Download or read book Prohibition New York City written by David Rosen and published by History Press. This book was released on 2020-11-09 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Texas Guinan was the queen of New York's speakeasies in the Roaring Twenties. Her clubs were backed by leading gangsters and welcomed some of the city's biggest sharks and swankest swells. Movie stars, flappers, madams, musicians and more flocked to midtown's Wet Zone, Greenwich Village and Harlem for inebriated entertainment. Patrons threw cultural norms aside as free-flowing hooch lubricated the jazz joints, sex circuses and drag balls that fueled the era's insurgent spirit. At the center of the party was Texas with her trademark catchphrases and guarantee to have a good time. Author David Rosen recounts Texas's adventurous life alongside tales of Gotham's nightlife when abstinence was the law of the land and breaking the law an all-American indulgence.
Download or read book Prohibition New York City Speakeasy Queen Texas Guinan Blind Pigs Drag Balls and More written by David Rosen and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2020 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Texas Guinan was the queen of New York's speakeasies in the Roaring Twenties. Her clubs were backed by leading gangsters and welcomed some of the city's biggest sharks and swankest swells. Movie stars, flappers, madams, musicians and more flocked to midtown's "Wet Zone," Greenwich Village and Harlem for inebriated entertainment... Author David Rosen recounts Texas's adventurous life alongside tales of Gotham's nightlife when abstinence was the law of the land and breaking the law an all-American indulgence."--Back cover.
Download or read book A Gentleman and a Thief written by Dean Jobb and published by Algonquin Books. This book was released on 2024-06-25 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Catch Me If You Can meets The Great Gatsby meets Cary Grant in To Catch a Thief in this captivating Jazz Age true-crime caper about "the greatest jewel thief who ever lived" (Life Magazine), Arthur Barry, who charmed celebrities and millionaires—everyone from Rockefellers to members of the royal family—while simultaneously planning and executing the most audacious and lucrative heists of the 1920s. “A master of narrative nonfiction. In this mesmerizing tale about a Jazz Age gentlemanly thief, Jobb has found his own perfect jewel.” ―DAVID GRANN, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Wager and Killers of the Flower Moon “An enthrallingly propulsive, unpredictably twisty biography of one of the most fascinating criminals of the 20th Century. I was hooked from the very first heist.” ―MICHAEL FINKEL, New York Times bestselling author of The Art Thief and The Stranger in the Woods A skilled con artist and one of the most successful burglars in history, Arthur Barry was adept at slipping in and out of bedrooms undetected, even when his victims slept only inches away. He became a folk hero, a gentleman bandit touted in the press as the “Prince of Thieves” and an “Aristocrat of Crime.” Think Cary Grant in To Catch a Thief. In a span of seven years, Barry stole pearls, diamonds, and other precious gems worth almost $60 million today. Among his many victims were a Rockefeller, an heiress to the Woolworth Department Store fortune, an oil magnate, Wall Street bigwigs, a top executive of automotive giant General Motors, and a famous polo player. He befriended the Prince of Wales, Harry Houdini, and other luminaries. The rollicking, caper-filled rise and dramatic downfall of this master thief is a high-speed ride told in stylish prose. A Gentleman and a Thief is also a love story. Barry confessed to dozens of burglaries to protect his wife, Anna Blake (and was the prime suspect in scores of others on Long Island and across Westchester County). Sentenced to a twenty-five-year term, he staged a dramatic prison break—triggering a bloody inmates' riot—when Anna became seriously ill, so they could be together for a few more years as fugitives. Page-turning, escapist, and sparkling with insight into the allure of gemstones and our fascination with well-planned heists and the suave, clever criminals who pull them off, A Gentleman and a Thief is perfect for true crime fans who relish the exploits of con artists and high-class crooks.
Download or read book The Radio Burglar written by John T. Aquino and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2022-09-06 with total page 186 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the midst of gangland activities during the Roaring Twenties, a thief plagued the New York City area by breaking into people's homes and stealing radios, possibly the costliest thing a family could own. Not only did the crimes deprive families of property and security, but they also resulted in the injuries of three NYPD officers and the death of officer Arthur Kenney. Based on interviews and trial transcripts, this book documents the search for the Radio Burglar, which turned into a wide-spread manhunt. Initially perplexed by the case, authorities eventually overcame great odds to achieve a conviction that has received praise in the following decades. But nine years later, the devastating effect on his family and friends of Arthur Kenney's loss was prolonged when they were involved in a second murder trial that riveted the attention of the city and country.
Download or read book Jazz Age Chicago written by Joseph Gustaitis and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2022-01-17 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When people imagine 1920s Chicago, they usually (and justifiably) think of Al Capone, speakeasies, gang wars, flappers and flivvers. Yet this narrative overlooks the crucial role the Windy City played in the modernization of America. The city's incredible ethnic variety and massive building boom gave it unparalleled creative space, as design trends from Art Deco skyscrapers to streamlined household appliances reflected Chicago's unmistakable style. The emergence of mass media in the 1920s helped make professional sports a national obsession, even as Chicago radio stations were inventing the sitcom and the soap opera. Join Joseph Gustaitis as he chases the beat of America's Jazz Age back to its jazz capital.
Download or read book Historical Dictionary of Vaudeville written by James Fisher and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2023-06-15 with total page 691 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Vaudeville, as it is commonly known today, began as a response to scandalous variety performances appealing mostly to adult, male patrons. When former minstrel performer and balladeer Tony Pastor opened the Fourteenth Street Theatre in New York in 1881, he was guided by a mission to provide family-friendly variety shows in hopes of drawing in that portion of the audience – women and children – otherwise inherently excluded from variety bills prior to 1881. There he perfected a framework for family-oriented amusements of the highest obtainable quality and style. Historical Dictionary of Vaudeville contains a chronology, an introduction, an extensive bibliography, and the dictionary section has more than 1,000 cross-referenced entries on performing artists, managers and agents, theatre facilities, and the terminology central to the history of vaudeville. This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about vaudeville.
Download or read book Dry Manhattan written by Michael A. Lerner and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009-06-30 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1919, the United States made its boldest attempt at social reform: Prohibition. This "noble experiment" was aggressively promoted, and spectacularly unsuccessful, in New York City. In the first major work on Prohibition in a quarter century, and the only full history of Prohibition in the era's most vibrant city, Lerner describes a battle between competing visions of the United States that encompassed much more than the freedom to drink.
Download or read book Smugglers Bootleggers and Scofflaws written by Ellen NicKenzie Lawson and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 2013-12-01 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Uses previously unstudied Coast Guard records for New York City and environs to examine the development of Rum Row and smuggling in New York City during Prohibition. With the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment, drying up New York City promised to be the greatest triumph of the proponents of Prohibition. Instead, the city remained the nations greatest liquor market. Smugglers, Bootleggers, and Scofflaws focuses on liquor smuggling to tell the story of Prohibition in New York City. Using previously unstudied Coast Guard records from 1920 to 1933 for New York City and environs, Ellen NicKenzie Lawson examines the development of Rum Row and smuggling via the coasts of Long Island, the Long Island Sound, the Jersey shore, and along the Hudson and East Rivers. Lawson demonstrates how smuggling syndicates on the Lower East Side, the West Side, and Little Italy contributed to the emergence of the Broadway Mob. She also explores New York Citys scofflaw populationpatrons of thirty thousand speakeasies and five hundred nightclubsas well as how politicians Fiorello La Guardia, James Jimmy Walker, Nicholas Murray Butler, Pauline Morton Sabin, and Al Smith articulated their views on Prohibition to the nation. Lawson argues that in their assertion of the freedom to drink alcohol for enjoyment, New Yorks smugglers, bootleggers, and scofflaws belong in the American tradition of defending liberty. The result was the historically unprecedented step of repeal of a constitutional amendment with passage of the Twenty-first Amendment in 1933.
Download or read book The Speakeasies of 1932 written by Al Hirschfeld and published by Hal Leonard Corporation. This book was released on 2005-10-01 with total page 100 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: (Applause Books). When Manhattan joints were hung out to dry, the Booze-oizie sniveled, then pirouetted on their stools to find reasonably palatable Speakeasy facsimiles. These Prohibition hangouts each had their own flavor, decorum, decor and formula for ducking the law. Each found its own alcoholic substratum: its own inimitable characters behind, at and under the bar. Fear not all has not been lost to the repeal of the 18th Amendment, Starbucks corporate latte, and the wrecking ball. One intoxicating artifact remains, a book of lustrous vintage Al Hirschfeld's The Speakeasies of 1932 , wherein Hirschfeld nails these dipsomaniacal outposts with his pen and brush in the manner of a dour Irish bartender sizing up a troublesome souse. Provided as well is the recipe for each of the speakeasy's cocktail claim to fame. The resulting concoction is the perfect antidote to the Cappuccino Grande Malaise, a book that will make everyone yearn for a Manhattan, old fashioned, and straight up. "His comments are as swooping and witty as his lines." The New Yorker
Download or read book Off Hollywood written by David M. Rosen and published by Grove Press. This book was released on 1990 with total page 326 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Provides information on how to make and distribute independent productions, and gives examples of different styles, budgets, and financial arrangements used
Download or read book Sex Scandal America written by David Rosen and published by Key Publishing House. This book was released on 2010-03 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sex Scandal America is a comprehensive history of sexual scandals in America from colonial times (including Pocahontas and the Puritans) to today (few know about this part of George W. Bush's dubious past). The book exposes the scandals of national political figures (presidents, congress-folk, governors) and those of celebrities (e.g., entertainers and tycoons). It ties these scandals to the deeper changes in sexual culture occurring during the various phases of the country's social evolution. Most importantly, it assesses the role of political scandals as a form of public shaming. The book shows how, over the last four centuries, scandals have changed as a ritualized spectacle, evolving from a morality tale to an entertainment distraction.
Download or read book Texas Guinan written by Louise Berliner and published by . This book was released on 2023-02-21 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Texas Guinan was a night club hostess-funny, magnetic, loud."So begins the story of the notorious Roaring '20s personality who, with her signature "Hello Sucker!" transformed the simple grab-a-drink Prohibition speakeasy into a glamorous club with dancing girls, entertainment, and a star-studded clientele. Her friends and guests ranged from newspapermen like Walter Winchell, who quoted her daily, to Mae West, Rudolph Valentino, the Prince of Wales, and President Harding.Guinan was a devoted mythmaker and publicity hound, and her fictions were just as much of her story as the facts. Berliner's biography explores this as it chronicles Guinan's journey from small town Waco through multiple careers in vaudeville, musical theater, and the 2-reeler silent westerns that billed her as the "Female Bill Hart," to her emergence as an icon of the '20s. It follows the nightly shenanigans in Guinan's clubs, complete with her tangles with gangsters and U.S. Prohibition agents, culminating in her arrest for maintaining a public nuisance, i.e. working at a club that sold liquor illegally. She hired a young lawyer to defend her and 60 years later, his trial notes were uncovered by his granddaughter, the author.
Download or read book The City in Slang written by Irving Lewis Allen and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1995-02-23 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The American urban scene, and in particular New York's, has given us a rich cultural legacy of slang words and phrases, a bonanza of popular speech. Hot dog, rush hour, butter-and-egg man, gold digger, shyster, buttinsky, smart aleck, sidewalk superintendent, yellow journalism, breadline, straphanger, tar beach, the Tenderloin, the Great White Way, to do a Brodie--these are just a few of the hundreds of popular words and phrases that were born or took on new meaning in the streets of New York. In The City in Slang, Irving Lewis Allen traces this flowering of popular expressions that accompanied the emergence of the New York metropolis from the early nineteenth century down to the present. This unique account of the cultural and social history of America's greatest city provides in effect a lexicon of popular speech about city life. With many stories Allen shows how this vocabulary arose from city streets, often interplaying with vaudeville, radio, movies, comics, and the popular songs of Tin Pan Alley. Some terms of great pertinence to city people today have unexpectedly old pedigrees. Rush hour was coined by 1890, for instance, and rubberneck dates to the late 1890s and became popular in New York to describe the busloads of tourists who craned their necks to see the tall buildings and the sights of the Bowery and Chinatown. The Big Apple itself (since 1971 the official nickname of New York) appeared in the 1920s, though first in reference to the city's top racetracks and to Broadway bookings as pinnacles of professional endeavor. Allen also tells fascinating stories behind once-popular slang that is no longer in use. Spielers, for example, were the little girls in tenement districts who danced ecstatically on the sidewalks to the music of the hurdy-gurdy men and, when they were old enough, frequented the dance halls of the Lower East Side. Following the trail of these words and phrases into the city's East Side, West Side, and all around the town, from Harlem to Wall Street, and into the haunts of its high and low life, The City in Slang is a fascinating look at the rich cultural heritage of language about city life.
Download or read book Sin Sex Subversion written by David Rosen and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2016-02-23 with total page 436 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the tumultuous 1950s in America, sex was as threatening to the nation’s moral order as communism. New York was the capital of the post–World War II world and the epicenter of a fierce culture war over music, theatre, movies, fashion, and literature, as well as birth control, homosexuality, adolescent sex, pornography, and prostitution. Over the last half-century, America’s social life—especially notions of culture, sexuality, and politics—has fundamentally changed, and what were once sinful or subversive sexual practices have been integrated into the marketplace, irreversibly changing American moral values; the once illicit has become an industry of more than $50 billion. Drawing on first-person interviews, unpublished memoirs, newspaper accounts, contemporary studies, government documents, and recent scholarship, Sin, Sex & Subversion argues that “deviant” sexuality was subversive, and that unique New York “outsiders” of the 1950s set the stage for the following decades and the world we know today. In each chapter, author David Rosen examines a critical moral issue through an in-depth profile of figures such as Liberace, Samuel Roth, Bettie Page, the Rosenbergs, and others. Through these individuals, Rosen shows how those who operated outside the law or who challenged popular values, even if they were silenced in their time, ended up paving the way for a new normal. Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Arcade imprint, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in history—books about World War II, the Third Reich, Hitler and his henchmen, the JFK assassination, conspiracies, the American Civil War, the American Revolution, gladiators, Vikings, ancient Rome, medieval times, the old West, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.
Download or read book America Walks into a Bar written by Christine Sismondo and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2011-10-01 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When George Washington bade farewell to his officers, he did so in New York's Fraunces Tavern. When Andrew Jackson planned his defense of New Orleans against the British in 1815, he met Jean Lafitte in a grog shop. And when John Wilkes Booth plotted with his accomplices to carry out an assassination, they gathered in Surratt Tavern. In America Walks into a Bar, Christine Sismondo recounts the rich and fascinating history of an institution often reviled, yet always central to American life. She traces the tavern from England to New England, showing how even the Puritans valued "a good Beere." With fast-paced narration and lively characters, she carries the story through the twentieth century and beyond, from repeated struggles over licensing and Sunday liquor sales, from the Whiskey Rebellion to the temperance movement, from attempts to ban "treating" to Prohibition and repeal. As the cockpit of organized crime, politics, and everyday social life, the bar has remained vital--and controversial--down to the present. In 2006, when the Hurricane Katrina Emergency Tax Relief Act was passed, a rider excluded bars from applying for aid or tax breaks on the grounds that they contributed nothing to the community. Sismondo proves otherwise: the bar has contributed everything to the American story. Now in paperback, Sismondo's heady cocktail of agile prose and telling anecdotes offers a resounding toast to taprooms, taverns, saloons, speakeasies, and the local hangout where everybody knows your name.
Download or read book The Jazz Age written by Arnold Shaw and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 1989 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: F. Scott Fitzgerald named it, Louis Armstrong launched it, Paul Whiteman and Fletcher Henderson orchestrated it, and now Arnold Shaw chronicles this fabulous era in The Jazz Age. Spicing his account with lively anecdotes and inside stories, he describes the astonishing outpouring of significant musical innovations that emerged during the "Roaring Twenties"--including blues, jazz, band music, torch ballads, operettas and musicals--and sets them against the background of the Prohibition world of the Flapper.
Download or read book The Year the World Went Mad written by Allen Churchill and published by . This book was released on 1960 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The year 1927, which produced an amazing crop of big news stories, is portrayed as the climax of an era.
