Jules Stewart is a journalist, historian and author. He was born in New York where his career took him from university lecturer to Yellow Cab driver. His books include Madrid: The History; Albert: A Life; The Kaiser’s Mission to Kabul; On Afghanistan’s Plains: The Story of Britain’s Afghan Wars (all published by I.B.Tauris); Crimson Snow: Britain’s First Disaster in Afghanistan; The Savage Border: The Story of the North-West Frontier; Spying for the Raj: The Pundits and the Mapping of the Himalaya and The Khyber Rifles: From the British Raj to Al Qaeda. He lives in London. ‘From its opening irreverent quotations from John Steinbeck and E. B. White, Jules Stewart’s Gotham Rising: New York in the 1930s offers a roguish romp through a remarkable decade that in many ways still defines much about the great American metropolis. So often it seems to take a visitor from foreign shores to see New York in all its glory, and to marvel at the contradictions and contrasts that New Yorkers take for granted – as, for instance, a fervently religious Jewish Sabbath observance around the corner from a Hell’s Angels clubhouse. As Stewart’s eye sweeps across the panorama of 1930s New York, his attention is caught equally by the glories of big bands and the depredations of organized crime providing the jazz clubs’ bootleg whiskey; the Metropolitan Opera and the Stork Club and the striking taxi-cab drivers inconveniencing their patrons; high society at the Waldorf-Astoria and desperate victims of the Great Depression. The Harlem Renaissance, Greenwich Village bohemia, Tammany Hall politics, the Empire State Building, Rockefeller Center, and all the larger-than-life figures directing so much of the action – it’s an amazing story, well worth telling. And, oh yes, it all really happened.’ Anthony W. Robins author of New York Art Deco: A Guide to Gotham’s Jazz Age Architecture ‘Filled with enticing details and vivid portraits of the titans who drove New York in the 1930s, Gotham Rising is a delightful caper through one of the city’s most dynamic eras. Jules Stewart deftly weaves history with heroes and villains, with fascinating tales of La Guardia, FDR and Robert Moses, as well as the men who built the Empire State Building and Rockefeller Center.’ Eric Schmitt Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times correspondent ‘How ironic that the decade following the Wall Street Crash should be the one which made the city what it is today. The book is a terrific read, bursting at the seams with beguiling stories and extraordinary facts. If you want to know how New York became New York, this is the book for you. An inspir- ing and engrossing work which has so much to tell us about what is still the greatest city on earth, at the same accounting for so much about its present state. In many ways, this is America in essence – told from the right time and the right place.’ Paul Strathern author of The Medici Gotham Rising New York in the 1930s Jules Stewart Published in 2016 by I.B.Tauris & Co. Ltd London • New York www.ibtauris.com Copyright © 2016 Jules Stewart Copyright Foreword © Amor Towles The right of Jules Stewart to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or any part thereof, may not be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Every attempt has been made to gain permission for the use of the images in this book. Any omissions will be rectified in future editions. References to websites were correct at the time of writing. ISBN: 978 1 78453 529 2 eISBN: 978 1 78672 043 6 ePDF: 978 1 78673 043 5 A full CIP record for this book is available from the British Library A full CIP record is available from the Library of Congress Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: available Endpapers: A view of Times Square at the intersection of Broadway and 7th Avenue, New York City, New York, 1937. (Photo by P.L. Sperr/Getty Images) Text design, typesetting and eBook by Tetragon, London Contents List of Illustrations vii Foreword by Amor Towles xi Acknowledgements xxiii Introduction 1 1. Brother, Can You Spare a Dime? 7 2. The Little Flower and Goliath 21 3. Trouble in the Streets 31 4. ‘I can’t figger what dis city is comin’ to’ 47 5. All That Jazz 77 6. Gotham Gets a Facelift 93 7. The Thing about Skyscrapers 113 8. Seventy-Seventh Floor, Please 129 9. Anything You Can Do 141 10. You’re the Top 157 11. They All Laughed at Rockefeller Center 173 v Gotham RisinG 12. Village Life 191 13. Huddled Masses Yearning to Breathe Free 209 Notes 231 Bibliography 247 Images Section 253 Index 271 vi List of iLLustrations 1. Protesters outside the Bank of United States during the Depression (Library of Congress / Public Domain). 2. A street band in Yorkville, Upper Manhattan (Library of Congress / Public Domain). 3. Federal Hall in Wall Street (Public Domain). 4. Fiorello La Guardia and Robert Moses (photo by Bob Mortimer/NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images). 5. Newspaper columnist Walter Winchell and W. C. Fields (Public Domain). 6. Police at the scene of a gangland murder (US National Records and Archives Administration / Public Domain). 7. Boxer Jack Dempsey celebrates the end of Prohibition in 1933 (Bettmann/Getty Images). 8. Duke Ellington in his dressing room at the New York Paramount Theater, a top venue for swing music (William P. Gottlieb/Ira and Leonore S. Gershwin Fund Collection, Music Division, Library of Congress). vii Gotham RisinG 9. The view of the Chrysler Building from the Empire State Building (Library of Congress / Public Domain). 10. The Waldorf-Astoria (courtesy of the Waldorf Astoria Hotel). 11. ‘Lunch break’ on the Waldorf-Astoria (courtesy of the Waldorf Astoria Hotel). 12. Construction workers on the Waldorf-Astoria (courtesy of the Waldorf Astoria Hotel). 13. Jewish merchants on the Lower East Side (Library of Congress / Public Domain). 14. A Bowery restaurant (Berenice Abbott / New York Public Library / Public Domain). 15. The 21 Club (courtesy of the 21 Club, New York / Belmond (UK)). 16. The jockeys of the 21 Club (courtesy of the 21 Club, New York / Belmond (UK)). 17. Nightclub map of Harlem by Elmer Simms Campbell (copyright holder unknown). 18. Jitterbug dancers (Library of Congress / Public Domain). 19. Grand Central Terminal (Royal Geographic Society). 20. The Third Avenue ‘El’ (Library of Congress / Public Domain). 21. New York tenements, 1934, by Marjorie Content (courtesy of Yale University). 22. Manhattan in 1931 (Public Domain). 23. Refugee children and the Statue of Liberty (courtesy of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum). viii