THE STOOL PIGEON & THE HOLDUP (1931)
(The New York Police Department has several thousand photographs of crime scenes available online at the City’s Department of Records. Many of them are gruesome. But they are great pictures for doing research. The picture in this blog post was taken after a holdup at 729 4th Avenue in 1931. Although the pictures usually have limited or poor information associated with the photos, after a bit of some rudimentary research, we can usually find the whole story in old newspaper archives. Finding these, we are able to piece together the story behind the photograph.) THE STOOL PIGEON & THE BODYGUARD The picture above (the black & white inset photograph) is the scene of a holdup, which took place at 729 4th Avenue, Brooklyn, on 16 May 1931. Two men were shot during the event, but before it took place, another – providential – event occurred, which stymied the holdup and caused the arrests of the three men. Chile Acuna, whose revelations pried off the lid of police vice squad conditions (read about it here) was arriving home at 740 4th Avenue around 11:30 p.m. on 16 May 1931. His wife and their two kids were with them. So was their bodyguard, Patrolman William F. O’Brien. THE HOLDUP Noticing the vehicle at the curb of the drugstore across the street, O’Brien observed what happened next. He saw three men exit the vehicle while the fourth remained at the wheel. As the three men approached the drugstore, O’Brien told Acuna: “Run upstairs […]
SNOWBALLS TO BULLETS IN BROOKLYN (1888)
As the snow piled up during the Blizzard of 1888, Brooklynites began to experience countless fights. Snowball fights, that is. Most were lighthearted and fun, romps in the snow bringing joy and relief from the endless shoveling and the stress of everyday life with the white stuff. But sometimes these snowball fights turned ugly, exposing the more unsavory side of Brooklynites. They showed how quickly a snowball fight could evolve from a joyful game into mayhem-filled terror. Two cases, in particular, made the pages of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle during the week of the historic blizzard.Yesterday’s story involved a razor. Today’s involves a gun. THE GUN Seventeen-year-old James Fallon of Flatbush, Brooklyn, a “very quiet lad” who was working two jobs at the Hunter’s Point docks (as a plumbers’ apprentice and as a telegraph operator), fell in with a youth “of his own age,” one Joseph Woods, on the way to work two days after the Blizzard of ’88 struck. At the dock, the two boys noticed a “great pile of snow” – likely carted there by city contractors who were attempting to clear the streets. The two “for some time pelted each other with snowballs,” having great fun together. At one point, though, James managed to strike Joseph in the mouth with a snowball. This particular snowball “made him angry, whereupon he drew a revolver” and firing it at James, “struck him over the left eye.” James fell in the snow. Joseph ran away. THE TREK Most 17-year-old’s shot […]
