Did The Mafia Blackmail FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover About Being Gay?
M. Wesley Swearingen, an FBI agent from 1951 to 1977, writes in his memoir FBI Secrets: An Agent's Expose about the long-standing rumors within the Bureau concerning the relationship between FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover and Associate Director Clyde Tolson which include allegations that Hoover ignored the Mafia for decades because the wise guys had incriminating goods on the supposed lovers:
One year after arriving in Memphis, Hoover transferred me to Chicago, Illinois. I was thrilled – my mind was full of gangsters, Tommy guns, and the FBI's famous machine gun battles of the 1930s. It was clear to me from Chicago's newspaper headlines that gangsters ruled a Chicago underworld element in the 1950s because gangland style murders averaged close to 100 a year in the Chicago area. * * * But when I told my colleague and veteran agent Vince Coll of my big plans for Chicago, he said that Hoover did not recognize the existence of a mob in Chicago. According to Coll, Mafia leader Meyer Lansky's organization had enough on Hoover and Tolson, as closet homosexuals, that Hoover would never investigate the mob.
The allegations were fleshed out in Official and Confidential: the Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover by Anthony Summer. A review of the book ("Partners For Life") by Sidney Urquhart for Time magazine summarizes one alleged incident as follows:
Perhaps Summers' most bizarre revelation is an account provided by Susan Rosenstiel, the wife of a liquor distiller and gambling crony. Rosenstiel recalls attending what she thought would be an elegant private party at New York City's Plaza Hotel in the company of lawyer Roy Cohn, Hoover and others. Instead, Cohn introduced Rosenstiel to a woman named "Mary," dressed in a fluffy black dress, lace stockings and high heels. It was obvious Mary was no woman. "You could see where he shaved. It was Hoover," said Rosenstiel. Joined by Cohn, Hoover stripped down to a tiny garter belt and proceeded to have sex with two young boys. Cohn later joked about the evening. "That was really something, wasn't it, with Mary Hoover?"
The "two young boys" with whom Hoover allegedly had sex perhaps were provided by Ed "the Skull" Murphy who was a long-time Genovese associate involved in the crime family's gay bar and boy prostitution rackets in New York City. In Stonewall: The Riots That Sparked The Gay Revolution, David Carter writes:
John Paul Ranieri, a former prostitute interviewed for this history, provided critical testimony for corroborating and better understanding the larger implications of Murphy's criminal enterprises for gay history. Ranieri said that as a youth from Westchester County he had been forced by blackmail and Mafia-supplied drugs into a prostitution ring in which he remained active for three years before he escaped the mob's control. He claimed that a number of youths in the ring had disappeared after they got careless with talk, for while most of the customers were more or less average homosexual men with money, the regular clientele, according to Ranieri, also included famous men such as Malcolm Forbes, Cardinal Spellman, Liberace, U.S. Senators, a vice president of the United States, one of the most famous rock musicians, and J. Edgar Hoover. The mob's order, according to Ranieri, was strictly "Keep your zipper open and your mouth shut." Ranieri said that he met J. Edgar Hoover at private parties at the Plaza Hotel and that Hoover's name was never mentioned. Hoover was always in drag, and Ranieri said he could tell that the FBI director was sure that no one recognized him. Ranieri said that he had ensured his own survival by having in his possession a photograph of himself with Hoover, given to him by the photographer. How does the preceding information link Ed Murphy with J. Edgar Hoover? The connection is made evident in a news story written shortly after Hoover's homosexuality and transvestism became public. When [Anthony] Summer's book [Official and Confidential: The Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover], was published [in 1993], a newspaper story about the 1960s national homosexual blackmail ring suddenly appeared after a quarter of a century of silence on the subject. Without mentioning Murphy's name, it quoted law enforcement sources who had worked on the case as saying that their investigation into the nationwide blackmail ring had turned up a photograph of Hoover "posing amiably" with the racket's ringleader and had uncovered information that Clyde Tolson, Hoover's lover, had himself "fallen victim to the extortion ring." After federal agents joined the investigation, both the photograph of Hoover and the documents about Tolson disappeared. * * * Very suggestive in this context is that Murphy would publicly say in 1978—before it became public information, as it did in the 1990s, that the Mafia had photographs of Hoover involved in sex acts—that he knew that J. Edgar Hoover "was one of my sisters."
Murphy's boys did have a habit of disappearing. For example, one Puerto Rican youth known as Tano with whom Murphy was sexually involved was kidnapped right off the streets never to be seen again according to one eyewitness to the incident as recounted by Carter in Stonewall. Curiously, Murphy also was a long-standing FBI informant according to a May 8, 1978 article ("Skull Murphy: The Gay Double Agent") by Arthur Bell for The Village Voice. Indeed, this article contained the interview in which Murphy expressly speaks of J. Edgar Hoover as one of his "sisters": "He was the biggest fuckin' extortionist in this country. He had presidents by the balls. He had a record on everybody and his brother." The allegations that Meyer Lansky had incriminating evidence against the FBI Director are particularly credible in light of the relationships among all the parties with political fixer Roy Cohn -- a fellow closet case who died of AIDS in 1986 -- at the center of it all. Cohn was a personal friend of Hoover during the 1950s and 1960s, and the two shared extensive correspondence directed to each other on a first-name basis including a September 1957 exchange on an article published by the Director entitled "Let's Wipe Out the Schoolyard Sex Racket." Ironically, only months earlier an apparent obscenity indictment against Cohn had been dismissed according to an FBI memo dated June 28, 1957 from Assistant Director Louis B. Nichols to Clyde Tolson:
Roy Cohn called 6-27-57 to advise that Neil Gallagher of the New Jersey Turnpike Commission represented him in connection with the return of an indictment charging the sale of obscene literature. Gallagher went before the Superior Court judge in Union County, New Jersey, Thursday afternoon and moved the dismissal of the indictment. The district attorney joined him in this recommendation and issued a public apology to Cohn.
Cornelius "Neil" Gallagher later became a U.S. Congressman from Bayonne, NJ until he lost the seat in 1972 after Life magazine ran an article alleging mob ties. The relationship between Hoover and Cohn is particularly troubling given that the FBI was fully aware that Cohn had ties to the most powerful bosses in the Mafia. For example, in 1964 federal prosecutor Robert Morgenthau was trying Cohn on corruption charges, and at the trial introduced excerpts of earlier grand jury testimony by Cohn. A March 27, 1964 article from The New York Times which the FBI contemporaneously clipped for its files on Cohn states:
The excerpts contained admissions by Mr. Cohn that he was acquainted with Geralde (Jerry) Catena, described by the Senate Rackets Committee as "No. 2 Man" in the Vito Genovese unit of the Cosa Nosta, and with Meyer Lansky, gangster. Mr. Cohn said he scarcely knew Lansky but that he had played golf two or three times with Catena.
Cohn further had represented the Stork Club which was Hoover's favorite stomping ground and Schenley Industries which was one of the country's largest liquor distillers. Louis Rosensteil was the president of Schenley Industries, and he had close ties to Meyer Lansky and Frank Costello. "In fact, on several occassions, Hoover was seen at the Stork Club fraternizing with people like Costello and Rosensteil" according to Peter J. Devico in The Mafia Made Easy. After Hoover's right-hand man Louis Nichols left the FBI in 1957, Cohn allegedly secured him a plum job making $100,000 a year at Schenley Industries although Nichols insisted in Hooveresque fashion that Rosensteil shunned the mob. Of couse, the best evidence that Meyer Lansky had the goods on the FBI Director is that the storied agency never laid a hand on the gangster who was a bootleg kingpin during Prohibition, later founded Murder Inc., and finally ran gambling operations in Las Vegas and Havana, Cuba for the Genovese family. At the time of Lansky's death in 1983 the FBI estimated that he had a net worth of $300 million, and yet during his long criminal career the G-men never nailed him on a single charge or recovered a single penny. Indeed, the FBI did not even start a file on Lansky until the 1950s, and a review of the file's sparse contents illustrates that the agency's efforts to target him -- a purported top hoodlum -- were half-hearted at best involving little more than the occasional wiretap and a sometimes surveillance. Indeed, the newspaper articles on Lansky which the FBI clipped were more informative on the mobster's activities than the investigator reports. Ironically, Lansky only was arrested in 1972 -- the same year Hoover died -- as a result of an IRS investigation involving an alleged skimming scheme from a Vegas casino, and even that indictment conveniently was dismissed because Lansky was considered too ill to prosecute.
Welcome to Lost in the Sauce, keeping you caught up on political and legal news that often gets buried in distractions and theater… or a global health crisis. Figuring out how to divide the COVID-19 content from the “regular” news has been difficult because the pandemic is influencing all aspects of life. Some of the stories below involve the virus, but I chose to include them when it fits into one of the pre-established categories (like congress or immigration). The coronavirus-central post will be made again this Thursday-Friday; the sign up form now has an option to choose to receive an email when the coronavirus-focused roundup is posted. House-keeping:
How to support: If you enjoy my work, please consider becoming a patron. I do this to keep track and will never hide behind a paywall, but these projects take a lot of time and effort to create. Even a couple of dollars a month helps. Since someone asked a few weeks ago (thank you!), here's a PayPal option and Venmo.
How to get notifications:If you’d like to be added to my newsletter, use this SIGNUP FORM and you’ll get these recaps in your inbox!
Let’s dig in!
MAIN COURSE
Congress passes stimulus
Last week started out with a Republican-crafted stimulus bill that was twice-blocked by Senate Democrats, who objected to the lax conditions of aid to corporations, too little funding for hospitals, and a $500 billion “slush fund” for big companies to be doled out by Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin with no oversight. Conservative-Democrat Joe Manchin (WV) even criticized the GOP bill:
“It fails our first responders, nurses, private physicians and all healthcare professionals. ... It fails our workers. It fails our small businesses… Instead, it is focused on providing billions of dollars to Wall Street and misses the mark on helping the West Virginians that have lost their jobs through no fault of their own.”
Through negotiations, Democrats shifted the bill in a more-worker friendly direction. The version that passed includes the following Democrat-added provisions: expanded unemployment benefits, $100 billion for hospitals, $150 billion for state and local governments, direct payments to Americans without a phase-in (ensuring low-income workers get the full amount), a ban on Trump and his children from receiving aid, and oversight on the “slush fund” (see next section for more info). Senate Democrats also managed to remove a provision that would have excluded nonprofits that receive Medicaid funding from the small-business grants.
Further reading: After Senate Democrats blocked the Republican-crafted bill, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi led the House Democrats in releasing their own version, a best-case scenario of their dream coronavirus stimulus bill. It is interesting to contrast what the Democrats prioritized to what the Republicans focused on: “How the House Democrats' stimulus plan compares to the Senate's”
Echoing sentiments expressed during debate on the previous coronavirus bill (the second, for those keeping track), Republican senators derided the $600 a week increase in unemployment payments as “incentivizing” workers to quit their jobs. Sens. Ben Sasse (Neb.), Rick Scott (Fla.), Tim Scott (S.C.) and Lindsey Graham (S.C.) delayed passage of the bill in order to force a vote on an amendment removing the extra unemployment funding. "This bill pays you more not to work than if you were working," Graham said. Fortunately for American workers, the amendment failed and the improved bill passed the Senate and the House.
Note: In 2009 only three Republicans helped Obama pass his stimulus bill in his first month in office.
The giveaways in the bill
While Senate Democrats were able to add worker-friendly provisions, the bill still required bipartisan support to pass the chamber and some corporate giveaways remained in the final version.
NYT: “Senate Republicans inserted an easy-to-overlook provision on page 203 of the 880-page bill that would permit wealthy investors to use losses generated by real estate to minimize their taxes on profits from things like investments in the stock market. The estimated cost of the change over 10 years is $170 billion.”
NYT: “...if a company owns multiple hotels, even if the overall hotel or restaurant chain has more than 500 employees — the limit to qualify for treatment as a small business — it will still be able to take advantage of the small-business benefits offered in the rescue package. ...The provision could benefit the Trump Organization, which operates a relatively small chain, with six hotels in the United States in cities including New York, Washington and Chicago.”
“A provision for the FDA to approve ‘innovative’ sunscreens—which would benefit L’Oreal, which has operations in Kentucky—appeared in the bill, which was steered in the Senate by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.”
“The $25 billion allocated in loans and loan guarantees for the airlines will also benefit eligible businesses "approved to perform inspection, repair, replace, or overhaul services, and ticket agents.” The last two words — ‘ticket agents’ — mean that travel agents who book flights will also be able to apply for a piece of the $25 billion.”
“The credit reporting industry got a win by defeating a total ban on negative credit reports during the crisis. Instead, a watered down version made it into the final bill: Consumers wouldn't get a negative credit report if they have an agreement with a lender to delay payments or make partial payments.”
Trump’s signing statement
While signing the latest coronavirus relief bill, the president also issued a signing statement undercutting the congressional oversight provision creating an inspector general to track how the administration distributes the $500 billion “slush fund” money. The newly-created inspector general is legally required to audit loans and investments made through the fund and report to Congress his/her findings, including any refusal by the executive office to cooperate. In his signing statement, Trump wrote that his understanding of constitutional powers allows him to gag the special IG:
"I do not understand, and my Administration will not treat, this provision as permitting the [inspector general] to issue reports to the Congress without the presidential supervision required" by Article II of the Constitution.
The signing statement further suggests that Trump does not have to comply with a provision requiring that agencies consult with Congress before it spends or reallocates certain funds: "These provisions are impermissible forms of congressional aggrandizement with respect to the execution of the laws," the statement reads. While some have said that Congress fell short in this instance, one Democratic Senate aide told Politico that Congress built in multiple layers of oversight, including “a review of other inspectors general and a congressional review committee charged with overseeing Treasury and the Federal Reserve's efforts to implement the law.” Legal experts have pointed out that a signing statement is “without legal effect.” But that ignores the fact that oversight is not equal to enforcement. The problem, in my opinion, isn’t that Congress won’t be notified of any abuses of power by Trump. The problem is that congressional Republicans and the judiciary have largely failed to hold him accountable and enforce our laws even after learning of his abuses.
Concerns about the IG
Another potential weakness in the oversight structure is the inspector general position itself. The special inspector general for pandemic recovery, known by the acronym S.I.G.P.R., is nominated by the president and confirmed by the Republican-controlled Senate. As we’ve seen from Trump’s previous nominees, particularly judicial, many unqualified individuals have been confirmed. The Democrats will not have the power to stop the president and Mitch McConnell from jamming through a loyalist to fill the SIGPR role.
Former inspector general at the Justice Department Michael Bromwich: “The signing statement threatens to undermine the authority and independence of this new IG. The Senate should extract a commitment from the nominee that Congress will be promptly notified of any Presidential/Administration interference or obstruction.”
You may recall that Trump has already proven that he’s willing to interfere with the legally-mandated work of an inspector general. When the Ukraine whistleblower filed a complaint last year, the IG of the Intelligence Community, Michael Atkinson, investigated and determined the complaint to be “urgent” and “credible.” Atkinson wrote a report and gave it to Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire to hand over to Congress. However, the White House and DOJ interfered and instructed Maguire not to transmit the report to the Senate and House Intelligence Committees. Chairman Adam Schiff had to subpoena Maguire to turn over the report and testify before his committee. Further, there are already five IG vacancies in agencies that have a critical role in responding to the pandemic. The Treasury itself has not had a permanent, Senate-confirmed IG for over eight months now, and Trump hasn’t nominated a replacement. The Treasury Dept. has taken a lead role in the coronavirus response, with Secretary Mnuchin handling most of the negotiating with Congress on Trump’s behalf. The fact that the lead agency doesn’t have IG oversight should be troublesome in itself; replicating the situation with a special IG doesn’t seem to be a promising solution.
The other four coronavirus-related agencies without a permanent IG: Department of Health and Human Services’ IG has been vacant for nine months, Department of Defense’s IG has been vacant for four years, Department of Education’s IG has been vacant for one year, and Office of Personnel Management’s IG has been vacant for four years. Overall, there are twelve IG vacancies in the 37) presidentially-appointed offices.
UPDATE: The nation's inspectors general have appointed Glenn Fine, the Pentagon's acting IG, to lead the committee of IGs overseeing the coronavirus relief effort.
This is one of several oversight mechanisms built into the new law. They include: A committee of IGs (now led by Fine), a new special IG (to be nominated by Trump), a congressional review panel (to be appointed by House/Senate leaders)
Direct payments
Included in the stimulus bill is a $1200 one-time direct payment for all Americans who made less than $75,000 in 2019 (less than $150,000 if couples filed jointly). More details can be found here. I have read that the Treasury will use 2018 information for those who have not filed yet this year, but I am not 100% sure that’ll happen. Mnuchin has said that Americans can expect to receive the money within three weeks, but many experts expect that timetable to be pushed into late April. Additionally, that only applies to Americans who included direct deposit information on their 2019 tax returns. Those who did not include their bank’s information will have to be sent a physical check in the mail… which could take anywhere from two to four months. Other options are being discussed, including partnering the Treasury Dept. with MasterCard and Visa to deliver prepaid debit cards. Venmo and Paypal are reportedly lobbying the government to be considered as a disbursement option. Future payments? House Speaker Pelosi is already planning another wave of direct payments to Americans, saying that the $1,200 is not enough to mitigate the economic effects of the pandemic: “I don’t think we’ve seen the end of direct payments.” Republicans, meanwhile, are taking a ‘wait and see’ approach, using the next couple of weeks to measure the impact of the $2 trillion bill passed last week.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy: “What concerns me is when I listen to Nancy Pelosi talk about a fourth package now, it’s because she did not get out of things that she really wanted...I’m not sure you need a fourth package...Let’s let this work ... We have now given the resources to make and solve this problem. We don’t need to be crafting another bill right now.” For the fourth legislative package, Democrats have said they would like to see increased food stamp benefits; increased coverage for coronavirus testing, visits to the doctor and treatment; more money for state and local governments, including Washington, D.C.; expanded family and medical leave; pension fixes; and stronger workplace protections.
Trump’s signature Normally, a civil servant signs federal checks, like the direct payments Americans are set to receive. According to a Wall Street Journal report, Trump has told people that he wants his signature to appear on the stimulus checks.
THE SIDES
War on the poor continues
Amid the coronavirus crisis, Trump has defended his continued support of a Republican-led lawsuit to dismantle the Affordable Care Act, which would result in 20 million Americans losing health insurance if successful. The Supreme Court agreed to hear arguments in the case this fall. Contrasting with his position that the ACA is illegal, Trump is considering reopening enrollment on HealthCare.gov, allowing millions of uninsured individuals to get coverage before potentially incurring charges and fees related to COVID-19. Joe Biden called on Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is leading the charge against the ACA, and President Trump to drop the lawsuit:
“At a time of national emergency, which is laying bare the existing vulnerabilities in our public health infrastructure, it is unconscionable that you are continuing to pursue a lawsuit designed to strip millions of Americans of their health insurance and protections under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), including the ban on insurers denying coverage or raising premiums due to pre-existing conditions.”
The Trump administration is also pushing forward with its plan to kick 700,000 people off federal food stamp assistance, known as SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program). The USDA announced two weeks ago that the department will appeal Judge Beryl Howell’s recent decision that the USDA’s work mandate rule is “arbitrary and capricious." Additionally: The Social Security Administration has no plans to slow down a rule change set for June that will limit disability benefits, the Department of Health and Human Services still intends to reduce automatic enrollment in health coverage, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development will continue the process to enact a rule that would make it harder for renters to sue landlords for racial discrimination.
Lawmakers’ stock transactions
The Justice Department and Securities and Exchange Commission are beginning to investigate stock transactions made ahead of the economic crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic. CNN reports that the inquiry has already reached out to Senator Richard Burr for information. “Under insider trading laws, prosecutors would need to prove the lawmakers traded based on material non-public information they received in violation of a duty to keep it confidential,” a task that won’t be easy. Sen. Burr is facing another consequence of his trades: Alan Jacobson, a shareholder in Wyndham Hotels and Resorts, sued Burr for allegedly using private information to instruct a mass liquidation of his assets. Among the shares he sold were an up to $150,000 stake in Wyndham, whose stock suffered a market-value cut of more than two-thirds since mid-February.
Environmental rollbacks
Using the pandemic as cover, the Trump administration has begun to more aggressively roll back regulations meant to protect the environment. These are examples of what Naomi Klein dubbed “the shock doctrine”: the phenomenon wherein polluters and their government allies push through unpopular policy changes under the smokescreen of a public emergency. On Thursday, the EPA announced (non-paywalled) an expansive relaxation of environmental laws and fines, exempting companies from consequences for pollution. Under the new rules, there are basically no rules. Companies are asked to “act responsibly” but are not required to report when their facilities discharge pollution into the air or water. Just five days before abandoning any pollution oversight, the oil industry’s largest trade group implored the administration for assistance, stating that social distancing measures caused a steep drop in demand for gasoline.
Monday morning update: In an interview with Fox News this morning, Trump said he was going to call Putin after the interview to discuss the Saudi-Russia oil fight. A consequence of this "battle" has been plummeting prices in the U.S. making it difficult for domestic companies (like shale extraction) to turn a profit. It's striking that the day after Dr. Fauci told Americans we can expect 100,000 to 200,000 deaths from COVID-19 (if we keep social distancing measures in place), Trump's first action is to talk to Fox News and his second action is to intervene in an international tiff on behalf of the oil and gas industry.
Gina McCarthy, who led the E.P.A. under the Obama administration, called the rollback “an open license to pollute.” Cynthia Giles, who headed the EPA enforcement division during the Obama administration, said “it is so far beyond any reasonable response I am just stunned.” The EPA is also moving forward with a widely-opposed rule to limit the types of scientific studies used when crafting new regulations or revising current ones. Hidden behind claims of increased transparency, the rule would require disclosure of all raw data used in scientific studies. This would disqualify many fields of research that rely on personal health information from individuals that must be kept confidential. For example, studies that show air pollution causes premature deaths or a certain pesticide is linked to birth defects would be rejected under the proposed rule change. Officials and scientists are calling upon the EPA to extend the time for comment on the regulatory changes, arguing that the public is unable to express their opinion while dealing with the pandemic.
“These rollbacks need and deserve the input of our public health community, but right now, they are rightfully focused on responding to the coronavirus,” said Representative Frank Pallone of New Jersey, the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
Other controversial decisions being made:
A former EPA official who worked on controversial policies returned as Administrator Andrew Wheeler’s chief of staff. Mandy Gunasekara helped write regulations to ease pollution controls for coal-fired power plants and vehicle emissions in her previous role as chief of the EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation. In a recent interview, Gunasekara, who played a role in the decision to exit the Paris Climate Accord, pushed back on the more dire predictions of climate change, saying, “I don't think it is catastrophic.”
NYT: The plastic bag industry, battered by a wave of bans nationwide, is using the coronavirus crisis to try to block laws prohibiting single-use plastic. “We simply don’t want millions of Americans bringing germ-filled reusable bags into retail establishments putting the public and workers at risk,” an industry campaign that goes by the name Bag the Ban warned on Tuesday. (Also see The Guardian)
Kentucky, South Dakota, and West Virginia passed laws putting new criminal penalties on protests against fossil fuel infrastructure in just the past two weeks.
The Hill: The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said Friday that it will extend the amount of time that winter gasoline can be sold this year as producers have been facing lower demand due to the coronavirus. It will allow companies to sell the winter-grade gasoline through May 20, whereas companies would have previously been required to stop selling it by May 1 to protect air quality. “In responding to an international health crisis, the last thing the EPA should do is take steps that will worsen air quality and undermine the public’s health,” biofuels expert David DeGennaro said.
NYT: At the Interior Department, employees at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have been under strict orders to complete the rule eliminating some protections for migratory birds within 30 days, according to two people with direct knowledge of the orders. The 45-day comment period on that rule ended on March 19.
WaPo: The Interior Department has received over 230 nominations for oil and gas leases covering more than 150,000 acres across southern Utah, a push that would bring drilling as close as a half-mile from some of the nation’s most famous protected sites, including Arches and Canyonlands National Parks… if all the fossil fuels buried in those sites was extracted and burned, it would translate into between 1 billion and 5.95 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide being released into the air. That upward measure is equal to half the annual carbon output of China
Court updates
Press freedom case Southern District of New York District Judge Lorna Schofield ruled that a literary advocacy group’s lawsuit against Trump for allegedly violating the First Amendment can move forward. The group, PEN America, is pursuing claims that Trump “has used government power to retaliate against media coverage and reporters he dislikes.” Schofield determined that PEN’s allegation that Trump made threats to chill free speech was valid, providing as an example the White House’s revocation of CNN correspondent Jim Acosta’s press press corps credentials:
”The threats are lent credence by the fact that Defendant has acted on them before, by revoking Mr. Acosta’s credentials and barring reporters from particular press conferences. The Press Secretary indeed e-mailed the entire press corps to inform them of new rules of conduct and to warn of further consequences, citing the incident involving Mr. Acosta… These facts plausibly allege that a motivation for defendant’s actions is controlling and punishing speech he dislikes.”
Twitter case The president suffered another First Amendment defeat last week when the full 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals declined to review a previous ruling that prevents Trump from blocking users on the Twitter account he uses to communicate with the public. Judge Barrington D. Parker, a Nixon-appointee, wrote: “Excluding people from an otherwise public forum such as this by blocking those who express views critical of a public official is, we concluded, unconstitutional.” Trump-appointees Michael Parker and Richard Sullivan authored a dissent, arguing the free speech “does not include a right to post on other people’s personal social media accounts, even if those other people happen to be public officials.” Park warned that the ruling will allow the social media pages of public officials to be “overrun with harassment, trolling, and hate speech, which officials will be powerless to filter.” Florida’s felon voting U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle ripped into Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s administration for failing to come up with a process to determine which felons are genuinely unable to pay court-ordered fees and fines, which are otherwise required to be paid before having their voting rights restored. “If the state is not going to fix it, I will,” Hinkle warned. He had given the state five months to come up with an administrative process for felons to prove they’re unable to pay financial obligations, but Florida officials did not do so. The case is set to be heard on April 28 (notwithstanding any coronavirus-related delays).
ICE, Jails, and COVID-19
ICE One of the most overlooked populations with an increased risk of death from coronavirus are those in detention facilities, which keep people in close quarters with little sanitation or protective measures (including for staff). Last week, U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee ordered the federal government to “make continuous efforts” to release migrant children from detention centers across the country. Numerous advocacy groups asked for the release after reports that four children being held in New York had tested positive for the virus:
“The threat of irreparable injury to their health and safety is palpable,” the plaintiffs’ lawyers said in their petition… both of the agencies operating migrant children detention facilities must by April 6 provide an accounting of their efforts to release those in custody… “Her order will undoubtedly speed up releases,” said Peter Schey, co-counsel for the plaintiffs in the court case.
On Tuesday, 13 immigrants held at ICE facilities in California filed a lawsuit demanding to be released because their health conditions make them particularly vulnerable to dying if infected by the coronavirus. An ACLU statement says the detainees are “confined in crowded and unsanitary conditions where social distancing is not possible.” The 13 individuals are all over the age of 50 and/or suffering from serious underlying medical issues like high blood pressure.
“From all the evidence we have seen, ICE is failing to fulfill its constitutional obligation to protect the health and safety of individuals in its custody. ICE should exercise its existing discretion to release people with serious medical conditions from detention for humanitarian reasons,” said William Freeman, senior counsel at the ACLU of Northern California.
Meanwhile, ICE is under fire for continuing to shuttle detainees across the country, with one even being forced to take nine different flights bouncing from Louisiana to Texas to New Jersey less than two weeks ago. That man is Dr. Sirous Asgari, a materials science and engineering professor from Iran, who was acquitted last year on federal charges of stealing trade secrets. The government lost its case against him, yet ICE has had him in indefinite detention since November.
Asgari, 59, told the Guardian that his Ice holding facility in Alexandria, Louisiana, had no basic cleaning practices in place and continued to bring in new detainees from across the country with no strategy to minimize the threat of Covid-19...Detainees have no hand sanitizer, and the facility is not regularly cleaning bathrooms or sleeping areas…Detainees lack access to masks… Detainees struggle to stay clean, and the facility has an awful stench.
Jails State jails are making a better effort to release detained individuals, as both New York and New Jersey ordered a thousand people in each state be let out of jail. The order applied only to low-level offenders sentenced to less than a year in jail and those held on technical probation violations. In Los Angeles County, officials released over 1,700 people from its jails. A judge in Alabama took similar steps last week, ordering roughly 500 people jailed for minor offenses to be released to lessen crowding in facilities. Unlike in New York and New Jersey, however, local officials reacted in an uproar, led in part by the state executive committee for the Alabama Republican Party and Assistant District Attorney C.J. Robinson. Using angry Facebook messages as the barometer of the community’s feelings, Robinson worked “frantically” to block inmates from being released.
Reuters: As of Saturday, at least 132 inmates and 104 staff at jails across New York City had tested positive for COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus… Since March 22, jails have reported 226 inmates and 131 staff with confirmed cases of COVID-19, according to a Reuters survey of cities and counties that run America’s 20 largest jails. The numbers are almost certainly an undercount given the fast spread of the virus.
Tribe opposed by Trump loses land
On Wednesday, The Federal Bureau of Indian Affairs announced the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe’s reservation would be "disestablished" and its land trust status removed. Tribal Chairman Cedric Cromwell called the move "cruel" and "unnecessary,” particularly coming in the midst of a pandemic crisis. Rep. Bill Keating (D-Mass.), who last year introduced legislation to protect the tribe's reservation as trust land in Massachusetts, said the order “is one of the most cruel and nonsensical acts I have seen since coming to Congress.” The administration’s decision is especially suspicious as just last year Trump attacked the tribe’s plan to build a casino on its land, tweeting that allowing the construction would be “unfair” and treat Native Americans unequally. As a former casino owner, Trump has spent decades attacking Native American casinos as unfair competition. At a 1993 congressional hearing Trump said that tribal owners “don’t look like Indians to me” and claimed: “I might have more Indian blood than a lot of the so-called Indians that are trying to open up the reservations” to gambling. More than his past history, however, Trump has current interests at play in the Mashpee Wampanoag’s planned casino: it would have competed for business with nearby Rhode Island casinos owned by Twin River Worldwide Holdings, whose president, George Papanier, was a finance executive at the Trump Plaza casino hotel in Atlantic City.
In the Mashpee case, Twin River, the operator of the two Rhode Island casinos, has hired Matthew Schlapp, chairman of the American Conservative Union and a vocal Trump supporter, to lobby for it on the land issue. Schlapp’s wife, Mercedes, is director of strategic communications at the White House.
NORTH AMERICAN DNA TOUR DATES RESCHEDULED FOR 2021
As long as there’ll be music… we’ll be coming back again!! Our North American #DNAWorldTour dates have OFFICIALLY been rescheduled for next summer and we’ve got them all for you below. Thank you guys for helping us put safety first so we can all party together in 2021! Remember to hold on to those tickets since you’ll be using them for the rescheduled dates in each city! Stay home. Stay safe! -Kevin, Brian, Howie, AJ & Nick All tickets purchased for the original 2020 tour dates are valid for their corresponding rescheduled show. If you cannot attend the new date, please reach out to the point of purchase for more information. North American DNA Tour 2021 6/7/2021 - Los Angeles, CA @ Hollywood Bowl 6/9/2021 - Chula Vista, CA @ North Island Credit Union Amphitheatre 6/11/2021 - Phoenix, AZ @ AK-Chin Pavilion 6/12/2021 - Albuquerque, NM @ Isleta Amphitheater 6/17/2021 - Rogers, AR @ Walmart AMP 6/18/2021 - Irving, TX @ Toyota Music Factory 6/19/2021 - The Woodlands, TX @ Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion 6/21/2021 - Jacksonville, FL @ Vystar Veterans Memorial Arena 6/22/2021 - Tampa, FL @ MidFlorida Credit Union Amphitheatre 6/23/2021 - West Palm Beach, FL @ iTHINK Financial Amphitheatre 6/25/2021 - Charlotte, NC @ PNC Music Pavilion 6/26/2021 - Raleigh, NC @ Walnut Creek Amphitheatre 6/29/2021 - Alpharetta, GA @ Ameris Bank Amphitheatre 7/2/2021 - Toronto, ON @ Budweiser Stage 7/3/2021 - Toronto, ON @ Budweiser Stage 7/7/2021 - Mansfield, MA @ Xfinity Center 7/9/2021 - Wantagh, NY @ Northwell Health at Jones Beach Theater 7/10/2021 - Darien Center, NY @ Darien Lake Amphitheatre 7/12/2021 - Holmdel, NJ @ PNC Bank Arts Center 7/15/2021 - Camden, NJ @ BB&T Pavilion 7/17/2021 - Hartford, CT @ Xfinity Theatre 7/18/2021 - Virginia Beach, VA @ Veterans United Home Loans Amphitheater 7/20/2021 - Bristow, VA @ Jiffy Lube Live 7/22/2021 - Clarkston, MI @ DTE Energy Music Theatre 7/23/2021 - Burgettstown, PA @ S&T Bank Music Park 7/24/2021 - Saratoga Springs, NY @ Saratoga Performing Arts Center 7/27/2021 - Cuyahoga Falls, OH @ Blossom Music Center 7/30/2021 - Indianapolis, IN @ Ruoff Home Mortgage Music Center 7/31/2021 - Chicago, IL @ Hollywood Casino Amphitheater 8/1/2021 - St Louis, MO @ Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre 8/3/2021 - Englewood, CO @ Fiddler's Green Amphitheater 8/5/2021 - Salt Lake City, UT @ USANA Amphitheater 8/7/2021 - Wheatland, CA @ Toyota Amphitheatre 8/8/2021 - Concord, CA @ Concord Pavilion 8/10/2021 - Mountain View, CA @ Shoreline Amphitheatre 8/13/2021 - Auburn, WA @ White River Amphitheatre 8/23/2021 - Nampa, ID @ Ford Idaho Center Arena 8/25/2021 - Spokane, WA @ Spokane Arena 8/27/2021 - Vancouver, BC @ Pepsi Live at Rogers Arena 9/3/2021 - Montreal, QC @ Bell Centre 9/4/2021 - Quebec City, QC @ Videotron Centre 9/8/2021 - Lexington, KY @ Rupp Arena 9/10/2021 - Sioux Falls, SD @ Denny Sanford Premier Center 9/11/2021 - Wichita, KS @ INTRUST Bank Arena 9/12/2021 - Oklahoma City, OK @ Chesapeake Energy Arena BackstreetBoys.com
M. Wesley Swearingen, an FBI agent from 1951 to 1977, writes in his memoir FBI Secrets: An Agent's Expose about the long-standing rumors within the Bureau concerning the relationship between FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover and Associate Director Clyde Tolson which include allegations that Hoover ignored the Mafia for decades because the wise guys had incriminating goods on the supposed lovers:
One year after arriving in Memphis, Hoover transferred me to Chicago, Illinois. I was thrilled – my mind was full of gangsters, Tommy guns, and the FBI's famous machine gun battles of the 1930s. It was clear to me from Chicago's newspaper headlines that gansters ruled a Chicago underworld element in the 1950s because gangland style murders averaged close to 100 a year in the Chicago area. * * * But when I told my colleague and veteran agent Vince Coll of my big plans for Chicago, he said that Hoover did not recognize the existence of a mob in Chicago. According to Coll, Mafia leader Meyer Lansky's organization had enough on Hoover and Tolson, as closet homosexuals, that Hoover would never investigate the mob.
The allegations were fleshed out in Official and Confidential: the Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover by Anthony Summer. A review of the book ("Partners For Life") by Sidney Urquhart for Time magazine summarizes one alleged incident as follows:
Perhaps Summers' most bizarre revelation is an account provided by Susan Rosenstiel, the wife of a liquor distiller and gambling crony. Rosenstiel recalls attending what she thought would be an elegant private party at New York City's Plaza Hotel in the company of lawyer Roy Cohn, Hoover and others. Instead, Cohn introduced Rosenstiel to a woman named "Mary," dressed in a fluffy black dress, lace stockings and high heels. It was obvious Mary was no woman. "You could see where he shaved. It was Hoover," said Rosenstiel. Joined by Cohn, Hoover stripped down to a tiny garter belt and proceeded to have sex with two young boys. Cohn later joked about the evening. "That was really something, wasn't it, with Mary Hoover?"
The "two young boys" with whom Hoover allegedly had sex perhaps were provided by Ed "the Skull" Murphy who was a long-time Genovese associate involved in the crime family's gay bar and boy prostitution rackets in New York City. In Stonewall: The Riots That Sparked The Gay Revolution, David Carter writes:
John Paul Ranieri, a former prostitute interviewed for this history, provided critical testimony for corroborating and better understanding the larger implications of Murphy's criminal enterprises for gay history. Ranieri said that as a youth from Westchester County he had been forced by blackmail and Mafia-supplied drugs into a prostitution ring in which he remained active for three years before he escaped the mob's control. He claimed that a number of youths in the ring had disappeared after they got careless with talk, for while most of the customers were more or less average homosexual men with money, the regular clientele, according to Ranieri, also included famous men such as Malcolm Forbes, Cardinal Spellman, Liberace, U.S. Senators, a vice president of the United States, one of the most famous rock musicians, and J. Edgar Hoover. The mob's order, according to Ranieri, was strictly "Keep your zipper open and your mouth shut." Ranieri said that he met J. Edgar Hoover at private parties at the Plaza Hotel and that Hoover's name was never mentioned. Hoover was always in drag, and Ranieri said he could tell that the FBI director was sure that no one recognized him. Ranieri said that he had ensured his own survival by having in his possession a photograph of himself with Hoover, given to him by the photographer. How does the preceding information link Ed Murphy with J. Edgar Hoover? The connection is made evident in a news story written shortly after Hoover's homosexuality and transvestism became public. When [Anthony] Summer's book [Official and Confidential: The Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover], was published [in 1993], a newspaper story about the 1960s national homosexual blackmail ring suddenly appeared after a quarter of a century of silence on the subject. Without mentioning Murphy's name, it quoted law enforcement sources who had worked on the case as saying that their investigation into the nationwide blackmail ring had turned up a photograph of Hoover "posing amiably" with the racket's ringleader and had uncovered information that Clyde Tolson, Hoover's lover, had himself "fallen victim to the extortion ring." After federal agents joined the investigation, both the photograph of Hoover and the documents about Tolson disappeared. * * * Very suggestive in this context is that Murphy would publicly say in 1978—before it became public information, as it did in the 1990s, that the Mafia had photographs of Hoover involved in sex acts—that he knew that J. Edgar Hoover "was one of my sisters."
Murphy's boys did have a habit of disappearing. For example, one Puerto Rican youth known as Tano with whom Murphy was sexually involved was kidnapped right off the streets never to be seen again according to one eyewitness to the incident as recounted by Carter in Stonewall. Curiously, Murphy also was a long-standing FBI informant according to a May 8, 1978 article ("Skull Murphy: The Gay Double Agent") by Arthur Bell for The Village Voice. Indeed, this article contained the interview in which Murphy expressly speaks of J. Edgar Hoover as one of his "sisters": "He was the biggest fuckin' extortionist in this country. He had presidents by the balls. He had a record on everybody and his brother." The allegations that Meyer Lansky had incriminating evidence against the FBI Director are particularly credible in light of the relationships among all the parties with political fixer Roy Cohn -- a closet case who died of AIDS in 1986 -- at the center of it all. Cohn was a personal friend of Hoover during the 1950s and 1960s, and the two shared extensive correspondence directed to each other on a first-name basis including a September 1957 exchange on an article published by the Director entitled "Let's Wipe Out the Schoolyard Sex Racket." Ironically, only months earlier an apparent obscenity indictment against Cohn had been dismissed according to an FBI memo dated June 28, 1957 from Assistant Director Louis B. Nichols to Clyde Tolson:
Roy Cohn called 6-27-57 to advise that Neil Gallagher of the New Jersey Turnpike Commission represented him in connection with the return of an indictment charging the sale of obscene literature. Gallagher went before the Superior Court judge in Union County, New Jersey, Thursday afternoon and moved the dismissal of the indictment. The district attorney joined him in this recommendation and issued a public apology to Cohn.
Cornelius "Neil" Gallagher later became a U.S. Congressman from Bayonne, NJ until he lost the seat in 1972 after Life magazine ran an article alleging mob ties. The relationship between Hoover and Cohn is particularly troubling given that the FBI was fully aware that Cohn had ties to the most powerful bosses in the Mafia. For example, in 1964 federal prosecutor Robert Morgenthau was trying Cohn on corruption charges, and at the trial introduced excerpts of earlier grand jury testimony by Cohn. A March 27, 1964 article from The New York Times which the FBI contemporaneously clipped for its files on Cohn states:
The excerpts contained admissions by Mr. Cohn that he was acquainted with Geralde (Jerry) Catena, described by the Senate Rackets Committee as "No. 2 Man" in the Vito Genovese unit of the Cosa Nosta, and with Meyer Lansky, gangster. Mr. Cohn said he scarcely knew Lansky but that he had played golf two or three times with Catena.
Cohn further had represented the Stork Club which was Hoover's favorite stomping ground and Schenley Industries which was one of the country's largest liquor distillers. Louis Rosensteil was the president of Schenley Industries, and he had close ties to Meyer Lansky and Frank Costello. "In fact, on several occassions, Hoover was seen at the Stork Club fraternizing with people like Costello and Rosensteil" according to Peter J. Devico in The Mafia Made Easy. After Hoover's right-hand man Louis Nichols left the FBI in 1957, Cohn allegedly secured him a plum job making $100,000 a year at Schenley Industries although Nichols insisted in Hooveresque fashion that Rosensteil shunned the mob. Of couse, the best evidence that Meyer Lansky had the goods on the FBI Director is that the storied agency never laid a hand on the gangster who was a bootleg kingpin during Prohibition, later founded Murder Inc., and finally ran gambling operations in Las Vegas and Havana, Cuba for the Genovese family. At the time of Lansky's death in 1983 the FBI estimated that he had a net worth of $300 million, and yet during his long criminal career the G-men never nailed him on a single charge or recovered a single penny. Indeed, the FBI did not even start a file on Lansky until the 1950s, and a review of the file's sparse contents illustrates that the agency's efforts to target him -- a purported top hoodlum -- were half-hearted at best involving little more than the occasional wiretap and a sometimes surveillance. Indeed, the newspaper articles on Lansky which the FBI clipped were more informative on the mobster's activities than the investigator reports. Ironically, Lansky only was arrested in 1972 -- the same year Hoover died -- as a result of an IRS investigation involving an alleged skimming scheme from a Vegas casino, and even that indictment conveniently was dismissed because Lansky was considered too ill to prosecute.
M. Wesley Swearingen, an FBI agent from 1951 to 1977, writes in his memoir FBI Secrets: An Agent's Expose about the long-standing rumors within the Bureau concerning the relationship between FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover and Associate Director Clyde Tolson which include allegations that Hoover ignored the Mafia for decades because the wise guys had incriminating goods on the supposed lovers:
One year after arriving in Memphis, Hoover transferred me to Chicago, Illinois. I was thrilled – my mind was full of gangsters, Tommy guns, and the FBI's famous machine gun battles of the 1930s. It was clear to me from Chicago's newspaper headlines that gangsters ruled a Chicago underworld element in the 1950s because gangland style murders averaged close to 100 a year in the Chicago area. * * * But when I told my colleague and veteran agent Vince Coll of my big plans for Chicago, he said that Hoover did not recognize the existence of a mob in Chicago. According to Coll, Mafia leader Meyer Lansky's organization had enough on Hoover and Tolson, as closet homosexuals, that Hoover would never investigate the mob.
The allegations were fleshed out in Official and Confidential: the Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover by Anthony Summer. A review of the book ("Partners For Life") by Sidney Urquhart for Time magazine summarizes one alleged incident as follows:
Perhaps Summers' most bizarre revelation is an account provided by Susan Rosenstiel, the wife of a liquor distiller and gambling crony. Rosenstiel recalls attending what she thought would be an elegant private party at New York City's Plaza Hotel in the company of lawyer Roy Cohn, Hoover and others. Instead, Cohn introduced Rosenstiel to a woman named "Mary," dressed in a fluffy black dress, lace stockings and high heels. It was obvious Mary was no woman. "You could see where he shaved. It was Hoover," said Rosenstiel. Joined by Cohn, Hoover stripped down to a tiny garter belt and proceeded to have sex with two young boys. Cohn later joked about the evening. "That was really something, wasn't it, with Mary Hoover?"
The "two young boys" with whom Hoover allegedly had sex perhaps were provided by Ed "the Skull" Murphy who was a long-time Genovese associate involved in the crime family's gay bar and boy prostitution rackets in New York City. In Stonewall: The Riots That Sparked The Gay Revolution, David Carter writes:
John Paul Ranieri, a former prostitute interviewed for this history, provided critical testimony for corroborating and better understanding the larger implications of Murphy's criminal enterprises for gay history. Ranieri said that as a youth from Westchester County he had been forced by blackmail and Mafia-supplied drugs into a prostitution ring in which he remained active for three years before he escaped the mob's control. He claimed that a number of youths in the ring had disappeared after they got careless with talk, for while most of the customers were more or less average homosexual men with money, the regular clientele, according to Ranieri, also included famous men such as Malcolm Forbes, Cardinal Spellman, Liberace, U.S. Senators, a vice president of the United States, one of the most famous rock musicians, and J. Edgar Hoover. The mob's order, according to Ranieri, was strictly "Keep your zipper open and your mouth shut." Ranieri said that he met J. Edgar Hoover at private parties at the Plaza Hotel and that Hoover's name was never mentioned. Hoover was always in drag, and Ranieri said he could tell that the FBI director was sure that no one recognized him. Ranieri said that he had ensured his own survival by having in his possession a photograph of himself with Hoover, given to him by the photographer. How does the preceding information link Ed Murphy with J. Edgar Hoover? The connection is made evident in a news story written shortly after Hoover's homosexuality and transvestism became public. When [Anthony] Summer's book [Official and Confidential: The Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover], was published [in 1993], a newspaper story about the 1960s national homosexual blackmail ring suddenly appeared after a quarter of a century of silence on the subject. Without mentioning Murphy's name, it quoted law enforcement sources who had worked on the case as saying that their investigation into the nationwide blackmail ring had turned up a photograph of Hoover "posing amiably" with the racket's ringleader and had uncovered information that Clyde Tolson, Hoover's lover, had himself "fallen victim to the extortion ring." After federal agents joined the investigation, both the photograph of Hoover and the documents about Tolson disappeared. * * * Very suggestive in this context is that Murphy would publicly say in 1978—before it became public information, as it did in the 1990s, that the Mafia had photographs of Hoover involved in sex acts—that he knew that J. Edgar Hoover "was one of my sisters."
Murphy's boys did have a habit of disappearing. For example, one Puerto Rican youth known as Tano with whom Murphy was sexually involved was kidnapped right off the streets never to be seen again according to one eyewitness to the incident as recounted by Carter in Stonewall. Curiously, Murphy also was a long-standing FBI informant according to a May 8, 1978 article ("Skull Murphy: The Gay Double Agent") by Arthur Bell for The Village Voice. Indeed, this article contained the interview in which Murphy expressly speaks of J. Edgar Hoover as one of his "sisters": "He was the biggest fuckin' extortionist in this country. He had presidents by the balls. He had a record on everybody and his brother." The allegations that Meyer Lansky had incriminating evidence against the FBI Director are particularly credible in light of the relationships among all the parties with political fixer Roy Cohn -- a fellow closet case who died of AIDS in 1986 -- at the center of it all. Cohn was a personal friend of Hoover during the 1950s and 1960s, and the two shared extensive correspondence directed to each other on a first-name basis including a September 1957 exchange on an article published by the Director entitled "Let's Wipe Out the Schoolyard Sex Racket." Ironically, only months earlier an apparent obscenity indictment against Cohn had been dismissed according to an FBI memo dated June 28, 1957 from Assistant Director Louis B. Nichols to Clyde Tolson:
Roy Cohn called 6-27-57 to advise that Neil Gallagher of the New Jersey Turnpike Commission represented him in connection with the return of an indictment charging the sale of obscene literature. Gallagher went before the Superior Court judge in Union County, New Jersey, Thursday afternoon and moved the dismissal of the indictment. The district attorney joined him in this recommendation and issued a public apology to Cohn.
Cornelius "Neil" Gallagher later became a U.S. Congressman from Bayonne, NJ until he lost the seat in 1972 after Life magazine ran an article alleging mob ties. The relationship between Hoover and Cohn is particularly troubling given that the FBI was fully aware that Cohn had ties to the most powerful bosses in the Mafia. For example, in 1964 federal prosecutor Robert Morgenthau was trying Cohn on corruption charges, and at the trial introduced excerpts of earlier grand jury testimony by Cohn. A March 27, 1964 article from The New York Times which the FBI contemporaneously clipped for its files on Cohn states:
The excerpts contained admissions by Mr. Cohn that he was acquainted with Geralde (Jerry) Catena, described by the Senate Rackets Committee as "No. 2 Man" in the Vito Genovese unit of the Cosa Nosta, and with Meyer Lansky, gangster. Mr. Cohn said he scarcely knew Lansky but that he had played golf two or three times with Catena.
Cohn further had represented the Stork Club which was Hoover's favorite stomping ground and Schenley Industries which was one of the country's largest liquor distillers. Louis Rosensteil was the president of Schenley Industries, and he had close ties to Meyer Lansky and Frank Costello. "In fact, on several occassions, Hoover was seen at the Stork Club fraternizing with people like Costello and Rosensteil" according to Peter J. Devico in The Mafia Made Easy. After Hoover's right-hand man Louis Nichols left the FBI in 1957, Cohn allegedly secured him a plum job making $100,000 a year at Schenley Industries although Nichols insisted in Hooveresque fashion that Rosensteil shunned the mob. Of couse, the best evidence that Meyer Lansky had the goods on the FBI Director is that the storied agency never laid a hand on the gangster who was a bootleg kingpin during Prohibition, later founded Murder Inc., and finally ran gambling operations in Las Vegas and Havana, Cuba for the Genovese family. At the time of Lansky's death in 1983 the FBI estimated that he had a net worth of $300 million, and yet during his long criminal career the G-men never nailed him on a single charge or recovered a single penny. Indeed, the FBI did not even start a file on Lansky until the 1950s, and a review of the file's sparse contents illustrates that the agency's efforts to target him -- a purported top hoodlum -- were half-hearted at best involving little more than the occasional wiretap and a sometimes surveillance. Indeed, the newspaper articles on Lansky which the FBI clipped were more informative on the mobster's activities than the investigator reports. Ironically, Lansky only was arrested in 1972 -- the same year Hoover died -- as a result of an IRS investigation involving an alleged skimming scheme from a Vegas casino, and even that indictment conveniently was dismissed because Lansky was considered too ill to prosecute.
Since there was a lot of positive response to my comment on the KD thread about The Garden, I floated the idea of a thread, and you all asked for it, so here it is! Here at reddit, there can be a lot of LOL this (Knicks) and LOL that (Knicks again), and while MSG certainly has its own shortcomings to say the least, there is a true story to be told about the buildings and how it came to be where it is today. Known as ‘The Worlds Most Famous Arena’, MSG played a direct roll in making sports in America what it is today, and while many people criticize the current incarnation of the building, most people don’t know the full story - or that the current one is actually the 4th version (and 3rd location) of the building. The college basketball history at MSG, which I won’t give away yet, is one of if not THE main reason we have our beloved NBA and professional basketball in general today. This is going to be a very long read, like, very very long.But I’m going to try and throw all the really juicy facts in there that I picked up along my years of research from working in the tour department. I thought of splitting it up, but I wanted this post to be a comprehensive history of The World’s Most Famous Arena! If you’re only concerned with the history of the joint once basketball enters into the picture, skip to MSG III. If you want the juicy details on the controversy of tearing down old Penn Station then skip to MSG IIII. If you have any questions on anything or want me to elaborate on anything that I only mention briefly, please feel free to ask! MSG’s history is full of not only amazing moments, but vengeful murders, and a whole lot of sketchy stuff. This is the story of how a small train station on the north east corner of Madison Square Park eventually led to the demolition of an iconic NYC train station some 100 years later. It’s not on Madison Avenue, it’s not square, and it’s not a garden, but there is a good reason for all of this - or at least a good explanation - I promise! MADISON SQUARE GARDEN I Ironically, just how this story’s climax involves tearing an iconic train station down to build the current arena, the beginning starts in much the same way. Just with a significantly less iconic train station. In the mid 1800’s there was a small railroad depot on the north east corner of Madison Square Park, occupied by New York and Harlem Railroad on East 26th street and Madison Ave and owned by Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt. For those of you not familiar with the city (yes, we call it ‘the city’) that location is pretty central and throughout time has had a lot of important events happen there, which is a thread for another time. The park was named for president James Madison, just like the street, which was very common at the time. People loved that guy. The railroad opened up another location you may have heard of, by the name of ‘Grand Central Station’ in 1871, therefor leaving the smaller rail depot on 26th street abandoned. After a few vacant years, the building was leased to PT Barnum, who converted it into what he called the ‘Great Roman Hippodrome’. This place was a big open air oval ‘arena’ where he did exactly what you’d expect. Circuses etc. What happens next is where things start getting interesting. Then the building was leased to a band leader named Patrick Gilmore. Some historians in that field feel like Gilmore is a forgotten guy compared to the likes of John Phillips Sousa, who is really the only person we common modern folk recognize in terms of old timey band leaders. But Gilmore was a very important figure of his day. Gilmore purchased the building and…wait for it…called it Gilmore’s Concert GARDEN. ‘Garden’ was a semi-popular add on to entertainment centers in NY during that era, starting with what I can tell from my research when Castle Clinton (aka, the old fort turned venue turned place you buy your tickets to go out to the Statue of Liberty now) was converted into a venue called Castle garden in the 1820s. The other notable contributions Gilmore made to The Garden are holding the first Westminster Kennel Club dog show, the longest running garden event obviously still held there today, and even doing the first boxing matches there. I always found this bit fascinating, because boxing matches were technically illegal at the time. He called them ‘illustrated lectures’ and as any good New Yorker trying to make a buck does, found a way around the rules and got away with it. This is a common theme within the history of The Garden as you will see. The arena changed hands a few more times, first to an administrator with the dog show, who also started to do more sporty things like tennis and installing one of the first ‘indoor’ ice rinks in the US. The building went back into Vanderbilt control when Commodore died, by his grandson William Vanderbilt. He was the one who decided, the ‘garden’ part was cool, but since it wasn’t leased by Gilmore anymore, he would rename it after the park which it shared a border. Hence the name, Madison Square Garden. He expanded the range of events that were held there including adding bicycle racing. This would be by far the most widely beloved event held at the Garden, including a long running race called ‘Six Days of New York’ where an insane SIX day bike race would be held. These were basically just endurance contests, with a single bicyclist doing as many laps as possible, they could sleep whenever and join back in whenever. This was all the rage, but also dangerous for not only the participants but the spectators. People who wanted to soak up all the action were easy targets for crooks who were also in attendance. These events were so popular nationwide however, that there is even a bicycle discipline called ‘Madison’ named after the OG garden. The building however ran its course, because of its lack of roof and decaying infrastructure. What I mean by decaying can probably best be summed up by the disaster which many people now a days don’t know of, when part of the building collapsed falling outward into the street and some of the roof also caving in with 800 people inside. Apparently it was chaos, and 20 something people were killed or injured. It’s pretty brutal, and if you want to know more about that incident you can read the newspaper article from the time here. Vanderbilt sold the spot to who's who collection of rich white men. JP Morgan, Carnegie, Astor etc. So they decided to tear it down and build a new extremely extravagant arena on the same spot. They got renowned architect Stanford White (more on him later) and they demolished the building in 1889. After spending more than half a million dollars, MSG II was built. Madison Square Garden II By this point, MSG was still not the household name it would become in the future. This building was supposed to change that narrative, which is why these rich guys went all in on it. You’ll see, that they were maybe in over their heads. However, this might be the most fascinating of all the MSGs for several reasons. Firstly, the building was extremely extravagant. That can not be overstated. I would encourage you all to just google pictures of the building, it was massive and you’ll see all the features I’m describing here. It featured a huge 32 story tall bell tower, which was good for the 2nd tallest building in the city at the time. The bellower was topped by a sculpture of the goddess Diana the huntress, which was sculpted by famous artist Augustus Saint-Gaudens, and was gilt in copper. They moved the statue not soon after, and you can see it today at the Philly Museum of art! It spun around in the wind, and their original brilliant idea was to have an actual cloth scarf draped on it, but since wind exists, it got blown away not too long after its installation. Its main hall was the largest in the world. It had not only the main hall which sat 8,000 but just like today’s garden, had a small theater which sat 1200, and even another concert hall which sat 1500. Of course they also had the largest restaurant in the city, because why not. And because it is ‘The Garden’ they decided there should be a roof garden cabaret. They thought this would be a landmark the likes of central park, and it was certainly grandiose enough. They had the same kind of events that the first garden did, including sports, concerts, and all the random stuff they found fun before the invention of TV (not to mention radio, or at least the widespread broadcast of radio). But the problem was, the building was so damn extra, that they had a hard time making enough money to upkeep the place. Now let’s talk about the architect. Stanford White is probably best remembered for designing the Triumphal arch in Washington square, but then closely followed by being murdered in his own building, MSG II, in a lovers quarrel. This was huge news at the time, and so was the trial that ensued, they called it ‘The Trial of The Century’. The building, being as ridiculous as it was, of course housed an apartment for White, and millionaire Harry Kendall Thaw was not too happy with White who apparently had an affair with his actress wife when she was 16. So he came through, and shot him dead in his own building. It’s all incredibly sketchy and simultaneously intriguing, involving major names of the day, which is probably why the trial was so juicy and gripping in the eyes of the general public. Anyways, the building was ultimately a failure, and didn’t last very long in retrospect. Everyone knew what Madison Square Garden was, and it was a landmark from 1890-1926, but the building failed to live up to expectations, much less make money. A 36 year run is really nothing to write home about, especially with the illusions (or better yet delusions) of grandeur its rich owners had in mind. There were some important sporting events that happened there, but what would happen in the next building would be the reason The Garden is now known as, The Worlds most Famous Arena. Interestingly the building there today, the New York Life Insurance Company, was built on that plot directly after MSG II was demolished. They owned the mortgage on the building, so they just built their headquarters there. It’s an iconic building in its own right, and if you’re on the NE corner of the park, there’s a plaque on the building which notes that it was the location of the first 2 Gardens. The only thing MSG still had was, well, the name.And in walked Tex Rickard, to seize an opportunity that proved to be golden. Madison Square Garden III If you’ve never heard of Tex Rickard, think PT Barnum, Don King, etc. He was the leading boxing (and more) promoter of the day, and was a very successful businessman, operating saloons, hotels, casinos, and the like. He was a country boy, born in Missouri and raised in Texas, but had a knack for business and promotion. Tex saw the opportunity to buy the name, and incorporated the ‘New Madison Square Garden Corporation’ in 1923. It was smart, although MSG II didn't make money, it was still a household name in NYC. The purpose was to build a less extravagant arena, but a place that would be iconic in its own right and host major sporting events, including NHL games. This is where MSG started to make a name for itself as a major player in venues, and eventually THE most famous arena in the world. So Tex bought a big block of land quite a bit of a ways away from the original site of The Garden, on 8th avenue between 49th and 50th street. He basically built a big box, designed by theater architect Thomas Lamb, at the cost of almost 5 million dollars and in a remarkable 249 days. I think it’s sufficient to say that ol’ Tex knew how to get things done. He had a bunch of rich backers, plenty of clout, and he threw his arena up in sharp contrast to the old garden. It did however have a very iconic marquee, and if you talk to anyone who was around at the time they will note that the marquee was the distinguishing feature of the building. The main draw originally was boxing, as that was Tex’s bag. They had major fights, and drew much larger crowds than the older gardens, mostly because they could cram almost 20,000 people in there. The site lines were apparently terrible, but by all accounts the energy that still haunts the current garden, was the main draw. Then, hockey happened. This was the idea from the start, as fellow sports promoter Thomas Duggan had options on three expansion teams for the NHL, to be established in the US. One became the Bruins, and then one was arranged to be given to NYC’s most-celebrated prohibition bootlegger Bill Dwyer, who arranged with Tex to have the team play at MSG III. Tex had an agreement with the first team they started, The New York Americans, aka The Amerks (ever heard of them?), that they would be the only hockey team to ever play at The Garden. Although there was a clause in the contract that Tex claimed he would never exercise, that claimed if Tex and MSG ever made a bid for a team, the Amerks would support it. Tex kept his word for approximately one year, when due to the American’s success, he went out and got himself a hockey team. The tabloids dubbed this team Tex’s Rangers, an obvious play on words, and you can guess what that team that became today. The Rangers soon eclipsed the Amerks in success, and The Garden’s lore began to grow as the place to be in NYC. One more note on Tex, and maybe the most important in my biased Knicks ‘no other arena is THE GARDEN’ mind.he started 7 other Madison Square Garden’s around the country. Including ‘Boston Madison Square Garden’ which as you may guess, became known as Boston Garden.Thats right Celtics fans, your building was named after ours.Thanks Tex, for unknowingly providing another iconic building, that the future inhabitants of your NYC building would lose in over and over again! Anyways…now is where basketball becomes the star - so you can all start paying attention! At the time, nobody thought professional basketball was a viable way of making money. Rickard passed away in 1929, and during the great depression things stayed somewhat status quo, but also there were now a lot of days where the giant arena wasn’t being used at all. Then, in walked Ned Irish, a successful sports journalist who quit his job covering basketball games for the World-Telegram, to start promoting basketball games at MSG III. The Garden let him promote and hold games there, as long as he would just cover the rent, that’s how bad things were economically. To everyone’s pleasant surprise, the college games became a lot more financially successful than anyone had anticipated. Along with making money, these college games were probably the number one factor in growing the game nationwide in general. College ball became the marquee (pun intended) event at MSG III, especially the double headers. This was a time, before the infamous point shaving scandals, that NYC college basketball was a force in the college game. It’s hard to believe now, but teams like NYU and CCNY were the equivalent of today’s Duke and UNC. By 1946, they were selling out the arena, and the city (and country) had fallen in love with the game of basketball. The NIT was started during this time, and even the first televised basketball game happened there in the form of a Fordham-Pitt / Georgetown-NYU doubleheader. The previously mentioned point shaving scandal involving the NYC schools hamstrung Irish’s ability to put on marquee matchups at MSG III, as a lot of the major teams were banned from playing there, and the NCAA reduced its use of the arena as a result. Ned, being the promoter genius that he was, saw the success of the college game, knew his limitations with that now, and thought…Why can’t we do this with professional athletes and start a league? There had technically been professional basketball being played at MSG III since its inception, but it was traveling teams like the original Celtics, which weren’t associated with a league. People just didn’t think there was enough money in it, or a means and arenas to have such a league. So with other owners of hockey arenas around the US (and Canada!) They started the NBA in 1946. It wasn’t instantly as popular as the college game as you may suspect, with the Knicks even having to play at the 69th (nice) regiment armory when a college game was on that took priority over the NBA. Ironically, the armory was a few blocks away from the original location of MSG I and II, on Lexington between 25th and 26th, it’s still there for those NYers who happen to walk by and notice the building. There were other major nationally news worth events that happened at MSG III, including a host of politically themed ventures including both a packed Nazi rally (really, and people were NOT happy about it as you may imagine) and an anti-nazi rally. There are some very famous photos and press about the pro Nazi rally, which happened in 1939 and was organized by the ‘German American Bund’. As Nazi's were wont to do, they recorded the thing, and for what it's worth, its some of the best and most crisp footage of the old garden although the Nazi's really spoil it - Here are the receipts. If only they put their efforts into making beautiful videos of basketball games instead of hate. Too bad the guy who charged the stage didn't do any damage, and I hate to think of what they did to him. Anyways before I get too riled up, a few years later this group would be banned, but MSG certainly took some heat for allowing this to go down, and deservedly so. The tradition of MSG doing anything for a buck holds strong! Probably the most noteworthy event ever held in that venue was also somewhat a political event.The most famous version of ‘Happy Birthday’ ever sung took place at JFK’s birthday party, sung of course by Marilyn Monroe, at MSG III.Most people probably had no idea where this took place, and it may be realistically the most famous moment from any of the incarnations of MSG. Another one of my favorite stories from that time is when they had first built MSG III there was a boxer, who’s name escapes me but this is the NBA sub so you all don’t care, that didn’t realize there was a new venue, so he showed up at the site of MSG II only to see that it had been demolished. He scooted uptown as quickly as he could, and won his fight. There is a whole host of boxing history that went down there, but I won’t bore you all with the details, just go look it up if you’re interested! The boxing events most of you have heard of, such as The Fight of the Century, would happen at the building that stands today, MSG IIII. Now, on to the controversy. Madison Square Garden IIII (current arena) This is all just fact, and I won’t get into my biased opinion on why or why not this was the right thing to do. I’m going to lay out the full controversy before I get into some fun facts about the current arena…So here goes… Yes, there was an above ground Penn Station.It was thought of as one of the most iconic and beautiful landmarks in NYC.Look up some pictures, it’s very cool. In 1959, Graham-Paige bought a 40% stake in MSG for $4 million. Then, in 1960, Graham-Paige president Irving Felt (old NYers will recognize the name, the Felt Forum, which was the original name for the theater under the arena floor) bought the right to Penn Station. The idea was always that he would tear the old station down, and build the sports complex. The Pennsylvania Railroad company sold the air rights to the property because passenger traffic was on the decline after WW2, and they weren’t making enough money to upkeep the station. I’m sure the Penn Railroad company wasn’t too keen on tearing the building down, but Felt made them an offer they couldn’t refuse. In exchange for the rights of a building they couldn’t support anymore, the Penn Railroad company got a brand new, smaller station completely below the street at no cost, and also a 25% stake in the new MSG complex. That probably worked out ok for them. People tried to save the old station, as it was a beautiful and a lot of people were outraged that the city would let this happen. At the end of the day, the city voted to demolish the building in 1963. A lot went into this, it was simply too much for the railroad company to upkeep, and like I said, they got a pretty great offer. Also, they had at first optioned the air rights to William Zeckendorf in 1954, and he had some plans which would reconfigure the train station into several different things including a ‘world trade center’ and a ‘Palace of Progress’. These things didn’t come to pass, again, this was a MASSIVE building. Now it should be noted, if NYC wanted to save the building, they could have saved the building. It would not have been cheap, but they could have done it. However the city thought that since it was originally intended to be a ‘cost-effective and functional piece of the city’s infrastructure’ it was now mostly just a ‘monument to the past’. Pretty cold, but the city had a history of destroying historic buildings to build even more historic ones. A lot of the criticism from people after MSG4 was built, was that this was not the case in this instance, as opposed to say - tearing down the original Waldorf-Astoria to put up the Empire State Building. That one in retrospect, doesn’t have as much contention. The city thought they were being ‘progressive’ and from what I can gather, people didn’t believe they were actually going to tear the building down until they actually started doing it. When they actually started tearing it down, it sparked international outrage. As another user pointed out on the other thread, this led to the establishment of the NYC landmarks preservation commission, which did in fact save Grand Central from demolition in 1968. So that’s a silver lining to all of this. NYC didn’t step up to save the old Penn Station, but its demolition was not in vain. The outrage that it caused has surely saved plenty of other historic buildings from their demise. Like I said, I’m not trying to say it was right or wrong, this post is simply to state the facts on what happened and why it all happened. (((I realize that I may have been typing hastily and drunk when I responded with why the old landmark Penn Station building was torn down for the new MSG. Admittedly, my timeline was slightly off, as the ‘no property tax’ thing happened afterwards to keep the Knicks / Rangers / MSG in the city. I went back into my research and wanted to make sure I explained what happened 100% accurately. Even though nobody disputed this in the thread, my post may have been confusing and the timeline in my head was a bit skewed, as I said the threat of moving to NJ was a factor in them originally tearing the train station down. This was the reason for the property tax cut, but not the original demo of the train station, as you've just read. I wanted to make sure the accurate story was told. So this should clear up the timeline, and why and when things happened the way they did.))) The next big controversy is what I had a little mixed up in my original post, as I clumped it together with the original controversy, and that is the threat of the teams moving to New Jersey. This did happen and this is where it gets very, very, VERY sketchy. In 1982, when Gulf and Western owned MSG, they threatened to move the teams to NJ, as the Giants and Jets had done, and also the Devils although they didn’t come from Manhattan. NJ had proven a more than viable option for professional sports teams, as it was just a short train ride away to the new Meadowlands Sports Complex. The Garden was in need of renovation, so they made then mayor Ed Koch an ultimatum - give us a tax break to help us renovate the arena and add the new fangled luxury boxes that all the newer arenas had. That led to a full property tax exemption for the next 10 years. Koch ‘didn’t realize’ that no one put in a sunset date for the tax exemption. Some think he confused the clause that stated the teams would be locked in for at least 10 more years, for a clause that said the tax exemption would only last for 10 more years. The first part of that is true, so interestingly enough the Knicks and Rangers are not allowed to play home games anywhere else but MSG, or they would break the agreement, so things like the NHL winter classic that the Rangers play in, even if in NY they have to be the away team. Knicks in London? Away team. Not that those teams would give up a home games worth of revenue, but still they technically have to be the away team. So the garden has saved somewhere around half a billion dollars, yes BILLION dollars in property tax payments. It’s around $50 Million now, and although there have been bills, most notably in 2014 to try and get this changed, so far it’s fallen on deaf ears. The argument against this is pretty plain to see, the Knicks and the Rangers are the most profitable teams in their respective sports, and that they don’t need this tax break. Let’s make one thing clear, Jim Dolan definitely does NOT need the tax break. Everyone has to pay property taxes. Except, Dolan and MSG. It’s a hard pill to swallow, even as the most diehard Knicks fan. The City Council almost unanimously voted to take it to state legislature in 2014, which has authority over the cities tax rules. There is sketchy stuff all through this, like state assembly leader at the time Sheldon Silver having his daughter and one of his former top aides on MSG payroll. Oh yeah, Sheldon Silver was convicted of federal fraud and extortion charges sometime after that focused on large payments that Silver received for years from Goldberg & Iryami, a law firm that specialized in seeking reductions of New York City real estate taxes for real estate developers. Silver was alleged to have persuaded developers who had business with the state to use the firm, which in turn generated $700,000 in referral fees to Silver. Totally not sketchy at all. Here’s where it stands today, as controversy will be back to a fever pitch in a few years. In 2013, the NYC council voted unanimously to give MSG a ten year permit, as opposed to their current agreement which gave them operating rights in perpetuity. This means that MSG’s operating permit is up in 2023. Penn Station is in dire need of renovation. Like, more-so than the Knicks are in need of talent. Dolan also spent a couple billion on renovating the arena into the state of the art facility it is today. He’s not planning on moving it. If the city wants Dolan to move the garden so they can renovate the station, it would be massively complicated, and the city would be forced to offer huge subsidies to get MSG out of the way. So chances are, everything goes on, status quo. Now I will say, from my time receiving internal emails at MSG, Dolan does not want a fight with the city. They realize that there can potentially be a compromise here. Also, he has a ton of money, and politicians tend to respond to that. One thing that is a step in the right direction, is the massive building across 8th avenue, the iconic post office, which just like the old Penn Station has gone largely unused but BECAUSE of Penn Stations demolition has been protected itself from demolition. It has already begun to be repurposed for the train station, and by 2021 they are supposed to finish the construction on the inside to a huge, new, modern train hub. This will do a lot honestly in reducing the congestion in the old underground station. The other internal rumblings, were that Dolan was going to let them build into the theater. Cuomo actually announced this plan, which would leave the arena intact. I will explain the layout of the current building later, but underneath the arena floor up on the 5th floor, sits the 2nd largest theater in all of NYC. In my time there it was being used less and less, mostly because the garden also owns Radio City and The Beacon theater, which are much nicer venues. There have been iconic events down in the theater also, including many NBA drafts, and some epic Eddie Murphy stand up specials, but it is in need of renovation. It is the only area that they didn’t touch during the renovation, because the thought process is that they’d just be competing with themselves in Radio and The Beacon. So The idea is that Dolan will throw the city a bone, and let them build up into the theater, in exchange for keeping the status quo, which would give Penn a much larger footprint. Admittedly, I’m not sure what progress has gone into this plan, and if the Amtrak plan for the post office has changed any of that. Basically, we’re just going to have to wait until 2023 to see what the future really holds for MSG, but knowing a bit about NYC politics, I wouldn’t count on anything changing. Ok, now that that’s all out of the way, lets talk about the fun side of MSG4, if it hasn’t already left too sour of a taste in your collective mouths. The new building is actually a pretty fascinating piece of architecture in its own right. Some people think the facade is ugly, and that’s fair, but the inner workings are pretty cool. Charles Luckman was the architect, and he also designed the Forum out in LA, owned now by MSG as well. In my opinion, the most fascinating part of the structure is the cable system which supports it. 48 cables connect from the outer circumference of the building, meeting at the middle in a center tension ring. This allows the arena to not have visual support beams, like the arenas before it all boasted. No visual beams means better sight lines, and less obstructions. This is a cool article from the time about it if you care to know more about the actual construction. If you’re ever at The Garden, look for little circular plaques on the wall, numbered 1-48. These mark where the cables line up in the arena, and security can actually use these to dictate where they are in the building. You’ll probably never notice them, unless you’re looking for them. The other cool thing about the roof, is that if you look closely you’ll see that the actual ceiling which sits between the cables, you’ll see that it has tiny holes all through it. Thats because the ceiling is designed to absorb sound, its filled with sound absorption material so when the sound passes through the holes it helps deaden the room. Usually arenas are the worst place to see a concert, and the general rule of thumb is - the bigger the room, the louder and boomier it will be. It’s certainly not as good sounding as a smaller concert venue but it is better than any arena you’ll find. As opposed to oracle arena, which has a concrete ceiling meant to amplify sound for sporting events etc. Which makes it even more impressive how loud it gets in there, despite the ceilings best efforts. When the building was built there was a 48 lane bowling alley, an art gallery, a hall of fame, and a 501 seat cinema. Thats right, a 48 lane bowling alley. It closed in the 80s, but had a lot of bowling events including some sort of bowling TV show apparently. I haven’t been able to confirm this, but this was what I was told by a reliable source! Someone older than myself can probably speak to that. Unlike most arenas, the arena floor of MSG is actually 5 floors above street level, which allows for the theater underneath the arena floor. Although the Felt Forum Theater at Madison Square Garden doesn’t have as many events as it used to, they still have events and even at the same time that there are events going on up in the main arena. When I was working there, we had plenty of instances where there were crazy concerts or games going on upstairs, and other events going on in the theater. You would have never known the other was going on, and there is no sound transmitted from one venue to the other. Also if you’re familiar with the theater, the rumor is the lights (probably its defining characteristic) that pattern the theater ceiling, equates exactly to the number of seats in the theater. I never was bored enough to count, so that’ll just have to be a rumor for now! The floor of the arena itself is pretty cool, and if you’re not familiar with how these multi-sport arenas work, the ice lives underneath the court all through hockey and basketball season. It’s pretty remarkable to watch the ice crew make the ice, and pretty sad when it gets melted. The fun fact here is, not only can they switch over in under 3 hours from one sport to the other, but they WILL do it and have to do it several times a year to do a Knicks and Rangers home game on the same day. All four sides of the arena have expandable seating, think high school gym, which allows for almost 2 thousand more seats during Knicks games as opposed to rangers games. They cover the ice with a fiberglass/plastic compound material, and then the floor fits together like a giant puzzle over top of the material. This current material has been used since the renovation, and the ridiculous thing is before the new material, supposedly they had to melt the ice once during the season - to accommodate for the longest running event in MSG history, the dog show. Apparently the dogs could sense the ice! I wasn’t there at that time, but that was what I was told was the scenario. Another ridiculous thing is seeing them set up for professional bull riding. It’s insane, they bring in literally 20 something dump trucks of dirt and they do a ‘running of the bulls’ where all the bulls run up the ramp that goes to the street, and into their pens. It’s probably the wildest thing you’ll see being set up there, and also leaves the arena smelling like, well, you know, for several weeks. Not as bad as it smells after Phish comes through for NYE, and no I’m not talking about reefer. That would be one thing, but it just smells…grimy. As much as we all collectively have some disdain for James Dolan, it hasn’t been all bad. He has hosted 3 of the biggest benifit concerts of all time, for 9/11, Katrina, and Sandy. All the proceeds from these shows went towards victim relief. But what people don’t realize is that the first ever benefit concert happened at MSG, in George Harrison’s ‘The Concert For Bangladesh’. As for the new renovation, they really did a nice job in a lot of ways. It took 3 years, from 2011-13. First of all, if you’ve never sat on the bridge for a game, do it. It’s truly a one of a kind view. If you’re not familiar with the bridge, they are 2 suspended walkways that were added during the renovation, with several rows of seating that stretch across the arena. One side is the ‘Media bridge’ where there are TV’s with full cable, all kinds of plugs for laptops and internet and all that. They will sell tickets to this side when it’s a game that the media isn’t hogging the whole thing. I like hanging up there during games because there are advanced stats on some of the channels, anything you would need to be covering the game from a journalistic perspective, so it’s pretty cool. Also that’s where the radio, and the hockey TV broadcast booths are, since the vantage point is better up there for hockey than on the glass. Pro tip - sometimes on stub hub or wherever, those seats can be cheaper than the ones further back not on the bridge. This is because they’re the ‘300’ level, where as the seats all the way up on the sides are the 200 level. However there really isn’t a bad seat in the house. And there are bars INSIDE the seating area, so if you’re up in the top of the 200’s, you can hit the bar without ever leaving the arena bowl and missing a single second of that can’t miss Knicks basketball. The 400 level is cool too, that’s the blue seats, which were the original color of all the 400 level seats. Back in the day, when there were paper tickets, the seats in the different levels were different colors, and the tickets for those seats would be the same color as your seats! The suite situation is very insane now a days. There are the event level suites, which are 20 suites located literally on the arena floor, underneath the seating. They have no view of the game, but they come with 8 seats each right in the first few rows. It’s the best of both worlds, so you’ll see the first few rows CLEAR OUT during half time to go into their little luxury caves. There are also suites all through the mid level of the arena, and then a 3rd level of suites up on the 9th floor, facing the stage. There are also luxury clubs, including the Delta Club, which if you’ve never had a ticket with access to it, and can afford it - I highly recommend it. Everything (minus alcohol of course!) is free, and the food is honestly ridiculous. Further down the hall and down the stairs is the JP Morgan club (throwback!) where an even more elite club (closest 100 or so seats) can hang out. And even more so, there is a place called ‘suite 200’. I never knew about this until I worked there. You can only go there if you’re invited, which means you’re very famous. For some reason, my keycard had access to this, and I explored it a few times. It’s ridiculous. Original trophies, huge original paintings, etc. Speaking of trophies - everyone used to ask me where the Knicks championship trophies are - and the truth is, back when the Knicks won it was so long ago, that the NBA trophy was like the Stanley cup and changed hands every year. So…no Knicks championship trophies. However if you go to MSG you’ll notice the defining moments collection, the top moments in MSG history that line the walls of the 2 main concourses. There is one dedicated to the 1970 championship, and it has the eastern conference trophy in it.Now this I can confirm is true - if you examine the trophy you’ll notice that the little basketball player on top is a different hue than the rest of the trophy.That’s because apparently when they were compiling these displays a few years ago, they found the trophy in storage with the basketball man broken off the top of it, so they had to replace it.That’s why you can visibly tell that there is a difference between him and the rest of the trophy, if you really examine it. Obviously there have been so many huge events at The Garden, I don’t really need to get into that here. Also if you ever get the chance, visit the 9th floor where the signature suites are located. The coolest memorabilia in the building is up there, including one of those signed 50 greatest lithographs, Patrick Ewing and Wayne Gretzky’s locker, and even the statue of Joe Gans, a legendary African American boxer. This statue has the patina pretty much gone from his outstretched left arm is it was tradition for boxers to tap gloves with Joe for good luck before they took the ring. Now it sits up there, right next to the scale that was in use during the time of the fight of the century featuring Frazier and Ali. They also have an old school ice resurfacer up there, which is pretty cool. Well, I’m sure there’s a ton that I left out - If you made it this far, you’re a champ. TL;DR - Boston Garden was originally called Boston Madison Square Garden and was named after the arena in NY. There is only one 'The Garden' and it's super duper important. ;) Edit - I should have mentioned wrestling. It’s intimately tied to MSG, but really deserves its own thread and I have no more characters!
M. Wesley Swearingen, an FBI agent from 1951 to 1977, writes in his memoir FBI Secrets: An Agent's Expose about the long-standing rumors within the Bureau concerning the relationship between FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover and Associate Director Clyde Tolson which include allegations that Hoover ignored the Mafia for decades because the wise guys had incriminating goods on the supposed lovers:
One year after arriving in Memphis, Hoover transferred me to Chicago, Illinois. I was thrilled – my mind was full of gangsters, Tommy guns, and the FBI's famous machine gun battles of the 1930s. It was clear to me from Chicago's newspaper headlines that gansters ruled a Chicago underworld element in the 1950s because gangland style murders averaged close to 100 a year in the Chicago area. * * * But when I told my colleague and veteran agent Vince Coll of my big plans for Chicago, he said that Hoover did not recognize the existence of a mob in Chicago. According to Coll, Mafia leader Meyer Lansky's organization had enough on Hoover and Tolson, as closet homosexuals, that Hoover would never investigate the mob.
The allegations were fleshed out in Official and Confidential: the Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover by Anthony Summer. A review of the book ("Partners For Life") by Sidney Urquhart for Time magazine summarizes one alleged incident as follows:
Perhaps Summers' most bizarre revelation is an account provided by Susan Rosenstiel, the wife of a liquor distiller and gambling crony. Rosenstiel recalls attending what she thought would be an elegant private party at New York City's Plaza Hotel in the company of lawyer Roy Cohn, Hoover and others. Instead, Cohn introduced Rosenstiel to a woman named "Mary," dressed in a fluffy black dress, lace stockings and high heels. It was obvious Mary was no woman. "You could see where he shaved. It was Hoover," said Rosenstiel. Joined by Cohn, Hoover stripped down to a tiny garter belt and proceeded to have sex with two young boys. Cohn later joked about the evening. "That was really something, wasn't it, with Mary Hoover?"
The "two young boys" with whom Hoover allegedly had sex perhaps were provided by Ed "the Skull" Murphy who was a long-time Genovese associate involved in the crime family's gay bar and boy prostitution rackets in New York City. In Stonewall: The Riots That Sparked The Gay Revolution, David Carter writes:
John Paul Ranieri, a former prostitute interviewed for this history, provided critical testimony for corroborating and better understanding the larger implications of Murphy's criminal enterprises for gay history. Ranieri said that as a youth from Westchester County he had been forced by blackmail and Mafia-supplied drugs into a prostitution ring in which he remained active for three years before he escaped the mob's control. He claimed that a number of youths in the ring had disappeared after they got careless with talk, for while most of the customers were more or less average homosexual men with money, the regular clientele, according to Ranieri, also included famous men such as Malcolm Forbes, Cardinal Spellman, Liberace, U.S. Senators, a vice president of the United States, one of the most famous rock musicians, and J. Edgar Hoover. The mob's order, according to Ranieri, was strictly "Keep your zipper open and your mouth shut." Ranieri said that he met J. Edgar Hoover at private parties at the Plaza Hotel and that Hoover's name was never mentioned. Hoover was always in drag, and Ranieri said he could tell that the FBI director was sure that no one recognized him. Ranieri said that he had ensured his own survival by having in his possession a photograph of himself with Hoover, given to him by the photographer. How does the preceding information link Ed Murphy with J. Edgar Hoover? The connection is made evident in a news story written shortly after Hoover's homosexuality and transvestism became public. When [Anthony] Summer's book [Official and Confidential: The Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover], was published [in 1993], a newspaper story about the 1960s national homosexual blackmail ring suddenly appeared after a quarter of a century of silence on the subject. Without mentioning Murphy's name, it quoted law enforcement sources who had worked on the case as saying that their investigation into the nationwide blackmail ring had turned up a photograph of Hoover "posing amiably" with the racket's ringleader and had uncovered information that Clyde Tolson, Hoover's lover, had himself "fallen victim to the extortion ring." After federal agents joined the investigation, both the photograph of Hoover and the documents about Tolson disappeared. * * * Very suggestive in this context is that Murphy would publicly say in 1978—before it became public information, as it did in the 1990s, that the Mafia had photographs of Hoover involved in sex acts—that he knew that J. Edgar Hoover "was one of my sisters."
Murphy's boys did have a habit of disappearing. For example, one Puerto Rican youth known as Tano with whom Murphy was sexually involved was kidnapped right off the streets never to be seen again according to one eyewitness to the incident as recounted by Carter in Stonewall. Curiously, Murphy also was a long-standing FBI informant according to a May 8, 1978 article ("Skull Murphy: The Gay Double Agent") by Arthur Bell for The Village Voice. Indeed, this article contained the interview in which Murphy expressly speaks of J. Edgar Hoover as one of his "sisters": "He was the biggest fuckin' extortionist in this country. He had presidents by the balls. He had a record on everybody and his brother." The allegations that Meyer Lansky had incriminating evidence against the FBI Director are particularly credible in light of the relationships among all the parties with political fixer Roy Cohn -- a fellow closet case who died of AIDS in 1986 -- at the center of it all. Cohn was a personal friend of Hoover during the 1950s and 1960s, and the two shared extensive correspondence directed to each other on a first-name basis including a September 1957 exchange on an article published by the Director entitled "Let's Wipe Out the Schoolyard Sex Racket." Ironically, only months earlier an apparent obscenity indictment against Cohn had been dismissed according to an FBI memo dated June 28, 1957 from Assistant Director Louis B. Nichols to Clyde Tolson:
Roy Cohn called 6-27-57 to advise that Neil Gallagher of the New Jersey Turnpike Commission represented him in connection with the return of an indictment charging the sale of obscene literature. Gallagher went before the Superior Court judge in Union County, New Jersey, Thursday afternoon and moved the dismissal of the indictment. The district attorney joined him in this recommendation and issued a public apology to Cohn.
Cornelius "Neil" Gallagher later became a U.S. Congressman from Bayonne, NJ until he lost the seat in 1972 after Life magazine ran an article alleging mob ties. The relationship between Hoover and Cohn is particularly troubling given that the FBI was fully aware that Cohn had ties to the most powerful bosses in the Mafia. For example, in 1964 federal prosecutor Robert Morgenthau was trying Cohn on corruption charges, and at the trial introduced excerpts of earlier grand jury testimony by Cohn. A March 27, 1964 article from The New York Times which the FBI contemporaneously clipped for its files on Cohn states:
The excerpts contained admissions by Mr. Cohn that he was acquainted with Geralde (Jerry) Catena, described by the Senate Rackets Committee as "No. 2 Man" in the Vito Genovese unit of the Cosa Nosta, and with Meyer Lansky, gangster. Mr. Cohn said he scarcely knew Lansky but that he had played golf two or three times with Catena.
Cohn further had represented the Stork Club which was Hoover's favorite stomping ground and Schenley Industries which was one of the country's largest liquor distillers. Louis Rosensteil was the president of Schenley Industries, and he had close ties to Meyer Lansky and Frank Costello. "In fact, on several occassions, Hoover was seen at the Stork Club fraternizing with people like Costello and Rosensteil" according to Peter J. Devico in The Mafia Made Easy. After Hoover's right-hand man Louis Nichols left the FBI in 1957, Cohn allegedly secured him a plum job making $100,000 a year at Schenley Industries although Nichols insisted in Hooveresque fashion that Rosensteil shunned the mob. Of couse, the best evidence that Meyer Lansky had the goods on the FBI Director is that the storied agency never laid a hand on the gangster who was a bootleg kingpin during Prohibition, later founded Murder Inc., and finally ran gambling operations in Las Vegas and Havana, Cuba for the Genovese family. At the time of Lansky's death in 1983 the FBI estimated that he had a net worth of $300 million, and yet during his long criminal career the G-men never nailed him on a single charge or recovered a single penny. Indeed, the FBI did not even start a file on Lansky until the 1950s, and a review of the file's sparse contents illustrates that the agency's efforts to target him -- a purported top hoodlum -- were half-hearted at best involving little more than the occasional wiretap and a sometimes surveillance. Indeed, the newspaper articles on Lansky which the FBI clipped were more informative on the mobster's activities than the investigator reports. Ironically, Lansky only was arrested in 1972 -- the same year Hoover died -- as a result of an IRS investigation involving an alleged skimming scheme from a Vegas casino, and even that indictment conveniently was dismissed because Lansky was considered too ill to prosecute.
Party Casino is running in New Jersey. Check out the in-depth review and find out about the bonuses and promotions. T&Cs apply, 21+ NJ residents only Nj.partycasino.com is operated under license and is regulated by the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement in accordance with the Casino Control Act N.J.S.A. 5:12-1 and its implementing regulations. Our games are tested by the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement to provide games that are fair and operate correctly. Nj.partycasino.com is operated under license and is regulated by the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement in accordance with the Casino Control Act N.J.S.A. 5:12-1 and its implementing regulations. Our games are tested by the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement to provide games that are fair and operate correctly. Terms and Conditions: $50 Free Casino Chip comes with a 20x wagering requirement and a $100 maximum allowed cash-out. Bonus amount is considered fully cashable and will not be removed from your withdrawal request. There is no deposit required to claim this bonus, however Party City Casino does not allow multiple accounts or free chip redemptions in a row. Party City has put together an array of birthday party themes for adults and kids that will help you celebrate in style. Our kids’ birthday party themes include everything from the latest movie characters to classic sports, games and topic themes like space, dinosaurs and more. PartyCasino Bonus Code 2021 NJ. Party Casino bonus code is BonusPARTY for NJ. With the Party Casino promo code you get welcome bonus of 100% cash bonus up to $500. This bonus is one of the best casino bonuses in the NJ Casino industry for new players. You need to deposit at PartyCasino 3 times to get the $500 bonus. Party is a 100% legal NJ Casino. They’re proud to offer a safe and secure environment to their player’s thanks to their association with the Borgata. They accept many easy to use payment methods. So adding funds to your account is hassle-free. Get the party started! Find everything you need on your shopping list, whether you browse online or at one of our party stores, at an affordable price. Nj.partycasino.com is operated under license and is regulated by the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement in accordance with the Casino Control Act N.J.S.A. 5:12-1 and its implementing regulations. Our games are tested by the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement to provide games that are fair and operate correctly.
Casino Pier is a boardwalk amusement park situated on a pier, in Seaside Heights, New Jersey.Track: "Defeated No More Ft. Edward Macfarlane" by Disclosure atlantic city nj is supposed to be a torist city , well that's what you think. in this short film i take you to 4 parts of ac were the most crimes are happen... Hard Rock Casino•Walkthrough•Casino And Memorabilia•Atlantic City NJ•Memorial Day ‘19•Jersey Shore Come along for the adventure as we explore the brand new Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City, NJ. featuring beautiful chandeliers, and exciting techn... Hello everyone, today is Christmas Day. Come with me lets take a walkthrough inside Hardrock Hotel & Casino at Atlantic City NJ. Walking Through Inside Hard ... Casinos and Boardwalk in Atlantic City, New JerseyAtlantic City is a city in Atlantic County, New Jersey, a resort city in the northeast known for its casino... Just a mini tour of were I live in Atlantic City NJ right near a closed down casino.
