Memories of Bygone Brooklyn

Until I was six years old, my family lived on 11^th Avenue and 64^th Street in the Bay Ridge section of Brooklyn.  The area was almost totally Italian and as far as I could tell at that age, we were the only Jewish family living there.  Still, we were never subjected to even a hint of antisemitism, but were instead treated with great respect, even deference. 

In the months before my fifth birthday, I was to find out why.

Although we were technically within the jurisdiction of the City of New York, Bay Ridge was for all intents and purposes run by the local Mafia.  As such, we always had just about the lowest rate of street crime in the city, muggers and petty thieves being discouraged by the de facto justice system in which the only two punishments were a near-death beating and actual death.

My mother, who was a stunner, could walk down the street alone at night without even a hint of trepidation.  My father, who had joined a CPA firm in Manhattan, would come home each night, dressed like Don Draper, and be merely an object of curiosity to our neighbors, all of whom worked in the neighborhood without neckties.  I learned later that the word had gone out that any of the local kids who picked on me would have his parents visited that evening at home and be dissuaded from ever doing so again.

The source of all this royal treatment was my grandfather, Sam Eichner, who I worshiped, the owner of Sam’s Luncheonette on 11^th Avenue, where my mother and grandmother worked as well.  In most ways, Sam’s was just like any other luncheonette, with a long counter and swivel stools, a couple of tables, and my favorite, a wonderful selection of Pierre’s French Ice Cream, made in New Jersey, with pistachio the flavor of choice. For sundaes, my grandfather used whipped cream from one of those squirt-out metal canisters that you pressed the tip to start, and he always shot a little into my mouth every time he used it for a customer.

Like many local businesses, we had a backroom for storage.  Much of my grandfather’s cachet was derived from what he occasionally stored there. 

People. 

One day, in March 1952, he was asked to provide accommodations for a very special guest.  As always, I was told to say nothing about our visitor, especially to Charley, the beat cop, who always stopped in for a sandwich at lunch, which, as was the custom in those days, he was not required to pay for. 

Not that Charley was likely to do anything—he often shared the counter with some pretty heavy hitters on the other side of the legal fence, with whom he was on a first name basis.  Bay Ridge was a plum assignment for a beat cop, but there was a strict “live and let live” code that Charley was unlikely to violate.  Even so, my mother told me to be extra careful this time not to let anything slip.

I have always remembered that visitor, because he was so nice and so friendly.  I snuck food to him and we spent a couple of hours each day playing dominoes.  He mussed my hair, we split hot fudge sundaes, and talked a lot about how the Dodgers might finally have the goods to win the World Series.  (They didn’t.)  He stayed three or four days, then, one morning when I came by, he was gone. 

A few weeks earlier, there had been REALLY BIG NEWS in New York.  On February 18, the police had captured the most famous bank robber in America, a folk hero and master of disguise, Willie “the Actor” Sutton.  “Slick Willie,” as he was also known, while he later denied responding to the query of why he robbed banks, with “That’s where the money is,” was as famous for his incredible record of breaking out of jail as for robbing what would be millions of dollars in today’s money. 

His most recent escape had been five years earlier, when he and some confederates, dressed as prison guards, had carried ladders across the yard at night, climbed over the wall, and vanished.  Despite his picture being plastered in every newspaper and magazine in America, he had remained at large until two NYPD patrolmen spotted him and then arrested him in Brooklyn while he was trying to charge a dead battery in his car.

The two patrolmen were immediately feted, given promotions to detective, $1,000 raises, and were to be congratulated in person in front of reporters by Mayor Vincent Impellitteri, when a twenty-four-year-old salesman in his father’s clothing shop named Arnold Schuster came forward with some additional facts.

The cops had not spotted Sutton.  He had.

Arnold Schuster was fascinated with crime and had, like most Americans, read any number of stories about Willie the Actor, and so knew his face well.  On the fateful day, he had gotten on the BMT subway, heading to Borough Park, where he lived and worked, and noticed a man sitting across from him who looked familiar.  Soon he realized why.

When Sutton got off at Pacific Street, Schuster followed him, taking care to remain a good distance back.  When Sutton got to the gas station, Schuster noticed a police car parked down the block.  Two patrolmen were in it.  He told them that as bizarre as it seemed, he had spotted Willie Sutton.

When Schuster’s father read in the newspapers that the cops had taken all the credit, he cajoled his son to tell the police commissioner the real story, which he did.  After checking with the attendants at the gas station, the commissioner called off the meeting with the mayor, gave credit where it was due, and Arnold Schuster was thrust into a nation-wide spotlight.  His photograph, along with his family, was featured in newspapers, and he was interviewed on radio and even television. 

Not everyone was pleased.

One of those who took umbrage was Albert Anastasia, boss of the Brooklyn docks, known locally as “Albert the Animal,” who also had been an occasional patron at Sam’s Luncheonette.  He was furious that someone would rat out a great American hero like Willie Sutton.

Two weeks later, Arnold Schuster was once again in the headlines.  “Sutton Finger-man Shot Dead Near his Home.”  An unknown gunman had waited for Schuster in the alley up the block from where he lived and pumped four .38 caliber bullets into him, three to the head. 

The city was outraged.  Mobsters gunning each other down was an accepted part of daily life, but Arnold Schuster was a civilian.  Both the mayor and police commissioner vowed to find the killer and bring him to justice.

Suspicion immediately fell on one of Sutton’s cronies, Federick “the Angel” Tenuto, and one of the most extensive manhunts in New York City history was begun.  The Daily News reported that, “Thousands of portraits of Tenuto were rushed off the police presses to the 150 detectives working on the case and all other law agencies.”

Tenuto, who had escaped on the ladders with Sutton in 1947, was described as a “hard-faced killer.”  The police promised an arrest in days.  They searched everywhere but could not find him. 

Of course, they didn’t look in the back room of Sam’s Luncheonette.

Frederick Tenuto spent more than a decade on the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted List but was never found.  Eventually, the authorities concluded that he too had been murdered to keep him from telling who had put him up to the job and given him the details of Arnold Schuster’s movements.  Anastasia, of course, never said a word about it and was himself shot to death in a barber’s chair in the Park Sheraton Hotel in 1957.  (He was later quoted by mob turncoat Joe Valachi as having ordered the hit, but no one really knew when Valachi was making things up.  In this case, he wasn’t.)

It was not until some years later that my mother told me precisely who it was that I was bringing hot fudge sundaes to in the back room. 

I would be lying if I said I do not have mixed feelings still.  The adult part of me is appalled that an innocent person would be murdered simply because he irritated a sociopathic mobster.  But the four-year-old in me—which is still knocking around somewhere—cannot help but remember sneaking back to play dominoes with a secret stranger whose presence I was told not to reveal to anyone.