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Bad Seeds in the Big Apple: Bandits, Killers, and Chaos in New York City, 1920 - 1940

Patrick Downey
Cumberland House Publishing (2008)
ISBN 9781581826463
Reviewed by Sandie Kirkland for RebeccasReads (2/09)

Researched meticulously, Patrick Downey's “Bad Seeds In The Big Apple” portrays the robber gangs of New York City from the 1920s through the 1940s.  This time period was rife with gangs who robbed banks, jewelers and other businesses.  Some were organized gangs that stayed together for years and carried out multiple robberies, while others were collections of gangsters who came together for one job.  There were two main reasons for the robbery rate in this era.  Since electronic transfers were not yet available, businesses often had large amounts of cash on hand for payrolls, or just for the day's business takings.  Secondly, police techniques were not as sophisticated as in modern times, so the likelihood of an initial successful robbery was much higher.

Downey outlines both famous and obscure cases.  A short biography of each criminal is given, with their family background, nicknames, list of associates, and crimes they committed. Their captures and trials with their prison lives and in many cases, their deaths by electric chair are covered in depth.  There are intelligent robbers as well as those who counted on dumb luck for success.  Gentlemen robbers, gun molls, psychotic sadists and those caught up in crime through laziness are all captured in these pages.  Some were quick to confess when caught, while others never admitted what they'd done or gave evidence about others in their gangs.  Some of the robberies were fairly significant.  One robbery, in an ice plant, was for $427,000.  There were other details not often mentioned.  One I found interesting was that one criminal, who was 220 pounds, was the heaviest man ever executed up to that time.  These days that weight seems like one that is more usual.

I enjoyed this book since I have an interest in true crime.  There were several things that I found of interest.  One was the number of occasions in which prisoners seemed to escape from penitentiaries.  I'd always thought escapes were relatively rare, but during this era they seemed to be fairly common.  I was also surprised at how often policemen were killed in these robbery attempts.  Of course, many of the criminals were also killed, but that seems to be more of an expected outcome from the decision to follow a life of crime.  This book is recommended for true crime fans and those interested in getting a view of an era not always covered in history books.

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