Joe Bruno's Mobsters - Six Volume Set by Joe Bruno Page B

Cornelius W. Lawrence agreed that the fire could be stopped, if they blew up certain buildings in strategic places, so that the flames could not travel from building to building. The only problem was, the sale of gunpowder was forbidden in New York City. The nearest ample supply was in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, in Red Hook, Brooklyn, as well as on Governors Island.
    Mayor Strong sent word that the gunpowder was needed immediately, but it did not arrive until noon on December 17, accompanied by 80 marines and a dozen sailors. The military, with the help of James Hamilton, the son of former Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton, began blowing up buildings. In a few hours, the blaze was contained at Coenties Slip.
    As downtown Manhattan continued smoldering, hundreds of Irish men, women, and children, from the slums of the Five Points area, rushed into the devastated area, eyes sparkling, and hands a-grabbing. For a full 24 hours, the hoodlums looted whatever they could get their hands on: stealing cloaks, frock coats, plug hats, and silk and satin of the finest quality.
    Cases and kegs of booze, beer, and wine were smashed open, and the mob drank heartily in the smoky frigid streets. Fights broke out between the drunk and delirious rioters, over who had the right to steal what. Ten thousand bottles of  the finest champagne were stolen, too, and what the mob could not guzzle on site, they lugged back to their slums for later consumption.
    Noted diarist and future Mayor of New York City, Philip Hone, later wrote, “The miserable wretches, who prowled around the ruins, and became beastly drunk on the champagne and other wines and liquors, with which the streets and roads were lined, seemed to exult in the misfortune of others.”
    Finally, the area was placed under martial law, and patrolled by the marines from the Navy Yard, and from the Third and Ninth Military Regiments. However, this did not completely stop the looters from continuing their felonious frenzy. Dozens rushed to unaffected areas outside the burn zone, and they torched buildings, so they could loot those buildings too. Five arsonists were arrested by the Marines. But a sixth one, who was caught torching a building on the corner of Stone and Broad, was captured by angry citizens and immediately hung from a tree. His frozen body stood dangling there and was not cut down by the police until three days later.
    From the start of the fire, three days had passed until the last spark was extinguished. By then, 17 blocks of lower Manhattan, covering 52 acres and consisting of 693 buildings, had burned to the ground. Two people were killed, and the damages were assessed at $20 million, almost a billion dollars by today's standards.
    There was 10 million dollars in insurance money owed for the damages, but only a scant amount of that money was ever paid, since the insurance companies, and the banks, had also burned to the ground, forcing them out of business. Not being able to collect on their insurance, and not being able to get loans from banks that no longer existed, hundreds of businesses that burned to the ground during “The Great New York Fire of 1835” never re-opened.
    In 1836, the downtown area was rebuilt, with structures made of stone and concrete, which were less susceptible to spreading fires. Some of those buildings are standing to this day.
     
    H icks, Albert E.
    Albert E. Hicks, called “ Hicksey” by his pals (if he had any) and “Pirate Hicks” by the police, was the last man to be executed for piracy in the United States of America.
    Hicks was a freelance gangster, who lived with his wife and son at 129 Cedar Street in downtown Manhattan, only two blocks from the East River. Hicks felt his criminal enterprises were better served if he worked alone, and as a result, Hicks never joined any of the other gangs that prowled the waterfront in the treacherous 4 th Ward. Working solo, the police suspected Hicks committed scores of robberies and over a