THE MARXIST AT No. 477 E. 16th St. (1910)
******************************************************************************************************************************** Brownstone Detectives investigates the history of our clients’ homes. The story you are about to read was composed from research conducted in the course of one of those investigations. Do you know the history of YOUR house? ******************************************************************************************************************************** At No. 477 East Sixteenth Street lived a Socialist. He wasn’t your ordinary, run-of-the-mill Socialist, however. Louis B. Boudin was a Russian-born American Marxist theoretician, writer, politician, and lawyer, who wrote a two volume history of the Supreme Court’s influence on American government as well as his piece de resistance, The Theoretical System of Karl Marx in the Light of Recent Criticism, first published in 1907. Boudin’s family emigrated to America in June 1891 and settled in New York City. He worked in the garment industry as a shirt maker and as a private tutor. At the same time, Boudin began legal studies, gaining a Master’s Degree from New York University and being admitted to the New York State Bar Association in 1898. At first, Boudin was a member of the Socialist Labor Party of America. He was also a member of the governing National Executive Board of the party’s trade union affiliate, the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance from 1898 to 1899. Although he left the party for a short period, he returned after the turn of the century, being elected a delegate of the Socialist Party of America of the International Socialist Congress in Stuttgart in 1907 and the 1910 Copenhagen Congress of the Second International. Boudin was frequently […]
“TOMMY” O’TOOLE IN SING SING AGAIN? (1915)
Burglaries took place with great regularity in Brooklyn 100 years ago. Skimming through Brooklyn Daily Eagle archives and reading newspapers from that period, I come across them all the time. They usually involve males, between the ages of a 16 and 24, just about all of whom have previous criminal records, and who end up getting sent “up the river” to Sing Sing. Yesterday, while scanning the papers, a small story on a burglary that took place almost 100 years ago – to the day – caught my eye. Why? I cannot say. It was a rather pedestrian article, but it caused me to wonder at what happened to the subject, one William O’Toole. Being in the detective business, there are always ways of finding out these things. Being a history detective, though, it gets a little tougher and requires some more than usual digging. But I was ready for digging yesterday, and so I decided to follow my leads. THE STORY The offense took place on 18 May 1915, at 864 Nostrand Avenue. O’Toole was the unlucky one to get caught as an accomplice got away. Hailing from Manhattan, according to the piece, he was young man of 22 years at the time, referred to in the article as an “Old Offender.” His record of offenses was three deep, having already served time in Elmira, Sing Sing, and the State Penitentiary. This time he was collared for stealing $46 out of a strong box belonging to “Miss Mary Maddren.” […]
