Schultz's New Jersey operations. He became the most powerful gangster between the Hudson and Delaware Rivers, until his tax problems piled up, and he was found dead in his West Orange home in 1959, shortly before he was to testify before a Senate Committee in Washington. It's been alleged that Vito Genovese, head of the New York crime family that still bears his name, ordered it, with Lansky's blessing.

Luciano was convicted in 1936, a case prosecuted by Dewey, but the charges had nothing to do with the Schultz murder, for which he was never charged. He was sentenced to 30 to 50 years in prison. During World War II, he accepted a deal with the federal government, negotiated by Lansky: Through his operations, he had naval knowledge that could help win The War. In 1946, his sentence was commuted, on the condition that he accept deportation back to Italy. He accepted, and died in Naples in 1962. Lansky lived on until 1983, his power and fortune having waned, but he was never imprisoned. Nor was he assassinated, like the Hyman Roth, the character based on on him for the film The Godfather Part II.

Schultz has been played by Lawrence Dobkin on 3 episodes of the TV series The Untouchables in 1959, Vic Morrow in Portrait of a Mobster in 1961, Vincent Gardenia in Mad Dog Coll the same year, James Remar in The Cotton Club in 1984, Dustin Hoffman in Billy Bathgate in 1991, and Tim Roth in Hoodlum in 1997.

In 1998, Michael Walsh published As Time Goes By, an authorized combination prequel and sequel to the film Casablanca. It imagines Humphrey Bogart's character as a young man named Yitzik Baline, working for Solly Horowitz, a mobster based on Schultz. When Horowitz is rubbed out on October 23, 1935, "Rick" Baline, by then running Horowitz' speakeasy, has to flee the country, and changes his name to Richard Blaine.

*

October 23, 1935 was a Wednesday. Puerto Rican golfer Juan Antonio "Chi-Chi" Rodríguez was born.

The baseball season was over, the hockey season didn't start for another 2 weeks, there was no NBA, and it was a Wednesday, so there were no football games. So there were no scores on this historic day.

May 12, 1942: The Navy's Deal With Lucky Luciano

May 12, 1942: Lucky Luciano is moved to Great Meadow Correctional Facility in Fort Ann, outside Glens Falls, New York. It is part of a deal with the State of New York and the U.S. Navy: Better conditions for Luciano's prison sentence, and Luciano's assistance in the effort to win World War II.

Born on November 24, 1897 in Lercara Friddi, Sicily, Italy, as Salvatore Lucania, Charles Luciano grew up on Manhattan's Lower East Side, and fell in with the Five Points Gang. He rose up the ladder of American crime until, in 1931, he emerged victorious in the Castellamarese War, and founded The Commission, which oversaw organized crime in America. The founder of what is now known as the Genovese crime family, he was called "Lucky" for all the assassination attempts, and all the convictions, he avoided.

In 1936, he was convicted on prostitution charges, but continued to run his criminal empire from prison. In 1942, the 1st full year of U.S. participation in World War II, the Office of Naval Intelligence was concerned about German and Italian agents entering the U.S. through the New York waterfront. They also worried about sabotage in these facilities.

Knowing that the Mafia controlled the waterfront, the Navy contacted Meyer Lansky, the country's top Jewish gangster, a man with a record of running anti-Nazi violence in New York, and a close friend of Luciano's, about a deal with Luciano. To facilitate negotiations, Luciano was transferred to Great Meadow, which was much closer to New York City than his previous prison, in Dannemora, New York, which was nearly on the Canadian border.

A deal was struck: In exchange for a commutation of his sentence, Luciano promised the complete assistance of his organization in providing intelligence to the Navy. Albert Anastasia, a Luciano ally who controlled the docks, allegedly promised no dockworker strikes during The War. In preparation for the 1943 allied invasion of Sicily, Luciano allegedly provided the U.S. military with contacts in the original Mafia in Sicily. Luciano was moved still closer to New York, to Sing Sing Prison in Ossining.

On January 3, 1946, as a presumed reward for his alleged wartime cooperation, Governor Thomas E. Dewey, who had been the District Attorney who put him away, reluctantly commuted Luciano's pandering sentence, on condition that he not resist deportation to Italy. On February 2, 1946, two federal immigration agents transported Luciano from Sing Sing prison to Ellis Island in New York Harbor, for deportation proceedings.

On February 9, the night before his departure, Luciano shared a spaghetti dinner on his freighter with Anastasia and five other guests. On February 10, Luciano's ship sailed from Brooklyn Harbor for Italy. On February 28, after a 17-day voyage, Luciano's ship arrived in Naples. On arrival, Luciano told reporters he would probably reside in Sicily.

Anastasia became known as "the boss of all bosses," but in 1957, Vito Genovese and Carlo Gambino had him assassinated, cutting down Luciano's man in America. Still, in Italy, Luciano engineered a setup of Genovese on drug charges, but Luciano died of a heart attack on January 26, 1962, ending his influence over American crime.

Among the actors who have played Luciano: Robert Carricart on The Untouchables in 1959, and Telly Savalas on The Witness in 1960, both while Luciano was still alive; Gian Maria Volonte in Lucky Luciano in 1973, Vic Tayback in Lepke in 1975, Michael Nouri in The Gangster Chronicles in 1981, Joe Dallesandro in The Cotton Club in 1984; Christian Slater in Mobsters, Bill Graham in Bugsy, Stanley Tucci in Billy Bathgate and Robert David in White Hot: The Mysterious Murder of Thelma Todd, all in 1991; Andy Garcia in Hoodlum in 1997, Anthony LaPaglia in Lansky in 1999, and Vincent Piazza on Boardwalk Empire in 2010.

*

May 12, 1942 was a Tuesday. These baseball games were played: 

* The New York Giants beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 7-3 at the Polo Grounds. Mel Ott, now also the Giants' manager, went 2-for-3 with 2 walks and 2 RBIs.

* The Brooklyn Dodgers lost to the Cincinnati Reds, 5-1 at Ebbets Field.

* The Chicago Cubs beat the Boston Braves, 9-8 at Braves Field in Boston.

* The Philadelphia Phillies beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 3-2 at Shibe Park in Philadelphia. Stan Musial was a rookie, and did not play.

* The only game played in the American League that day was the Philadelphia Athletics' 5-4 win over the St. Louis Browns at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis.

* The New York Yankees and the Cleveland Indians were rained out at Cleveland Municipal Stadium. The game was made up as part of a doubleheader on June 21. The Indians won the opener, 3-2. Otto Denning singled Les Fleming home to win the game in the bottom of the 9th inning. Alfred "Chubby" Dean -- no relation to Jay "Dizzy" and his brother Paul "Daffy" -- outpitched Red Ruffing. The Yankees won the nightcap, 4-0. Hank Borowy pitched a 5-hit shutout. Over the 2 games, Joe DiMaggio went 1-for-7.

* The Detroit Tigers and the Washington Senators were rained out at Briggs Stadium (later Tiger Stadium) in Detroit, and also made it up on June 21. The Tigers won the 1st game, 4-1. The Senators won the 2nd game, 3-2. Virgil Trucks walked Bruce Campbell (no relation to the later Evil Dead actor of the same name) with the bases loaded, to force Ellis Clary home with the winning run, in the top of the 10th.

* And the Boston Red Sox and the Chicago White Sox were rained out at Comiskey Park in Chicago. The game was made up as part of a doubleheader on September 13. The Red Sox swept, 6-1 and 5-0. Tex Hughson pitched a 7-hit shutout in the 2nd game. Over the 2 games, Ted Williams went 2-for-5 with a home run, 3 walks, and 2 RBIs.

April 15, 1931: The End of the Castellammarese War

Joe Masseria

April 15, 1931: The Castellammarese War, a battle for control of American organized crime, comes to an end.

It began on October 10, 1928, between the forces of Giuseppe "Joe the Boss" Masseria and Salvatore Maranzano, for whose hometown in Sicily, Castellammare del Golfo, the conflict was named.

Masseria, the biggest crime boss of the time, was invited to Nuova Villa Tammaro, a restaurant in the Coney Island section of Brooklyn, by one of his lieutenants, Charles "Lucky" Luciano. Luciano excused himself to use the bathroom.

In came 4 men: Albert Anastasia, Vito Genovese, Joseph "Joe Adonis" Doto and Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel. They left the building alive. So did Luciano. Masseria did not. He was 45 years old. Siegel drove the getaway car.

There was one more act to play: Maranzano's side won, but he paid the price. He got nervous over Luciano's rise, and was determined to kill him. But Luciano was tipped off, and had Maranzano killed on September 10, 1931. Maranzano's organization was taken over by Joseph Bonanno, and became known as the Bonnano family.

Luciano took over Masseria's "family." When he was deported in 1942, Genovese succeeded him, and the family still bears the Genovese name. Adonis became one of Genovese's most trusted lieutenants. Siegel moved out to Los Angeles, then "invented Las Vegas," before his actions led to his being removed from the scene in 1947.

It was shortly after the Castellammarese War ended that Luciano founded the Commission, the closest thing that American organized crime has to a governing body. It was founded with the purpose of mediating disputes peacefully, to avoid such turf wars in the future. After all, unlike in real life, within the Mob, war is not good for business. The Commission allowed crime in New York City to be run by what became known as the Five Families: Bonnano, Colombo, Gambino, Genovese and Lucchese. (That's in alphabetical order. It seemed the most respectful way to list them.)

Anastasia rose to become Il capo di tutti capi – the Boss of All Bosses, a distinction that Luciano wanted to use the Commission to avoid coming into being, but, by this point, he was alive, but out of the picture. Anastasia founded what became known as the Gambino family. For the most part, there was peace in American organized crime, until Anastasia went for a haircut in 1957, and never came back.

These "families" were severely weakened by federal prosecution in the 1980s and '90s, and none is run today by a namesake.

In the 1972 film The Godfather, there were numerous uses of the term "Five Families," and they were named Corleone, Tattaglia, Barzini, Cuneo and Stracci, although how much any of them corresponds to any of the real ones is debatable. Vito Corleone has been compared to both Vito Genovese and Carlo Gambino in terms of manner and style. The 1969 novel on which the film is based, by Mario Puzo, makes reference to "The Olive Oil War" of the early 1930s, in which Corleone rose to become the boss of all bosses, a title he loses later in the book. In an agreement made with... certain men... Puzo, who also wrote the screenplay, and director Francis Ford Coppola agreed to not use the words "Mafia" or "Mob" in the film, although they were used in the sequels.

The Banner Smoked Fish Company now occupies the site of the Masseria hit, at 2715 West 15th Street.

*

April 15, 1931 was a Wednesday. Football was out of season. The NBA hadn't yet been founded. The Stanley Cup had been won the night before, by the Montreal Canadiens over the Chicago Black Hawks. But all 16 teams in what would later be called Major League Baseball were in action:

* The New York Yankees beat the Boston Red Sox, 8-7 at Yankee Stadium. Despite blowing a lead for starting pitcher Hank Johnson, Roy Sherid was named the winning pitcher. Lou Gehrig hit a 3-run home run, and Babe Ruth won it in the bottom of the 9th with, uncharacteristically for him, a sacrifice fly.

* The New York Giants lost to the Philadelphia Phillies, 10-7 at Baker Bowl in Philadelphia. The Phils scored 8 runs in the bottom of the 2nd, knocking Hal Schumacher out of the box. Bill Terry and Mel Ott each went 1-for-5 with 2 RBIs for the Giants, but it was far from enough. Hall-of-Famer Chuck Klein was 1 of 3 Phils to hit home runs.

* The Brooklyn Robins lost to the Boston Braves, 9-3 at Braves Field in Boston. This would be the last season for Brooklyn with Wilbert Robinson managing. For 1932, they dropped the name they took in his honor, and went back to the name they'd last used in 1913: The Brooklyn Dodgers.

* The Washington Senators beat the Philadelphia Athletics, 7-1 at Griffith Stadium in Washington.

* The Chicago White Sox beat the Cleveland Indians, 7-6 at League Park in Cleveland. Cliché Alert: Walks can kill you, especially the leadoff variety. Johnny Watwood led off the top of the 10th inning with a walk, and was doubled home by Bennie Tate to win it for the Pale Hose.

* The St. Louis Cardinals beat the Cincinnati Reds, 4-0 at Redland Field in Cincinnati. (It was renamed Crosley Field in 1934.) Burleigh Grimes, the last pitcher legally allowed to throw a spitball, used it to pitch a 7-hit shutout.

* The Chicago Cubs beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 6-5 at Wrigley Field in Chicago. Rogers Hornsby hit a home run for the Cubs.

* And the St. Louis Browns beat the Detroit Tigers, 6-4 at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis.