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NOVEMBER 1927

QUEENS JAZZ AGE: PROHIBITION, AUTOS, AND SPORTS

Get into a conversation with a long time Queens resident and you're likely to discover a subscriber of the Long Island Star- Journal, a daily paper that informed the community about local and world news until it folded in 1968. A banner across the Star Journal masthead reminded readers that the newspaper's name came from the merger of the Long Island Daily Star (1876) and the North Shore Daily Journal - The Flushing Journal (1841).

Welcome to November 1927!

And the Star Journal was right in the thick of it, chronicling the Roaring Twenties for the residents of Queens. In the words of Mr. Frank Sinatra, it was a very good year. Skirts were short, young people were dancing to that new jazz music, and the stock market was booming--the Great Depression was still two years away. Movies were still mostly silent, but the first "talkie", Al Jolson 's "The Jazz Singer" was released that year. And in May, Charles Lindbergh thrilled the nation--he was the first to fly across the Atlantic in "The Spirit of Saint Louis."

True, if you wanted to drink a toast to the gallant Colonel, you couldn't do it legally--the United States had been "dry" since Prohibition began in 1920. The bootleggers and the makers of bathtub gin and moonshine were working hard to fill the gap, however. By 1927 there were so many speakeasies in New York that, according to the Medical Examiner, they outnumbered the old legal saloons.

But the glamor of the speakeasies had a dark side. By 1927, after seven years of the "Noble Experiment," an estimated 50,000 deaths had been caused by adulterated liquor, with many more cases of paralysis and blindness. And sometimes just plain craziness--on November 28th the Star Journal reported on a "Rum-Crazed Man Shot As He Stabs Policeman." It took three police officers to persuade Astoria resident Anthony Tardich to end his bottle throwing and knife-wielding spree.

If there was a trend other than Prohibition that characterized the decade, it was the increasing popularity of the automobile. Cars gave the "autoists" of Queens a sense of freedom they had never had before.

Of course, the streets of Queens had not been designed with such heavy traffic in mind. On November 18 Mayor Jimmy Walker, on a fact-finding mission to assess the needs of the borough, found that out for himself. After the Mayor's car was jolted by ruts and stalled by floods, Hizzoner said he now fully appreciated the need for street paving and sewer construction in Queens!

Queens "autoists"; were undeterred by the inclement weather that autumn. But in November baseball was packing up for the winter. On Sunday November 7 the weather was so bitterly cold that there weren't many takers for a season-ender by the Springfields, "undisputed borough champions for the year," against a visiting all-star team at the Queensboro Oval in Long Island City.

Though few fans were on hand Manager Joe Press of the Springfields and Eddie Greene, boss of the other team, were willing to play the game "for the fun of it" and actually went hunting for baseballs and bats. Failing to find any, they reluctantly agreed to call "quits" until the spring.'

On the same day, the hardier Woodside Athletic Club closed a successful season by playing an eleven-inning tie against the Elmhurst Panthers, darkness ending the game at 3-3. The Woodsiders won 25 out of their 31 games that season. Queens in 1927 had no professional team of its own. However, local semi-pro baseball was a popular alternative for local residents who didn't want to trek out to see the Dodgers at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn or up to Yankee Stadium in the Bronx, where Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig led a team so deadly they were known as "Murderer's Row."

Another startling story hit the sports pages on November 5, when the Star Journal reported the planned attempt by the "Legless Swimming Wonder," Charles Zimmy of Long Beach, California, who since childhood has had no more than stumps of both his legs but is an accomplished swimmer nevertheless, will try to swim across the widest part of Hell Gate in the East River tomorrow. Zimmy drives his own specially constructed automobile, plays golf and travels on his hands faster than other men can walk. He has many good swimming feats to his credit. He has crossed the Golden Gate in 52 minutes, despite its raging tides. He had to use a stroke of 70 in that struggle. He stayed under water 4 minutes and 17 seconds on the old Hammerstein stage in 1914. He is now stopping here while on his way to compete in the Bermuda to Miami race of ninety miles, most of which will be with a powerful current, and he hopes to return to New York to make an uninterrupted swim from Albany to New York."

And speaking of Albany, November 1927 was of course an election month. On November 9 the Star Journal noted with grave approval "Queens did its duty nobly," helping to pass the subway amendment. Governor Al Smith's Amendment 2 allowed New York City to borrow $300,000,000 beyond its debt limit for the construction of new subways.

1927 was an "off year," with elections for County Clerk, Alderman and the State Assembly being about as exciting as it got. That must have been the reason, the Star-Journal's editorial decided, for the "lamentable lack of interest on the part of many voters who registered." We should add that according to the newspaper's own figures; there was a turnout of about 89% of registered voters--extremely impressive by today's standards.

The Star-Journal did, however, note that there was a good turnout by women, who had only been allowed to vote since 1920--presumably the novelty had not yet worn off! At P.S. 69 in Jackson Heights, it was observed that several baby carriages were parked outside while the mothers were inside voting. One would hope that even in those more innocent times they were allowed to bring the babies inside!

One mother's son, only slightly older, made a determined attempt to vote. Five-year-old John Corrigan, of 35-33 Fifty-sixth street, Woodside, paid a visit to the polling place of in the basement of the Queens County Court House and insisted he be allowed to cast a ballot. "I want to vote just like my grandpa," he lisped. When the officials told him that he was to young to vote, he scratched his tousled, blond, curly hair and seemed to plunge into deep thought.

His eyes flashed as a bright idea came. He fished a treasured dime from his pocket and offered it. "Now let me vote," he shouted. Only when he was told that would have a better time if he spent his dimes at the movies did John run back to his grandfather, James Mangin, custodian of the County Court House.

"But I'll vote for Al Smith for President next year," he consoled himself after telling his tale of woe.

Not all the news from the Court House was as amusing, however. Star-Journal readers were following with great interest the ultimately unsuccessful appeal of Ruth Synder, a former resident of Queens Village now domiciled in Sing Sing, who the previous May had been sentenced to die in the electric chair by Judge Townsend Scudder in Queens Supreme Court, Long Island City. Mrs. Snyder and her "partner in shady love and murder" Henry Judd Gray were convicted of killing her husband Albert.

On November 23 the Star-Journal chilled their readers' blood with the story of an unplanned meeting on the steps of the Queens Court House between Ruth Snyder's lawyer, Edgar Hazelton, and Robert Elliott, the Sing Sing executioner. After the men introduced themselves and shook hands, Hazelton said, "If you get this job, it won't be my fault, Mr. Elliott."

Goodbyes were then exchanged and "the hand that is destined to pull the switch that will snuff out the blond slayer's life again clasped the hand that was raised in her defense." After Hazelton's departure bystanders quizzed the executioner, who had ended the lives of the anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti and had "sprung the trap that jerked Gerald Chapman, master bandit, into eternity," about whether his grim work spoilt his sleep or his appetite.

Elliott grinned wryly. "It doesn't bother me at all," he said. "I'm only a tool of the law, of the State. I do hate the prospect, though, of having to execute a woman."

Ruth Snyder and Henry Judd were executed in January 1928. A photograph of Ruth Synder sitting blindfolded in the electric chair, smuggled out of Sing Sing by a Daily News, caused a furor at the time and remains one of the most famous photographs in the history of journalism. Billy Wilder's 1944 movie Double Indemnity was based on this sensational murder case.

This could be a lecture in itself! Jimmy Cagney made a movie called Picture Snatcher (1933) about the D News photographer on the case. Damon Runyon said Snyder was so thick it should be called the Dumb Bell murder. She told police burglars stole her jewels and murdered hubby but they found the jewels under her mattress. I think they were a bit smarter in the movie!

That's the way it was November 1927!