Friends of the deceased get fleeced

Came across an interesting article. After reading about yet another expensive underworld funeral where a gangster was planted in a coffin costing between $15,000 and $20,000 a reporter did some investigating. Do caskets really cost that much? The answer he found was, no. Most coffins went for $400-$600 in rare cases up to $3000.

According to those in the funeral biz, there was no such thing as a solid silver casket, apparently the material of choice, for the simple reason that silver, being silver, is valuable and A)no one is gonna tie up that kind of dough in the hopes that someone walks in off the street looking to buy a solid silver box. and B) The amount of silver needed to make a coffin would be worth more than $10-$20K.

According to grim retailers the most expensive overcoat was a cast bronze that went for twelve thou and these went to moguls and tycoons of the legitimate sort not gunslinging alky pushers who liked their cans nice and shiny.

The fact that silver caskets didn't exist didn't stop the big boys from buying them however. Here's how the racket worked.

Tommy Salami Huntero gets drilled. His boys are determined to send him off in style. They enter Zacherly Funeral home and say "See that Tommy gets the best." The staff says "Of course" they take a silver metal casing, which they either own or rent from another undertaker, and place it over a cast iron coffin. Tommy Salami is laid out in a big flashy box, all his boys get to see their reflections while paying their respects, one sees a reporter he knows from a speak and says, "See that, solid silver. $20,000 that cost." and it did. But later when everybody is gone. The silver case is lifted off and Tommy goes six feet deep in a potato crate that is actual worth 400 clams. Zacherly & Co. laugh all the way to the bank and wait for the next gang war.

A quick look to see who the crooked undertakers may have undertook:

Giuseppi Piraino said to have been buried in $7000 German Silver casket. Depending on what German silver is/was he may be a victim
Danny Iamascia $10,000 casket make unknown
Frankie Uale $10,000 casket make unknown
Frankie Yale ditto
Frankie Iole ibid

Is the casket racket true? Let's get some shovels and find out.

Hunting the elephant

Were this the 1880's and you were in NYC and invited to hunt the elephant it would not involve guns and safaris. Well safaris anyways. Hunting the elephant was slang for going to the "bad" parts of town, lower eastside, Bowery, Chinatown, my brother's apartment, etc. to take part in the fun, er, decadence that every other building seemed to offer. Drinking, gambling, carousing, can-can dances and all that other stuff we're not supposed to want to do.

Good, we each learned something today.

There was a crooked man

Hello and Happy New Year. Long time no chat. The Legs Diamond book is shaping up nicely, am waiting on a few documents but should be done in a few months if not sooner. Hopefully you'll have a copy sometime in 2010.

I wish you all a safe and Happy New Year and whatever your plans are whether rocking in the New Year with whats left of Dick Clark, drinking at your favorite watering hole or waltzing at Grand Central Station take a moment to remember gambler Louis "Crooked Neck" Levine who never made it to midnight on this date back in 1931

“Crooked Neck”, so called because of a physical deformity,(that had to do wonders for his esteem) appeared at a mid-town club known as the Pups Kennel Yard, which was basically a private speakeasy where members, who needed a card to enter, could drink and gamble.

Through out the evening Levine was called away from his poker table three times to take phone calls. During his last call he was over heard saying, “No, I won’t meet you. I’m going to stay here.” “Crooked Neck” returned to his table and once again commenced to playing cards. At about 4:00am, as Levine sat behind his approximately $400 in chips, three men arrived at the club.

The men were not members of the club and in lieu of cards showed the doorman their pistols and were granted immediate entrance. Recognizing Levine from behind (Always face the door Louis!!!) the men walked up and fired three bullets into the back of his head.

Gunmen and patrons alike fled the premises helter skelter and, like Crooked Neck (or Mush Head now), the Christmas tree toppled. Police arrived but, well, you know same old same old.

Here's to a swell New Year.

S'long Jackie

Bang bang Maxwell's* silver bullets crashed into his head.

Bang bang Maxwell's silver bullets made sure that he was dead.

*Who Maxwell was is open to interpretation.

MPB

Anyone out there in DGIS land related to or know anybody who knew New York Daily News journalist John O'Donnell? Worked for the paper from the 1920's-1950's?

La Barbera La Bootlegger

Eighty-seven years ago today forty-year old Ignacio La Barbera was walking down his street with another man about a block away from where mafia boss Umberto Valenti was killed the month before. As the duo strolled along two men fell into step behind them. When the two trailing men got close enough they each pulled out a pistol and fired into La Barbera’s neck and back. Mortally wounded La Barbera fell to the sidewalk. The man who was with La Barbera ran away as did the gunmen.
The police found a key on La Barbera and used it to open the store over which he lived and found a large copper still and thirty-nine five-gallon jugs filled with alchohol. Since La Barbera lived and died in the same proximity as Umberto Valenti, let's start a rumor that he was bumped off on orders from Joe Masseria as well.

That's for taking my cab!

Way, way back in 1921, on a day very much like today, ok, actually it was the same date. A cab pulled up in front of the house of a young Irish feller named Vincenzo Verducci*. Inside the cab were three of Verducci's friends, one of whom was toting a bottle of champagne. Verducci climbed into the cab to join his partying compadres when suddenly a man darted out of a nearby doorway, jumped onto the cab's running board and fired two shots. One hit Verducci in the cheek, and even worse, the other blew apart the bottle of bubbly. The gunman and everyone else without a bullet hole in their face jumped from the taxi and ran away leaving the driver to transport Vincenzo to the hospital. Apparently the only fatality was the Champagne, sniff sniff.

* I don't know if he really was Irish, I was just judging by the name.