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Gangsterland: A Tour Through the Dark Heart of Jazz-Age New York City

Autor David Pietrusza
en Limba Engleză Paperback – 14 noi 2023
WELCOME TO JAZZ-AGE MANHATTAN'S KALEIDOSCOPIC UNDERWORLD.


A site by site, crime by crime, outlaw by outlaw walking tour through the seedy underbelly of Roaring Twenties Manhattan—where gamblers and gangsters, crooks and cops, showgirls and speakeasies ruled the day and, always, the night.

In Gangsterland, historian David Pietrusza tours the Big Apple's rotten core. The Roaring Twenties blaze and sparkle with Times Square's bright lights and showgirls, but its dark shadows mask a web of notorious gangsters ruling New York City. At the heart of this wickedness nests a Prince of Darkness, Arnold Rothstein, the kingpin most noted for fixing baseball's infamous 1919 World Series, who also bankrolled high-stakes gambling dens, speakeasies, trigger-happy bootleggers, and even a record setting Broadway show.

Sharing center stage are con artists Nicky Arnstein and Dapper Don Collins; crooked cop Lt. Charles Becker; politicians Mayor Gentleman Jimmy Walker and Big Tim Sullivan; master drug smugglers George Uffner and Sidney Stajer; murderous racketeers Lucky Luciano and Legs Diamon; show biz legends Flo Ziegfeld, Fanny Brice, and Texas Guinan; and many more. As Pietrusza prowls city boulevards and back alleys, exposing Tammany Hall, sports, Broadway, and Wall Street, jewels are fenced, bullets fly, and unmarked bills buy bribes and silence.

Readers get up close and personal with this rogues' gallery but better check their wallets before they leave.
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Specificații

ISBN-13: 9781635769890
ISBN-10: 1635769892
Pagini: 320
Ilustrații: BW photos throughout
Dimensiuni: 216 x 140 x 20 mm
Greutate: 0.33 kg
Editura: Diversion Publishing
Colecția Diversion Books

Notă biografică

David Pietrusza's books include Rothstein: The Life, Times, and Murder of the Criminal Genius Who Fixed the 1919 World Series; 1920: The Year of Six Presidents; 1948: Harry Truman's Improbable Victory and the Year that Transformed America's Role in the World; 1960: LBJ vs. JFK vs. Nixon: The Epic Campaign that Forged Three Presidencies; and Roosevelt Sweeps Nation: FDR's 1936 Landslide and the Triumph of the Liberal Ideal. Rothstein was a finalist for an Edgar Award in the Best Fact Crime category, and 1920 was honored by Kirkus Reviews as among their Books of the Year.

Pietrusza has appeared on Good Morning America, Morning Joe, The Voice of America, The History Channel, ESPN, NPR, AMC, and C-SPAN. He has spoken at The John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, The National Baseball Hall of Fame, the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum, the Harry S. Truman Library and Museum, and various universities and festivals.

He lives in Scotia, New York.

Visit davidpietrusza.com

Recenzii

For Gangsterland

Award-wining author David Pietrusza takes readers on a tour through the underbelly of New York City in the 1920s, where the notorious gangsters hung out, ruling much of the city. They're all here: Arnold Rothstein, the kingpin known for fixing the 1919 World Series, the murderous racketeers Lucky Luciano and Legs Diamond, along with the celebrities Flo Ziegfeld, Fanny Brice, and Many Gentleman Jimmy Walker. I felt like Pietrusza took me in a time machine and walked me through the heart of New York City and pointed out who lived there, who was murdered there, and what crime was planned in that building. I learned much, and I look forward to my next visit to the city to explore these locations. This is the perfect gift for that historian on your list. —Times Union

An entertaining, sometimes grisly stroll through Gotham's bad old days.
—Kirkus Reviews



If you're interested in the mobsters, grifters, showgirls, corrupt cops, and crooked judges of New York in the 1920s (and it's hard not to be), Gangsterland is for you. David Pietrusza's tour of the bars and nightclubs, the floating crap games and bucket shops, the whorehouses and the courtrooms, brings the era's underworld into vivid light. You can tell that Pietrusza had a blast writing it!

—Daniel Okrent, author of Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition

When David Pietrusza walks down the sidewalks of New York, he doesn't see modern skyscrapers and Starbucks coffee shops. Reading Gangsterland you will see what he sees: hideouts, speakeasies, murder sites, and theater stages where the mistresses of both mob bosses and the city's good-time mayor trod the boards. His book gives a literary tour of New York when the Twenties were roaring and reminds us that a single building can have many lives. Fascinating and fun!


—Kathryn Smith, author of Baptists & Bootleggers: A Prohibition Expedition Through the South...with Cocktail Recipes

David Pietrusza is a national treasure. Few historians can match his one-two punch of gorgeous prose and deep insight. This combo delivers the kind of haymaker that would have made Jack Dempsey proud. Gangsterland is a true crime heavyweight champ, filled with stories of New York's seedy past and must-reading for anyone interested in the murder and mayhem of the Roaring Twenties—and who isn't?

—Bob Batchelor, cultural historian, author of The Bourbon King: The Life and Crimes of George Remus, Prohibition's Evil Genius

David Pietrusza brings history alive like very few authors can. Weaving journalistic accounts together with meticulous research and lively prose, Pietrusza makes it feel as though you're on a tour right through the heart of Jazz Age Manhattan. I plan to take the book with me next time I'm in Midtown and follow in David's footsteps, reading each story as I go and imagining the scene from a century ago.

—Kevin Balfe, Founder of CrimeCon




Historian Pietrusza (Roosevelt Sweeps Nation) tours 1920s New York City's tawdriest neighborhoods in this comprehensive survey of the stomping grounds of mobsters, bootleggers, and murderers-for-hire. At the center of the story is a gambler and mob kingpin Arnold Rothstein, best known for helping to fix Major League Baseball's 1919 World Series, who had a hand in a wide range of rackets throughout the city. Other characters include Tammany Hall operatives such as Big Time Sullivan, featherweight boxing champion Abe Attell, and Fanny Brice, the Funny Girl of the Ziegfeld Follies. Pietrusza catalogs and maps out 189 sites of infamy in Manhattan, including Rothstein's gambling house on West 46th Street, madam-to-the-stars Polly Adler's brothel on West 54th Street, and the Park Crescent Hotel on West 87th Street, the site of a 1929 drug bust that netted more than $1 million in cocaine and opium. This encyclopedic account, broken up into bite-size sections, amounts to a roll call of Jazz Age New York's rich and infamous, couched within a tour of the underworld hot spots where they lived and died. ( Few of the characters we meet here end well. Fewer deserve to, Pietrusza writes.) N.Y.C. history buffs should take note.


—Publishers Weekly

Praise for David Pietrusza's previous work:

Rothstein: The Life, Times and Murder of the Criminal Genius Who Fixed the 1919 World Series

A terrific job capturing Rothstein's colorful career [shedding] new light on Rothstein's role in fixing the World Series. . . .

New York Times

A morsel worth chewing over during the long, dark months between seasons. . . . engaging. Pietrusza's material puts real flesh on the story of how the new machinery of mass entertainment—the yellow press, movies, radio, the recording industry—created and brought together the culture of celebrity, politics, big-time sports, stock market fortunes and organized crime in the 1920s.

Washington Post







Roosevelt Sweeps Nation: FDR's 1936 Landslide and the Triumph of the Liberal Ideal

A robust chronicle of Franklin Roosevelt's quest to stay in the White House. . . . a brisk, spirited narrative, abundantly populated and bursting with anecdotes . . . A prodigiously researched and exuberantly told political biography/history.

Kirkus Starred Review

A sweeping yet minutely detailed chronicle of FDR's 1936 reelection campaign . . . an exhaustive and expert chronicle of a critical American election.

Publishers Weekly

Presidential scholar Pietrusza (TR's Last War) makes the most of his engrossing tale...A lively story that is rife with strong personalities and blood stirring incidents...History bugs will find this popular history appealing.


Library Journal







1948: Harry Truman's Improbable Victory and the Year that Transformed America

A coherent, compelling narrative . . . What the reader learns here is that the long-term veneer that often sticks to political figures always clouds the reality. And understanding what actually transpired is not only more important, but also far more intriguing. A skillful, authoritative investigation into one of the most famous presidential elections in U.S. history.

Kirkus Reviews

Sweeping . . . compelling.

Library Journal

David Pietrusza has written a vivid account of President Truman's unlikely comeback and ultimate victory in the presidential election of 1948. Anyone with an interest in modern American politics or campaign strategy will find many lessons and much enjoyment in this important book.

Senator Mitch McConnell







1960: LBJ vs. JFK vs. Nixon—The Epic Campaign That Forged Three Presidencies

Almost half a century after Theodore White's The Making of the President, 1960, Pietrusza (1920: The Year of the Six Presidents) raises the bar with his winning and provocative chronicle . . . Highly recommended . . .

Library Journal (starred review)

Pietrusza is not beholden to any of the three candidates . . . a wide-ranging panorama that includes a vast cast of characters . . . An outstanding reexamination.

Booklist

Colorful . . . lively.

Kirkus Reviews

Terrific . . . I enjoyed reading it.

Pulitzer Prize-winner Robert Caro