DIRECTLY ACROSS FROM CORNELL TECH A NEW WATERFRONT WALKWAY/PROMENADE IS TAKING SHAPE. ENJOY WATCHING THE GIANT CRANES AND BARGES WORKING IN THE RIVER.
YOU CAN WATCH PROGRESS AS NEW SECTIONS ARE FLOATED INTO PLACE EVERY WEEKEND.
A rendering of the East Midtown Greenway, as it will appear looking north near East 54th Street. (New York City Economic Development Corporation)
The creation of the East Midtown Greenway (EMG), a 1.5-acre public space stretching from East 53rd to 61st Streets along the waterfront, got underway Friday. The project, to be completed by 2022, is part of the Manhattan Waterfront Greenway initiative to wrap the entire perimeter of Manhattan with accessible public spaces and safe bicycle paths. The midtown space will close one of the largest remaining gaps in the $250 million city initiative, announced by Mayor de Blasio in 2018, to connect 32 miles of Manhattan waterfront esplanade.
The Manhattan Waterfront Greenaway project will close gaps in Inwood, Harlem, and East Harlem, as well as the East Midtown space. The goal is to connect neighborhoods to their waterfronts and add about 15 acres of open space. The planned esplanade will connect the bike paths that line the city’s perimeter so that cyclists can safely circle Manhattan without veering off into city streets.
After a six-month delay during the pandemic, construction has resumed on the long-awaited project adding a new eight-block stretch to the East River Esplanade.
The East Midtown Greenway will stretch between East 53rd and 61st streets, creating new waterfront access and public space and bringing the city closer to its long-held goal of creating a continuous, 32-mile loop around Manhattan.
The existing esplanade runs north above East 60th Street and into East Harlem. Construction started in November on the new $100 million greenway, which will be built directly above the East River, but came to a halt in the spring as the coronavirus took hold.
Now, even as the city faces a severe fiscal shortfall that has thrown a wrench into many capital projects, the greenway will be allowed to restart construction since work had already begun when the pandemic hit.
RENDERINGS FOR THE PROJECT
(FINAL PLANS MAY HAVE CHANGED)
Portion will be over the water. Remember when there was a temporary roadway in this area when the FR Drive was being renovated?
TUESDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY GLORIA HERMAN AND ED LITCHER GOT IT. CON ED HEADQUARTERS 14TH STREET AND IRVING PLACE
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Deborah Dorff All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
UPPER EAST SIDE PATCH NYC/EDC 6SQ FT
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Russian-born Saul Kovner studied at the National Academy of Design in New York City with Charles Hawthorne and William Auerbach-Levy, considered one of America’s most renowned caricaturists. Kovner was employed as a painter and printmaker by the Federal Art Project, a branch of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) created during the Great Depression to give financial and moral support to America’s artists. He often dropped his surname when signing his prints, and is also known simply as “Saul.” After his training at the National Academy of Design, Kovner maintained a studio near Central Park, creating paintings and drawings of the city and its people. He later moved to California and exhibited widely on the West Coast.
Saul Kovner, Tompkins Park, N.Y. City, 1934, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum acquisition, 1980.48
Saul Kovner’s Tompkins Park, N.Y. City was painted in 1934, under the patronage of the Public Works of Art Project (PWAP), a New Deal program created by the federal government to offer work and financial support to America’s artists during the Great Depression. The public park, situated in the Alphabet City section of Manhattan’s East Village, is named in honor of Daniel D. Tompkins (1774−1825), who served as governor of New York from 1807 to 1817 and as vice president of the United States under James Monroe from 1817 to 1825. The PWAP encouraged their commissioned artists to capture “the American Scene,” and in this painting Kovner conveys strong messages of community spirit and American values. Children and adults enjoy winter in the park, building snowmen and playing with sleds; the presence of the Stars and Stripes in the center of the work places this as a uniquely American scene.
Saul Kovner, Skating in Central Park, 1934, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the Newark Museum, 1966.31.10
Saul Kovner, Smoke and Steam, 1939, lithograph, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Audrey McMahon, 1968.98.16
Eastside Backyards, 1934
TENTING IN YOSEMITE HOT SUMMER NIGHT WATERFRONT, BALBOA SNOW OVER CROTONA PARK
(1) Frank Diaz Escalet, “Mask of Solitudes: A Portrait of Frank Diaz Escalet,” interview for La Plaza, PBS/WGBH Boston, Nov. 3, 1988. (2) Interview with Derek Fowles, “Portrait of an artist’s life: Frank Diaz Escalet paints from experience,” University of Massachusetts Amherst Student Newsletter, Sept. 29-Oct. 20, 1994. (3) Escalet, “Mask of Solitudes,” interview for La Plaza, 1988. (4) Michael R. Vosburgh, “Latin artist portrays ‘life’ in his work,” The Daily Globe, Worthington, Minnesota, Oct. 1995. (5) Jared Quinn, “MultiCultural Center Showcases African-American Exhibit Illustrating Cultural Influences,” UC Santa Barbara Daily Nexus, Santa Barbara, California, Oct. 8, 1999. (6) Escalet, “Mask of Solitudes,” interview for La Plaza, 1988. (7) Interview with Jenifer McKim, The Boston Globe, Nov. 10, 1996.
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Title:New York, 1695 Creator:Miller, John, 1666-1724 Date:[1860?–1869?]Format: Maps/Atlases Location:Boston Public Library
Title: Plan of New York Creator: Kirkham, Major Date: [1912?] Format: Maps/Atlases Location: Boston Public Library
Miller’s new map of the city of New-York Miller’s new map of the city of New York with a list of all the streets, with reference to the map, and views of some of the principal buildings
Title:Map of New-York Creator:Geo. H. Walker & Co Date:1898 Format:Maps/Atlases Location:Boston Public Library Norman B. Leventhal Map Center
Title: New York City : the business center of the borough of Manhattan Creator: Rummell, Richard, 1848-1924 Creator: King, Moses, 1853-1909 Creator: A.W. Elson & Co
MONDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY SAUL STEINBERF NEW YORKER COVER FROM MARCH 29, 1976
CLARA BELLA, GUY LUDWIG, ARON EISENPRIESS, HARA REISER, JAY JACOBON, ED LITCHER, LAURA HUSSEY ALL KENEW THE ANSWER
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Elizabeth Olds, Dead End Beach, ca. 1940-1945, screenprint on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, 1984.31.43
Elizabeth Olds (December 10, 1896 – March 4, 1991) was an American artist known for her work in developing silkscreen as a fine arts medium. She was a painter and illustrator, but is primarily known as a printmaker, using silkscreen, woodcut, lithography processes. In 1926, she became the first female honored with the Guggenheim Fellowship. She studied under George Luks,[4] was a Social Realist, and worked for the Public Works of Art Project and Federal Art Project during the Great Depression. In her later career, Olds wrote and illustrated six children’s books.
Elizabeth Olds, The Middle Class, ca. 1939, lithograph on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, 1984.31.7
Early life and education
Olds was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota to a middle-class family.[4] Olds’s mother was an art historian, and her mother exposed Olds and her sister, Eleanor, to art through visits to the Walker Art Center and Minneapolis Institute of Arts.[Olds’s art was first documented in her high school yearbook, featuring a cartoon sketch of a goose at tea.[ She studied Home Economics and Architectural Drawing at the University of Minnesota from 1916-1918, and received a scholarship to study at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design from 1918-1921. In 1921, Olds received another scholarship to study at the Art Students League of New York where she studied under George Luks.
Career
Early works The early style of Olds reflects Luks’s influence on her art. The pair experimented with the style and themes of the Ashcan school, visiting the Lower East Side of New York to observe the exotic urban immigrant. During the summers from 1923-1925, Olds was invited to the circles of The Roots and their friends and the Percy Saunders of Clinton, New York.[4] In 1925, with the help of Elihu Root and some bankers, Olds was funded to travel to France.[4] While in France, she observed and sketched the famous circus family, the Fratellini family, and their show, “Cirque d’Hiver.”Olds later joined the troupe as a trick bareback rider.In 1926, Olds became the first woman awarded with the Guggenheim Fellowship, and was granted further travel in Europe.
Elizabeth Olds, Harlem River Bridges, ca. 1935-1940, lithograph on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, 1984.31.37
Elizabeth Olds, Harlem River Bridges, 1940, screenprint on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, 1984.31.32
Great Depression
For those visiting the Hunters Point area of Queens this summer, MoMA’s PS1 outdoor courtyard will feature an experiment in creative ecologies. As a leading space within the neighborhood’s community, the new installation will reimagine the use and access of the PS1 courtyard. It will feature Rashid Johnson’s Stage, a participatory installation and sound work, which draws on the history of the microphone as a tool of protest and public oratory. It will feature a yellow powder-coated stage, with Johnson’s signature markings engraved onto it, and five SM58 microphones of varying heights. Stage’s design echoes that of other unofficial sites of public intellectual and cultural life like Harlem’s 135th Street and Lenox Avenue. Visitors will have the opportunity to speak to the public on the stage, with their words being recorded and broadcasted in the courtyard. In addition, the stage will feature a number of performances from artists, activists, poets, and musicians.
Two Boys, a painting by Elizabeth Olds for the United States Works Progress Administration Olds was fairly sheltered from the Great Depression when she returned to the U.S. in 1929. In 1932, Olds viewed José Clemente Orozco’s nearly finished murals at Dartmouth College, and was inspired by his expressive use of form and political themes.The same year, she moved to Omaha, Nebraska to paint portraits of the family of Samuel Rees, a local industrialist.[6] Olds completed the project, but she became frustrated with the monotony of painting portraits. At the same time Olds was studying the basics of lithography at Rees’s printing business.
From 1933-1934, Olds was invited to join the Public Works of Art Project (PWAP) in Omaha. Under the PWAP, Olds created a series of lithographs featuring the bread lines, shelters, and clinics of the Great Depression.[ Olds’s break from portraiture was fruitful as she developed her style and content, which like Orozco’s murals, used broad, expressive lines and portrayed political themes. Later, Olds studied at a meat packing plant, which inspired her ‘’Stockyard Series’’. “Sheep Skinners,” one of the ten black-and-white lithographs, was exhibited in 1935 in the Weyhe Gallery in New York as one of the “Fifty Best Prints of the Year.”
From 1935 until the early 1940s, Olds was a nonrelief employee for the Works Progress Administration-Federal Art Project (WPA-FAP) in the Graphic Arts Division in New York,[9] where she helped younger artists in the silkscreen unit.[10] She also joined the American Artists’ Congress, Artists Union, and other groups with similar interests. Olds became friends with Harry Gottlieb, another nonrelief artist who also focused on industrialism.[7] Together, they observed the mining and steel industries of New York, and their research lead to Olds’s creation of her award-winning print, “Miner Joe.”[ Olds used both silkscreen and lithography for the prints for ‘‘Miner Joe,’’ but it was her lithograph that won first place for the Philadelphia Print Club competition in 1938.
Olds and Gottlieb experimented with silkscreen printing as a fine arts medium. They accomplished this with a few other artists in the silkscreen unit of the Graphic Arts Division of the WPA-FAP in New York. From 1939 until 1941, Olds and Gottlieb opened and ran the independent Silk Screen School for students interested in learning the newest printmaking technologies.Her work was included in the 1940 MoMA show American Color Prints Under $10. The show was organized as a vehicle for bringing affordable fine art prints to the general public.
Olds submitted and reproduced 10 prints in The New Masses in 1936 and 1937, a leftist magazine at the time. In the United American Artists under the Public Use of Art Committee, Olds and other artists worked to produce murals along New York City Subway walls, but the murals were never installed.] Olds’s art reflected her leftist political views, but also her social and political awareness at the time. As a WPA-FAP employee, Olds’s prints were intended to go to the government for their purposes, but she selectively sent her leftist prints to George C. Miller, an independent lithographer.
Elizabeth Olds, Me and Her, ca. 1940-1970, screenprint on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, 1984.31.31
Elizabeth Olds, Harlem Musicians, ca. 1937, screenprint on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the Archives of American ArElizabeth Olds,
Two Terns Parading, 1955, color woodcut on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, 1984.31.t, Smithsonian Institution, 1984.31.2
Elizabeth Olds, Burlesque, ca. 1935-1945, lithograph on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, 1984.31.40
Elizabeth Olds, Birds in a Hurry, 1954, color woodcut and screenprint on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, 1984.31.46
Later works
After the war, Olds redirected her skills and began experimenting with watercolor, collage, and woodblock prints] Her silk screen, “Three Alarm Fire” (1945), prompted Roberta Fansler to suggest that Olds should illustrate children’s books.] From 1945-1963, Olds wrote and illustrated six children’s books. In three of her books, Olds wrote about firefighters, trains, and oil, educating her readers about industrialism.
In the early 1950s, Olds was hired as an illustrator-reporter for The New Republic and Fortune (magazine).[18] In the summers of the 1950s and 1960s, Olds was awarded artist-in-residence positions at the artists’ colonies of Yaddo near Saratoga Springs in New York and McDowell in Peterborough, New Hampshire. Her papers are held at the University of Texas.
THE ORIGINAL WALDORF ASTORIA HOTEL AT 350 FIFTH AVENUE ANDY SPARBERG AND LAURA HUSSEY GOT IT RIGHT
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Deborah Dorff All image are copyrighted (c)
SMITHSONIAN AMERICAN ART MUSEUM WIKIPEDIA
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LAURA HUSSEY, LINDA BECKER & ED LITCHER GOT IT RIGHT
In 1969, David Rockefeller commissioned Jean Dubuffet to create a sculpture to be placed in front of the Chase Manhattan Building . The sculpture, Group of Four Trees, towers above the visitor in varying heights, in Dubuffet’s signature loopy, childlike style. It feels as if you are almost walking into a children’s coloring book, with uncolored trees leaping from the pages and growing above you. A fantasy contrast before entering a staunch financial institution! This coloring book effect is seemingly what Dubuffet intended, calling them not sculptures but drawings, which extend and expand into space.
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Deborah Dorff Roosevelt Island Historical Society
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Invasives by Jean Shin, Courtesy of BravinLee programs . Through September 13, 2021
Karin Bravin‘s public art exhibition, Re: Growth, A Celebration of Art, Riverside Park and the New York Spirit, will be on display in Riverside Park, spanning from 64th Street to 151st Street. It was created in celebration of Riverside Park Conservancy‘s 35th Anniversary and as a testament to the City and Park’s resilience this past year. The exhibition includes 16 site-specific installations and ten flag and banner projects — centered around the theme of regrowth in the literal, metaphorical, poetic, and philosophical sense. Some of the featured artists in the exhibition include Jean Shin, Vanessa Albury, Weenie Huang, Mary Mattingly, David Shaw Jean Shin, Woolpunk, and many others, some of whom’s work will be discussed later.
In honor of Pride month, Chilean-born street artist Dasic Fernández painted the historic Doyers Street in Chinatown in a range of beautiful colors from all across the rainbow. In the past, Doyers Street was once known as “the Bloody Angle,” for the amount of gang violence that took place in the early 20th century. The breathtaking mural that now covers the street spans 4,851 square feet in length and includes 44 unique colors, painted across a period of just three-and-a-half days. Fernández received information for the mural’s design from rice cultivation terraces—a common landscape seen throughout China. Using the Anamorphism technique, the mural appears 3D at certain points, most notably from the corner of Pell or Bowery streets, perfectly integrating the mural into its surrounding environment.
Doyers Street’s vibrant makeover is part of New York City’s Asphalt Art Activation series, which involves the partnership between NYC Department of Transportation (DOT) and artists to paint large scale-murals onto repurposed asphalt that are pedestrianized public spaces. Typical sites the program has transformed include curb extensions, slip lane closures, bike share lanes, and temporary plazas, with sizes ranging anywhere from 1,000 to 8,000 square feet. In addition, as part of the city’s Open Streets program, Doyers is fully closed to all vehicular traffic from Bowery to Pell streets daily from noon to 11:00 p.m. Given this, Doyers Street serves as the perfect venue for visitors to walk through and enjoy Fernández’s mural. The mural will be on display for the following 11 months, weather permitting.
Four Currents by Wendy Letven, Courtesy of Wendy Letven
This summer, New Jersey-based multi-disciplinary artist Wendy Letven will have two sculpture works on display in Riverside Park as part of Karin Bravin’s Re:Growth public art exhibition. The first, There Are Holes In My Perception Of The Forest, located at 125th and Riverside Drive, features an aluminum-cut structure painted in various shades of blue, brown, green, and yellow. The structure’s holes allow in the careful flow of light work to evoke the sensation of dappled light and the swirling effect of wind on trees. In addition, the artwork intentionally uses negative space to connote gaps in Letven’s perception of the world around her and the presence of the unseen forces of nature at work.
Letven’s second piece, Four Currents, is located at 83rd Street on the waterfront. It was conceived to represent the convergence of energies surrounding Riverside Park — the flow of the Hudson River, the park’s urban surroundings, the energy of the sun, and the area’s powerful wind forces. Both sculptures will be on display through September 13, 2021.
The Fabulous Plant of Rejuvenation is a 90-foot-tall mural by Baxter St alum Ivan Forde, located on the façade of the newly built Rockaway Hotel in Rockaway Beach, Queens. The mural was curated by Michi Jigarjian, Managing Partner, Creative/Social Impact Officer, with support from 7G Foundation and Facebook Open Arts. Inaugurated on June 18th, 2021, the artwork draws inspiration from the legacy of Rockaway‘s’ Indigenous Lenape people and Forde’s own ancestry — including conversations with his father on the healing powers of water and vegetation. Included in the mural is a depiction of an underwater seascape of poetic sea characters alongside local fish and birds. Its centerpiece is the mythical plant from the ancient Mesopotamian poem The Epic of Gilgamesh. In addition, the mural features a series of healing plants, connected to Forde’s birthplace of Guyana, the Rockaways, and other cultures across the globe.
“My project takes cues from the structures of epic poetry, conversations with ecologists and botanists, and folk traditions our grandmothers and great-grandmothers knew,” Forde said. “These knowledge systems are paramount to the discussions the mural aims to hold space for and align with a symbiotic relationship to nature essential for healing both the human species undergoing a global pandemic and the planet itself.”
La Femme et L’oiseau fontaine and The Stories of the Past Rejoice through Children’s Skies, Photo by Marissa Alper, Courtesy of MoMA PS1.
Besides Stage, the PS1 outdoor courtyard will also host a series of Thought Collectives that test out new and creative propositions for the future usage of public spaces. One of these collectives will be Niki de Saint Phalle‘s 1967 sculpture La Femme et L’oiseau fontaine, part of a survey of Saint Phalle’s work Structures for Life on display through September 6th, 2021. The sculpture serves as a perfect example of the artist’s early Nana sculptures, which served as monuments of female empowerment and symbols of the growing movement to move the display of artwork outside the confines of indoor art gallery’s. Finally, along the wall surrounding Saint Phalle’s sculpture will be Raul de Nieves’ 2021 installation, The Stories of the Past Rejoice through Children’s Skies. The installation was influenced by Mexican craft traditions, with its structure resembling that of stained glass windows — forcing its viewers into a church-like space of reflection.
Planeta Abuelx, Disease Throwers, Guadalupe Maravilla, Socrates Sculpture Park and PPOW Gallery. Image by Sara Morgan.
Through Planeta Abuelx, on display at Socrates Sculpture Park, artist Guadalupe Maravilla expands on their interest in Indigenous holistic healing practices through sculpture. The piece was created in response to a curatorial invitation to use the park’s five-acre landscape as a sanctuary for recuperation. Made on site, Maravilla’s work focuses on physical and emotional health through mutual and holistic care works in harmony with the park’s sheltered green space.
Over the course of the Planeta Abuelx exhibition, Maravilla will activate the projects on view through a series of public programs including community workshops and therapeutic sound baths. The exhibition will be on view through Sept. 5.
M. FRANK, JOAN BROOKS, HARA REISER, LAURA HUSSEY, MITCH ELINSON,
ALL SAID HAVANA!! MUY BUENO
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff All image are copyrighted (c)
UNTAPPED NEW YORK
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Romanticized by Hollywood as a fearless and dashing mob boss, Lucky Luciano was one of the biggest criminal minds of the 20th century. Should he have lived in a different era and applied himself to a legitimate business venture, he could have climbed to the very top of the corporate ladder. He is considered the father of modern organized crime, since he was the one who redesigned the structure of mafia essentially molding it into “organized” crime. He replaced traditional rule by the “Boss of all Bosses” in favor of a ruling committee – the commission – the governing body of the American Mafia.
Salvatore Lucania, born in 1897 in Sicily, arrived in New York with his family at the tender age of 9, settling on the Lower East Side and quickly becoming a crime prodigy. Earning a meager, honest living through diligent, hard work didn’t appeal to him. By the age of 10, he was already involved in mugging, shoplifting, gambling, and extortion. Sometime later he was jailed for selling heroin, which served as an opportunity to complete his criminal education.
By 1916 he was a leading member of the Five Points Gang but, most importantly, befriended Meyer Lansky and Bugsy Siegel, young Jewish gangsters who became his companions in crime for life.
On January 17, 1920, the Eighteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, otherwise known as Prohibition, took effect, opening a world of possibilities to the young criminal minds. At the time Lower Manhattan was run by two competing mafia bosses: Joe Masseria and Salvatore Maranzano. Acting as a hired gun for Masseria, Luciano earned his first serious gangster stripes. In the early 1920s, Luciano and his associates offered their services to Arnold Rothstein, known as The Brain or The Man Uptown. Mr. Rothstein was the person who first realized that the Prohibition was a business opportunity and a means to enormous wealth. According to crime writer Leo Katcher, Rothstein “transformed organized crime from a thuggish activity by hoodlums into a big business, run like a corporation, with himself at the top.” Seeing talent and ambition in Lucky, Rothstein groomed him and taught him how to run bootleg alcohol as a business, as well as how to dress, appreciate finer things in life and move in high society, transforming a street rat into a polished, well dressed, respectable mobster. Rothstein met his end in 1928 when he was assassinated for failing to pay a gambling debt.
In contrast with poor mannered, crude, traditional mafia bosses, Lucky Luciano was a progressive mobster with “equal opportunity” employment policies – he was willing to work not only with Italians but also Jewish and Irish gangsters, as long as there was money to be made.
In 1929, Luciano was forced into a limousine at gunpoint, beaten, stabbed, and left for dead on Staten Island. He somehow survived the ordeal but was forever marked with a scar and droopy eye. The incident most likely earned him the moniker “Lucky.”
Young Luciano was not only fearless but also smart and calculating which insured his survival in the brutal world run by mafia cut-throats. Collaborating with brainy, cool-headed Meyer Lansky, he figured out a way to play Masseria and Maranzano against each other, eventually assassinating them both.
With Maranzano and Masseria out of the way, Luciano climbed to the top of the ladder, controlling illegal gambling, extortion, bookmaking, loansharking, drug trafficking, garbage hauling, construction, Garment District businesses, and trucking. Instead of going the traditional route and crowning himself as “capo di tutti capi” – Boss of all Bosses, he created the Commission to serve as the governing body for organized crime. The Commission was originally composed of representatives of the Five Families of New York City, the Buffalo crime family, and the Chicago Outfit of Al Capone. In theory, all the decision-making was done democratically by majority vote, but in reality, was controlled by Luciano.
By the 1930s Luciano was presiding over bootlegging, narcotics, loansharking, labor union rackets and prostitution. He was swimming in money and power, he dressed like a dandy and kept a very expensive suite in Waldorf Astoria. It all came crashing down in 1936 when Lucky ran out of luck and was arrested by special prosecutor Thomas E. Dewey on charges of facilitating prostitution. Luciano was convicted and sentenced to 30 to 50 years.
But this is not how the story ends. With connections and money, Lucky ran the prison as well as the Commission from the inside, but, alas, could not buy himself an appeal. His lucky break came during WWII. The US government was paranoid about German war vessels entering NY Harbor. Since the Mafia controlled the waterfront, a deal was struck in which the mafia would cooperate with the US Navy in providing intelligence, assuring lack of sabotage, and tightening waterfront security in exchange for a commutation of Luciano’s sentence. He was released from prison in 1946 and immediately deported to Italy.
The criminal mastermind did not enjoy his forced retirement, especially when he knew there was so much money to be made in heroin. Since running the operation from overseas was not very convenient, Luciano secretly moved to Havana, Cuba. His objective was to be closer to the US so that he could resume control over American Mafia operations and eventually return home. At the time, Lansky was already established as a major investor in Cuban gambling and hotel projects. In 1946, Lansky called a meeting of the heads of the major crime families in Havana, dubbed the Havana Conference. The Conference, which took place at the Hotel Nacional de Cuba, was organized to address the following important topics: the heroin trade, Cuban gambling, and what to do about Bugsy Siegel and his floundering Flamingo Hotel project in Las Vegas.
After Luciano was deported from Cuba, he was shipped back to Italy where despite the fact that he was under close Italian police scrutiny, he continued to direct the drug traffic into the US. Lucky Luciano died of a heart attack in 1962 at the Naples airport, where he had gone to meet with a movie producer considering making a film based on his biography. With the permission of the US government, Luciano’s relatives took his body back to New York for burial. He was laid to rest in St. John’s Cemetery in Middle Village, Queens.
BEMELMAN’S BAR AT THE CARLYLE LAURA HUSSEY AND ARLENE BESSENOFF GOT IT RIGHT
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff All image are copyrighted (c)
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