Rotten Apples: True Stories of New York Crime and Mystery

547 Pages·2014·3.65 MB·English

by  Marvin J. Wolf

ROTTEN APPLES

True Stories of New York Crime and Mystery

MARVIN J. WOLF and KATHERINE MADER

Antenna Books
Brooklyn, NY
ROTTEN APPLES: TRUE STORIES OF NEW YORK CRIME AND MYSTERY. Copyright © 1991 by
Marvin J. Wolf and Katherine Mader. All rights reserved. Published in the United States of America. No
part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in
the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Wolf, Marvin J.
Mader, Katherine
Rotten apples: true stories of new york crime and mystery /
c Marvin J. Wolf and Katherine Mader p. cm.
ISBN: 978-1-62306-021-3
1. Crime in New York, 1689-1989. 2. New York City—United States—True Crime. I. Title
Originally published in trade paperback by Ballantine, July 1991
Antenna Books ebook edition, June 2014

www.antennabooks.com
The Chorus Line Of Crooks And Killers Who Helped Make The Big Apple
One Hell Of A Town...

Alexander Stewart, pioneering nineteenth-century businessman,
invented the modern department store. His earthly remains—stolen
from his fortress-like crypt—became the object of a grisly bargaining
war.

Kitty Genovese was brutally murdered in full view of numerous
neighbors who watched and did nothing. How could this happen?

Convicted murderer John Colt happily married his fiancée on the eve
of his hanging—and then, just as happily, committed suicide. Or did
he? His friend, Edgar Allan Poe always believed that Colt escaped
and lived to laugh at the hangman.

Career criminal-turned writer Jack Henry Abbott was championed by
literary lion Norman Mailer—until Abbott decided that the knife was
mightier than the pen.

Click each location link to visit the scene via Google Maps!
ALSO BY MARVIN J. WOLF and KATHERINE MADER
Fallen Angels
Perfect Crimes

ALSO BY MARVIN J. WOLF
For Whom the Shofar Blows
Family Blood: The True Story of the Yom Kippur Murders
Buddha's Child
Where White Men Fear To Tread
Beating the Odds
The Japanese Conspiracy
For Katherine’s parents-in-law, Albert and Isabel Kulla,
and their magnificent son, Norman.

And for Tomi, a.k.a. Laura, a.k.a. Sunni, a.k.a. Annie
“If America is the Garden of Eden, then surely New York is a big, rotten apple.”

—BILLY SUNDAY
TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction: The Stones Speak
1. 1689: Terminally Stubborn
2. 1741: The Alehouse Plot
3. 1776: The Short, Exemplary Life Of A Spy
4. 1788: Medicine And Mobs
5. 1804: A Duel In Weehawken
6. 1841; Did Colt Cheat The Hangman?
7. 1863: The Battle Of New York
8. 1871: The End Of Boss Tweed
9. 1872: The Murder Of Big Jim Fisk
10. 1878: Prices Cut To The Bone
11. 1891: Murder By Morphine
12. 1892: Charles Versus The Sewer Rats
13. 1895: Sob Sisters
14. 1900: If There’s A Will, There’s A Way
15. 1901: Rockers And Sockers
16. 1904: The Girl In The Hansom Cab
17. 1906: Mad Harry, Evelyn, And The Beast
18. 1907-1938: Typhoid Mary
19. 1909: No Laughing Matter: Ah Hoon’s Last Act
20. 1911: The Triangle Inferno
21. 1912: On The Take
22. 1920: Big Bang Theories On Wall Street
23. 1927: Second-Rate Monsters
24. 1928-1934: The Manhattan Cannibal
25. 1928: Rubout-The Brain
26. 1929: No Way In
27. 1930: Judge Crater’s Vanishing Act
28. 1935: Unspeakable Act
29. 1935: Tightwads-Dewey And Dutch
30. 1941: Out The Window
31. 1943: A Man Of Many Enemies
32. 1963: The Career Girl Slayings
33. 1964: Cries In The Night
34. 1965: A Mysterious Assassination
35. 1972: Unlucky Pierre
36. 1973: Goodbar, As In Nuts
37. 1976-1977: Son Of Sam
38. 1978: Terminal Greed: The Lufthansa Heist
39. 1980: Iconicide By A Killer Nerd
40. 1981: In The Belly Of The Beast
41. 1986: The Right Sort Of Friends
42. 1987: Daddy’s Girls
43. 1989: Wild In The Park
Bibliography
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

In the beginning there was a contract.
The authors, represented by loyal, assertive-yet-sensitive, Beverly Hills
laid-back agent Michael Hamilburg, and the publisher, represented by New
York-Midtown calm, highly organized, insightful editor Cheryl Woodruff,
haggled over the fine print.
There were the usual compromises. And then it was signed. The project
was launched. Wolf happened to mention the book-to-be’s title to novelist,
screenwriter, and futurist Harlan Ellison. Ellison suggested the Billy Sunday
quote that begins the work. Wolf and Mader appreciate his generosity. Then
things got complicated. In the usual scheme of things—which is to say, for the
two previous books and several magazine articles the collaboration has produced
—Mader researches, Wolf writes. Mader reviews first drafts. She annotates,
questions, and checks facts presented against facts unearthed. After quibbling,
Wolf repairs his wounded ego, and then rewrites, polishes, rewrites.
Normally Mader does her number in a few hours a week stolen from her
full-time job and her family. Her husband, Norman Kulla, grumbles but is
secretly proud. Wolf does his part as Mader’s bulging manila folders trickle in.
Usually he’s got other things to write, but he makes sure Mader’s manila doesn’t
get too deep. Usually he can turn out three or four chapters a month. Not this