“Susie’s Birthday Party”; Buzz Connie; Jessie Mac Robinson; Coral (60004 A); July 21, 1948
“I’m Gonna Move To The Outskirts of Town”; Louis Jordan and his Tympany Five; Weldon; Louis Jordan; Decca (8593 B); November 22, 1941
“Knock Me Kiss”; Louis Jordan And His Tympany Five; Louis Jordan; Mike Jackson; Decca Personality Series (23628 A); Publication date: November 22, 1941
The New York Times, November 22, 1941
“Birthday Party”; Sil Austin; J. Collins; Mercury (71027); December 25, 1956
“Sugar Babe Blues”; Roosevelt Sykes (The Honey Dripper) [1906–1983]; Skyes; Columbia (37457); Publication date: November 21, 1941
PM, November 21, 1941, p.12 (Photos by Gene Badger, PM)
New York’s Thanksgiving: A Big Parade, and Turkey…
“Training Camp Blues”; Roosevelt Sykes (The Honey Dripper) [1906–1983]; Sykes; Columbia (37457); November 21, 1941
PM, November 21, 1941, p.13 (Photos by M Engel, PM)
… And the Ragamuffins, Featuring National Defense
The ragamuffins of New York capered as usual on Thanksgiving Day. Those pictured on this page were part of a Madison Square Boys’ Club parade on First Avenue. Many carried spot-news banners, an innovation encouraged by the Club as a substitute for traditional ragamuffin street begging…
“Ragamuffin Romeo”; Paul Whiteman [1890-1967] and His Orchestra; Vocal by Jeanie Lang (Mary Eugenia Wirick) [1911-1993]; Wayne & De Casta; Columbia (CB 88); ca. 1930
PM, November 21, 1941, p.22 (Unidentified photographer)
Hitchcock’s Latest Masterpiece… A Melodrama of the Mind
By Cecelia Ager
The film ideal is a blend of story-telling, writing, musical scoring, photographic composition, acting, developing characterization, cutting and direction – co-ordinated to achieve dramatic impact, an impact indigenous to the movies, impossible to any other art form… PM, November 21, 1941, p.22
“The Finger of Suspicion Points at You”; Bonnie Lou [1924-2015]; Mann; Lewis; Parlophone (R 3989); 1954
“Street Scene”; Benny Carter Quintet; Norman Granz; Alfred Newman; Mercury (89044); 1952
The New York Times, November 17, 1939
SLAIN BY EAST SIDE THUGS
Soft-Drink Vendor Shot Down In Prince Street Doorway
The New York Times, November 17, 1939
“Street Scene (A Sentimental Rhapsody)”; Alfred Newman And His Hollywood Symphony Orch.; Newman; Mercury (4013)
The New York Post, Friday, November 17, 1939, p. 10 (Associated Press Photo)
Street Scene in New York
After the guns ceased barking and the gunmen fled, neighbors peered from the fire escape and almost every window last night for a glimpse of the body of Anthony Greco, slain in front of his own cafe at 10 Prince Street.
The New York Post, November 17, 1939
“Street Scene (Sentimental Rhapsody);” Alfred Newman and his Orchestra; Newman; Adamson; Majestic (20017 A); 1946
Times Herald, November 20, 1939, p.1
“Street Scene (A Sentimental Rhapsody)”; Alfred Newman And His Hollywood Symphony Orchestra; Newman; Mercury (1150M); September 1946
LIFE, November 27, 1939, pp. 26-27
Murder in New York
After dusk on Nov. 16, Angelo Greco stood smoking outside his cafe in Manhattan’s Little Italy. Emerging from the darkness, a man drew a gun, fired four shots, fled into the night. Greco tumbled dead in his doorway. From windows above, heads popped out. Police cars screamed into the street. Close in their wake arrived Arthur Fellig, famed free-lance photographer (LIFE, April 12, 1937) who sleeps behind police headquarters, has a short-wave radio in his car. He listened briefly while neighborhood folk stolidly disclaimed knowledge of the murderer, then stepped back and photographed this dramatic street scene.
LIFE, November 27, 1939, p. 27
“Street Scene”; Ralph Marterie And His Orchestra; Ennio Bolognini; Newman; Mercury (5860); 1952
Weegee, Naked City, 1945, p. 79
Balcony Seats At A Murder
This happened in Little Italy. Detectives tried to question the people in the neighborhood… but they were all deaf… dumb… and blind… not having seen or heard anything.
Weegee, Naked City, 1945, p. 79
“Street Scene”; Ray Anthony and His Orchestra; Alfred Newman; Capitol (2327); 1953
Weegee, Famous Photographers Tell How…, ca. 1955
…One of the best pictures I’ve made… Just to give you a little aside. I got up nine o’clock one night, and I says to myself, I’m going to take a nice little ride and work up an appetite… I arrive right in the heart of Little Italy, 10 Prince St. Here’s a guy who had been bumped off in the doorway of a little candy store. This was a nice balmy, hot, summer’s night. The detectives are all over… but all the five stories of the tenement people are on the fire escape… they’re looking, they’re having a good time… some of the kids are even reading the funny papers and the comics… There was another photographer there and he made what they call a ten foot shot… he made a shot of just the guy in the doorway and that was it… To me this was drama, this was like a backdrop… I stepped all the way back about 100 feet. I used flash powder. And I got this whole scene… the people on the fire escapes, the body, everything… Of course the title for it was “Balcony Seats at a Murder”… That picture won me a gold medal with a real genuine diamond… So that was it… So I try to humanize the news story. Of course I ran into snags with the dopey editors. If it was fire they’d say where’s the burning building? And I’d says look they all look a like. I says look, here’s the people effected by the burning building…
“At the End of the Road”; Tom Waring and Waring’s Pennsylvanians; Ballard Macdonald; James F. Hanley; Victor (19602-A); 1925
“The End Of The Road”; Sir Harry Lauder; William Dillon; RCA Victor (9024-B); 1926
“Waiting At The End Of The Road”; Harold Lang; Irving Berlin; Pathe Actuelle (32484)
The New York Times, November 14, 1941
GUARDS DEMOTED IN RELES ESCAPE
Five to Get Departmental Trials on Laxity Charge – Mayor Orders Inquiry
…speculation mounted as to Reles’s motive in attempting to escape that admittedly afforded him a haven from an underworld enraged… it was known that Reles feared only one underworld figure, Albert Anastasia… He always did the weird, fantastic thing…
He could sing but couldn’t fly”…
“Waiting At The End Of The Road”; Kate Smith; The Harmonians; Berlin; Harmony (999-H); August 27, 1925
Long Island Daily Press, November 14, 1941, (Unidentified photographer)
FUNERAL. Mrs. Rose Reles, left, widow of the gangster, Abe Reles, who fell to his death from the window of a sixth floor room at the Half Moon Hotel in Coney Island, is helped to a car after attending the burial services yesterday in the Mount Carmel Cemetery, Glendale. She screamed incessantly during the rather sketchy ceremony.
“Waiting At The End Of The Road”; The Kay Starr Style; Irving Berlin; Harold Mooney; Capitol (15910)
New York Post, November 14, 1941, (Unidentified photographer)
THE END OF THE ROAD FOR KID TWIST
GRAVEDIGGERS finish covering all that is mortal of “Abe Reles… Died Nov. 12th 1941… Age 36 years, 6 months, 2 days…”
“End of the Road”; Jerry Lee Lewis With His Pumping Piano; Jerry Lewis; Sun (259); December 1, 1956
“Somebody Nobody Loves”; Benny Goodman and his Orch.; Peggy Lee; S. Miller; Okeh (6562); Publication date: November 13, 1941
Lepke and His Pals Feared Reles’s Testimony…
And here’s the grinning Lepke himself – Louis Buchalter, born 44 years ago in the city’s slums. He’s under a federal narcotic sentence that would keep him in jail 14 years… Lepke is blamed for 14 murders or more; Reles was to have testified against him. The particular murder for which Lepke is on trial is that of Joseph Rosen, candy-store owner. Rosen had been a trucking boss in the garment center. O’Dwyer says Lepke ordered the job much as you would order the cook to kill a chicken for dinner.
… Until Death Mysteriously Removed One
And this is where it ended, outside the Half Moon Hotel in Coney Island, where Reles has been awaiting his chance to testify against Lepke. We don’t really know what happened. Some reports say Reles was trying to escape – with only a couple of sheets to let him down down the sixth floor widow (circle) to a roof overlooking the ocean. Reporters were told that a window on the floor below was partly open, and that the sill and his shoes bore marks indicating he tried to get in. Some authorities said he had been ill, that he might have committed suicide.
PM, November 13, 1941 (Unidentified photographers)
“How Long Has This Been Going On!;” Benny Goodman and his Orch.; Peggy Lee; I. Gershwin; G. Gershwin; Okeh (6544); November 13, 1941
The New York Times, November 13, 1941 (Unidentified photographer)
“Somebody Else is Taking My Place”; Benny Goodman and his Orchestra; Peggy Lee; D. Howard; Ellsworth; Morgan; Columbia (38198); November 13, 1941
Binghamton, November 13, 1941 (Unidentified photographer)
The New York Times, November 13, 1941 (Unidentified photographer)
“Why Don’t You Do Right”; Benny Goodman and his Orchestra; Peggy Lee; McCoy; Columbia (38198); November 13, 1941
(“…We don’t really know what happened…” PM, November 13, 1941.)
“Coffee and Cakes”; Sam Donahue and his Orchestra; Robert Sour; Una Mae Carlisle; Frances Claire; Bluebird (B-11377-A), Publication date: November 12, 1941
PM, November 12, 1941
Abe Reles Leaps to His Death
Abe (Kid Twist) Reles, ex-leader of Brooklyn’s Murder, Inc. who turned informer, killed himself today by jumping from a window at Coney Island’s Half Moon Hotel…
“ST. JAMES INFIRMARY BLUES-Part 1”; Artie Shaw and his Orchestra; “Hop Lips” Page; Joe Primrose; RCA Victor (27895 A); November 12, 1941
Brooklyn Eagle, November 12, 1941
RELES DIES IN HOTEL PLUNGE AS ESCAPE ATTEMPT FAILS
Wire Breaks as He Slides to Freedom — Fear Held Cause
“ST. JAMES INFIRMARY BLUES-Part 2”; Artie Shaw and his Orchestra; “Hop Lips” Page; Joe Primrose; RCA Victor (27895-B); November 12, 1941
Long Isand Daily Press, November 12, 1941
Abe Reles Dies in Plunge From Window of Hotel
His ‘Singing’ Helped Smash ‘Murder, Inc.’
Abe (Kid Twist) Reles 37-year old Brooklyn killer turned “informer,” whose testimony already sent two men to their deaths in the electric chair, was killed today when he fell six floors in trying to escape from “protective custody” in the Half Moon Hotel at Coney Island…
“To a Broadway Rose”; Artie Shaw and his Orchestra; Ray Conniff; Victor (27838-A); November 12, 1941
New York Post, November 12, 1941
RELES IS KILLED WHILE ESCAPING
By Malcolm Logan
Abe Reles, the swarthy little murderer who sent two of his fellow members of Murder, Inc. to the electric chair, was killed between 6:45 and 7:10 a.m. today as he was trying to escape from a room on the sixth floor of the Half Moon Hotel in Coney Island…
“Deuces Wild”; Artie Shaw and his Orchestra; Margie Gibson; Victor (27838-B); November 12, 1941
80 years ago today: “Reles just went out the window!”… (Spoiler alert: It was a little premature to conclude that Reles leapt, jumped, was attempting to escape, or “killed himself.”)… What is true is that early on November 12, 1941 Reles went out a window and died on the Half Moon Hotel in Coney Island shortly before having to testify against Lepke…
“Magic Carpet”; Eddie Durham And His Band; Eddie Durham; Decca (8529 B); November 11, 1940
PM, November 11, 1940, p. 8 (Robert Moses’s Super-Roads)
“Fare Thee Honey Fare Thee Well”; Eddie Durham And His Band; Lem Johnson; Alston; Decca (8529 A); November 11, 1940
PM, November 11, 1940, p. 8 (Frank Lloyd Wright at MoMA)
Bomb-Prof City.. Wright Has It
“You Didn’t Steal That Kiss”; Orrin Tucker and his Orchestra; Bonnie Baker; Owens; Columbia (35914); November 11, 1940
PM, November 11, 1940, p. 19, (photo by Gene Badger)
The Colors of a Nation at Peace on Another Armistice Day
“PINEY BROWN BLUES”; JOE TURNER And His Fly Cats; Oran “Hot Lips” Page; Pete Johnson; John Collins; Abe Bolar; A. G. Godley; Joe Turner; Decca (18121 B); November 11, 1940
PM, November 11, 1940, p. 2
“627 STOMP”; PETE JOHNSON’S BAND; Don Stovall; Don Byas; Eddie Barefield; Oran “Hot Lips” Page; Pete Johnson; John Collins; Abe Bolar; A. G. Godley; Dave Dexter; Decca (18121 A); November 11, 1940
“FINGER BUSTER”; Jelly Roll Morton; Jazz Man (Number 12)
“Finger Tips”; Red Prysock; Mercury (70733); 1955
“Ring Around My Finger”; Tiny Topsy and The Charms; Roth; Bass; Federal (12309); 1957
“The Mark ‘Round My Finger”; Hawkshaw Hawkins; Alice Simms; Ira Rosloff; RCA Victor (20-5444); 1953
“YOU’VE GOT ME WRAPPED AROUND YOUR FINGER”; TEXAS JIM LEWIS And His Lone Star Cowboys; Ginger Snow; Lew Porter; Spade Cooley; Decca (46073 B); December 10, 1945
“THE FINGER OF SUSPICION POINTS AT YOU”; Bonnie Lou; Mann; Lewis; Parlophone (R 3989); 1955
WEEGEEWEEGEEWEEGEE 