No. 65
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
May 18, 2012
Murderers Row

New York, New York, November 19, 1873 – The morning of November 19, 1873, William J. Sharkey was securely locked in cell No. 40, on “Murderers’ Row” in the New York City prison known as the Tombs. But when the bell rang at 2:00 that afternoon, signaling the end of visiting hours, cell No. 40 was empty and Sharkey was nowhere to be found. More...

The Car-Hook Tragedy

The night of April 26, 1871, while stepping off a Manhattan horse-car, Avery Putnam was struck from behind and killed by William Foster wielding an iron car-hook. This cowardly and unprovoked atta...
More...Murder By Gaslight

JOHN CURTIN
alias: REYNOLDS
SNEAK, BURGLAR
May 18, 2012
More...
Begins June 6, 2012!
The Confessions of Jonathan Pratt
Serialized in the National Night Stick

The slums of dark, forbidding Duane Street

Louis Comfort Tiffany—son of Charles Tiffany, founder of Tiffany & Co, the famed jeweler then located on Prince Street and Broadway—is better known for his lovely stained glass works. But as a you...
More...Ephemeral New York

The Dude

Image from Banburyshire THE DUDE. “What is the dude, papa?” she said, With sweet, inquiring eyes, And to the knowledge-seeking maid Her daddy thus replies: “A weak mustache, a cigare...
More...YesterYear Once More

1812: John Bellingham, Prime Minister assassin

Two centuries ago today, the only man to assassinate a British Prime Minister was hanged for his trouble. The man at the end of the rope, John Bellingham, was a Liverpool businessman who had gone to A...
More...Executed Today

Parrots By Gaslight

Flying foxes, unimpressed with the show (NYPL ) In May 1892, a man and woman "whose names are unknown to the police" (a curious phrase, that) opened a small dime museum in Brooklyn. They rented a st...
More...The Virtual Dime Museum


"We follow vice and folly where a police officer dare not show his head, as the small, but intrepid weasel pursues vermin in paths which the licensed cat or dog cannot enter."

 The Sunday Flash 1841

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