Pulpy goodness

Need to bump a guy? Here's a swell yet little used method. The old phone gun. Looks like a phone, rings like a phone but when you answer it and put it to your ear - BANG!

It's fool proof. In fact you can sit on the fire escape in full view and watch your victim off himself without worrying about being seen.

Frankie Goes To City Morgue

Frank Shaeffer (also known as Grey) and Dave Bacharach were standing near a Westside bar at 2:00am on this date back in 1934 when a taxi-cab brimming with gunmen pulled up and opened fire. Wanting to continue this mortal life, Frank and Dave took off running.

Bystanders dove to the ground and jumped into doorways as the cab followed Frank and Dave
with the gunmen still blazing away. After a brief chase some bullets came to rest in Frank and he pitched forward on the sidewalk and lay still while Dave kept running. With Shaeffer down the taxi took off and disappeared into the Broadway traffic.

When the coast was clear people came out of their hiding spots and crowds began to pour out of the nearby restaurants, nightclubs and other buildings. They gathered around Shaeffer and rolled him over. It appeared to them that he fell down and cut his head and was unconscious. An ambulance was called and the doctor who arrived with it informed them that what they thought was a cut was actually a bullet wound and that the man was in fact dead. Further examination showed that he had been hit under the left armpit as well.

Meanwhile Dave, who had took a superficial wound to the chest walked to the hospital for treatment. The police were notified and took the wounded man into custody and at first he said that he was a Bronx real estate man and he didn't even know that he’d been shot until he undid his coat to get a nickel for a newspaper and found blood. After more questioning however, he broke down, identified himself then clammed up.

What Shaeffer was involved with at the end is unknown but when killed he was “shabbily dressed” and only had a few dollars on him. He had a record of fourteen arrests and five convictions and was known to the police as a forger and mail thief who in 1921 was sentenced to the Atlanta Penitentiary. In 1923 he gained a bit of notoriety when he managed to escape from there with the infamous robber Gerald Chapman.

Reading is fundamental

Psst, hey Mac,
Need some new DGIS to read up on? Then take a look at what I'm about to show you...

It's everything you wanted to know about the upstate New York mafia. You can't lose. Just click the pic.   The link will lead you to a cool site promoting a great book. Tell them Gyp sent you, you'll get right in. Click on it, go ahead, it's on the up and up I swears.

Another Saturday night. What to do...

Were this a Saturday in the 1880's and you were in NYC and a friend invited you "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, the lower eastside, the Bowery, Chinatown etc. to take part in the fun, sinful 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.

Friday already?

Pulpy goodness

Here is another case of; What the Rory Calhoun is going on here? We have a Depression era Gopher/Isaac aboard the Not-so-Lovable Boat shooting what appears to be a motorcycle cop and whom we can only assume is his partner falling out of a deck chair after dropping a sawed off shotgun. I suppose that somewhere between the covers is the reason for illegally armed motorcycle cops to be aboard some ship with a killer yeoman purser/ bartender but if anyone out there cares to venture a guess we are all ears.

Not a happy new year for Larry Fay

1933 lasted all of twenty and a half hours for Larry Fay, who was designated New York City's Public Enemy #3, I think it was #3, let me check my book Gangster City...yes there it is pg. 258 Public Enemy #3. Anyways by the end of 1932 Larry was part owner in a night club called the Casa Blanca (he seemed to have a thing for Spanish names, a previous club was called the El Fay) Like a lot of business' during the Depression the Casa Blanca saw some financial hardships and on New Year's Eve Fay informed the staff that they would be receiving a 30% pay cut (Happy New Year!). This didn't sit well with one of the club's doormen who spent the first day of 1933 drinking and being angry. After stewing for a number of hours the doorman did what a number of angry Americans do when they are mad at their employer. He returned that evening with a gun. He confronted Fay in the lobby of the club and demanded some money. Fay, a reported nice guy and easy touch, was going to comply but before he had a chance to do so, Mr. Drunk Angry Guy pulled his pistol and shot his boss a number of times killing him.

You can read more about Larry Fay in Gangster City: History of the New York Underworld 1900-1935... in ebook form anyways.