Monk Eastman

by Neil Hanson

  Whitman, Walt. Complete Poetry and Collected Prose. New York: Library of America, 1982.

  Willemse, Cornelius. Behind the Green Lights. New York, 1931.

  Wodehouse, P. G. Psmith Journalist. New York: Penguin, 1981.

  Yockelson, Mitchell A. Borrowed Soldiers: Americans Under British Command, 1918. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2008.

  Zieger, Robert H. America’s Great War. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2000.

  Zinn, Howard. A People’s History of the United States. London: Longman, 1980.

  DIRECTORIES

  Lain’s Brooklyn City Directory, 1862–1900

  R. L. Polk and Co. ’s Trow’s New York City Directory, 1915–1920

  Trow’s New York City Directory, 1861–1913

  Uppington’s General Directory of Brooklyn, New York City, 1902–1920

  WEBSITES

  http://www.oryansroughnecks.org/index.html

  http://www.ls.net/~newriver/ww1/26div.htm

  http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1086.html

  http://www.ossininghistorical.org/ www.worldwar1.com/dbc/meastman.htm

  http://www.correctionhistory.org/

  http://herbertasbury.com/billthebutcher/eastman.asp

  www.immigrantheritagetrail.org/?q=node/1540

  http://www.loc.gov/rr/frd/Military_Law/AW-1912-1920.html

  http://www.changingthetimes.net/samples/ww1/chosen_few1.htm

  http://warandgame.wordpress.com/2007/10/27/the-first-world-war-and-propaganda/

  http://academic.udayton.edu/health/syllabi/tobacco/history2.htm#1

  A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Neil Hanson’s other books include The Confident Hope of a Miracle and Unknown Soldiers. He lives in the Yorkshire Dales in England.

  Edward “Monk” Eastman in his prime (BROWN BROTHERS)

  Police mug shot of Edward “Monk” Eastman, filed under what the NYPD believed was his real name: William Delaney (BROWN BROTHERS)

  Louis Wolheim’s career as a Hollywood tough guy was greatly helped by his physical resemblance to the notorious Monk Eastman. (COURTESY OF BRUCE CALYERT)

  The pushcart market at Orchard and Rivington streets on a Sunday morning. Protection rackets targeting the pushcart vendors were a lucrative source of income for Monk Eastman’s gang. (GEORGE GRANTHAM BAIN COLLECTION, LIBRARY OF CONGRESS)

  One of the inhabitants of a cellar at Happy Jack’s Canvas Palace—a dismal Pell Street lodging house (JACOB A. RIIS, LIBRARY OF CONGRESS)

  A dingy, refuse-strewn court in a rear tenement at Baxter Street (JACQB A. RIIS, LIBRARY OF CONGRESS)

  Chrystie Street, the rubble-strewn slum district that was the site of Monk’s headquarters, a dive called The Palm (GEORGE P. HALL COLLECTION, NEGATIVE NO. 73849, COLLECTION OF THE NEW-YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY)

  A dubious Lower East Side dive. The figure in a derby and a dark suit with shiny buttons was probably the “sheriff” or “bouncer” of the dive; the job was Monk Eastman’s first step on the road to gang leadership. (ASBURY PAPERS, COURTESY OF EDITH ASBURY)

  New York’s most notorious gangsters, including Monk Eastman and his bitter rivals Paul Kelly and “Yakey Yake” Brady (NEW YORK TIMES, JUNE 9, 1912)

  Monk Eastman’s political protector, “Big Tim” Sullivan (center) (LIBRARY OF CONGRESS)

  Straw-hatted Tammany bosses “Silent Charlie” Murphy (second from right) and “Big Tom” Foley (far right) (BROWN BROTHERS)

  Private Edward Eastman of Company G, 106th Infantry, photographed shortly before embarking for France (A SHORT HISTORY AND ILLUSTRATED ROSTER OF THE 106TH INFANTRY)

  Men of the 27th Division struggling to scale a wall and leaping a practice trench during bayonet training at Camp Wadsworth (NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND RECORDS ADMINISTRATION, STILL PICTURES UNIT, COLLEGEPARK, MARYLAND)

  A newspaper depiction of the 27th Division in action on the Hindenburg Line (LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, PRINTS AND PHOTOGRAPHS DIVISION: NEW YORK WORLD-TELEGRAM & SUN NEWSPAPER PHOTOGRAPH COLLECTION)

  Scorched earth: the devastation left by the German armies as they retreated to the Hindenburg Line (IMPERIAL WAR MUSEUM, LONDON)

  How one New York newspaper covered the homecoming parade of the 27th Division: The “doughboy friend from the East Side” being greeted by Governor Al Smith bears a more than passing resemblance to Monk Eastman. Six weeks after this photograph was taken, Governor Smith granted Monk a pardon, restoring the rights of citizenship he had lost after being convicted of a felony. The artwork next to the photograph shows the insignia of the New York Division, formed from the letters N Y D and the constellation Orion, a punning reference to the division’s commanding officer, General O’Ryan. (NEW YORK WORLD, MARCH 26, 1919)

  The body of Monk Eastman being carried out of Yannaco’s funeral parlor in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, as Monk’s former comrades formed an honor guard (LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, PRINTS AND PHOTOGRAPHS DIVISION: NEW YORK WORLD-TELEGRAM & SUN NEWSPAPER PHOTOGRAPH COLLECTION)

  The funeral procession of Monk Eastman passing through the huge crowds lining the streets of Williamsburg (LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, PRINTS AND PHOTOGRAPHS DIVISION: NEW YORK WORLD-TELEGRAM & SUN NEWSPAPER PHOTOGRAPH COLLECTION)