The Man with the Sawed-Off Leg and Other Tales of a New York City Block

by Daniel Wakin

They stand proudly gazing across the Hudson River at the cliffs of New Jersey. Their brows are marked by ornamental pediments. Greek columns stand as sentries by their entrances and stone medallions bedeck their chests. They are seven graceful relics of Beaux Arts New York, townhouses built more than 100 years ago for a new class of industrialists, actors and scientists -- many from abroad -- who made their fortunes in the United States and shaped the lives of Americans.This book brings to life the ghosts who inhabit that row of townhouses on Manhattan’s stately Riverside Drive for the first fifty years of the 20th Century, including a vicious crew of hoodlums who carried out what at the time was the largest armored car robbery in American history. It was a daring, minutely planned exploit that ended in blood, when one of the gangsters accidentally shot himself. He was taken to one of the townhouses -- then, in 1934, an underworld safehouse -- where he died and was stuffed in a steamer trunk (but his cohorts had to saw off one of his legs to fit him in it). From gangsters to industrialists, from future mayors to murderers, from movie stars to mafia dons, one block in a burgeoning city saw it all. The people who lived in each of the "Seven Sisters" reads like a mini Who's Who. * Percy Geary and John Oley, two Albany gangsters with a background in kidnapping and bootlegging; * Lucretia Davis, baking powder heiress whose parents were engaged in a bitter divorce that included allegations that her mother was trying get her father declared insane and take over his business; * Jokichi Takamine, the world's first biotech engineer and a rare Japanese scientist in the United States at the turn of the 19th century--He discovered diastase, an enzyme to ferment whisky and settle the stomach, and the adrenaline, a major scientific discovery; * Marion Davies, the mistress of William Randolph Hearst, who rose to movie stardom on the back of W.R.'s publicity machine while living on the block; * Julia Marlowe, American's greatest Shakespearean actress around 1900, just to name a few. If only the buildings could speak. * The Fabers of pencil fame * Billy Phelan's Greatest Game (Albany gang made famous by William Kennedy) * Duke Ellington, two mayors, and lurking in the background Legs Diamond.... If only the walls could talk? Dan Wakins makes it so in this unforgettable intimate glimpse into the history of New York City.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Crime, True Crime, American History, Short Stories

228 pages, Kindle Edition

Published January 23, 2018

Reviews

[Madeline Riley · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Man with the Sawed-Off Leg presents an enchanting view of New York through the lens of "The Seven Beauties," seven mansions on the Upper West Side built at the turn of the twentieth century. The characters that populated the Beauties are emblematic of New York City as a town of immigrants, self-made entrepreneurs, artists, and yes, gangsters who may accidentally shoot their own leg off.

Each chapter of the book centers on one of the figures/families who lived in one of the mansions on Riverside Drive or a phase in the robbery, which is central to the storytelling. My one complaint is the robbery that accounts for half of the book seems only tangentially related to the Seven Beauties and the stories which make up the other half of the book. The heist is interesting, funny at times, and provides an inlay to the world of the NY justice department but the fascinating people who called the Beauties their homes were what captivated me most.

[Heather · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don’t think the author quite knew what The Man With the Sawed-Off Leg was supposed to be about. He kept going back to the Rubel Ice holdup (and the man with the sawed-off legs), but there wasn’t enough to make a whole book about that so he wrote about occupants of other buildings in the row of luxury townhouses where the man’s legs were sawed off. Most of what was written about them could be found on a Wikipedia page and was just extremely basic information. Nothing much about living their lives or things they did. It was quite disjointed and also quite boring. Occasionally descriptions of what happened during and after the Rubel Ice holdup were exciting and interesting to read, but that’s about all that was engaging about the entire book. Unless you have some weird interest in that part of Riverside Drive or like boring recitations of basic fact, this is a book you can skip.

[Patricia · Rating 5 out of 5]

For two years I lived in the 3rd floor studio apartment of 105 Riverside Drive NYC. I loved this building. I loved the brown stones and white stones built in the early 1900s. They were romantic. Mr. Wakin's book brought back memories and opened up a new world of history to me. Duke Ellington. Who knew that I lived so close to him and family! Julia Marlowe's history and so much more... not to mention the man with the sawed-off leg. Thank you Mr. Wa
kin for a great romp into a slice of NYC history.

[Lucy · Rating 4 out of 5]

A short but densely packed and deeply researched book. I grew up a few blocks away from the Seven Beauties and I have always wondered about the people who lived in them over the decades. I wish that, like the author, I was in a position to live in the apartment I grew up in (although I would probably hate my neighbors now). Some people have mentioned that it's boring in parts. I'll admit that I wasn't all that interested in the gangster tale that is the main theme of the book, and my mind wandered quite a bit during the court cases, but I was all agog at the list of Mrs. Davis' possessions, and I was happy to learn the exact location of Duke Ellington's property. I grew up in pre-gentrified NYC with very little idea of the history of the place I lived in, so I am always happy to come across books like this.

[Carolyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

My kinda NYC history book, anecdotal to the max (brace yourself for a lotta names). The author was obviously most taken with the petty gangster tale that anchors the book, but I LOVED the stories of the once-famous. Minor quibbles: Discusses Marion Davies, shoulda her mentioned her marvelous then-hit 1923 film about 1807 Manhattan "In Old New York"; also, mentions Nicholas Roerich, shoulda mentioned his museum right nearby on 107th and Riverside.

[Samantha Dubin · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a history lover that is always intrigued and delighted by stories of old New York, I found this deep dive into such a specific area and moment of Riverside Drive to be absolutely fascinating. I found Wakin’s passion and enthusiasm oozes out of his fun facts and storytelling. If you love niche history and finding the threads that connect us to our past, and if you love New York City, this is definitely worth a read.

[Frieda · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book weaves in the story of the Rubel Ice Company armored car heist in Bath Beach, Brooklyn in the 1930s with stories about occupants of Riverside Drive's Seven Beauties. A well-researched book that made it an interesting read about what appears to be a little known story in NYC history.

[Alyssa Maley · Rating 5 out of 5]

I greatly enjoyed the way this unique and quirky tale of niche NYC history was presented. Wakin's voice comes through clearly as one of passion, reverence and humor.

[Caitlin Whyte · Rating 4 out of 5]

delightful holiday read

[Cathryn Conroy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Have you ever driven by a house and wondered about the people who lived there? Author Daniel J. Wakin, whose day job is working as an editor and reporter for The New York Times, did more than wonder. He found out. And this is no ordinary house. It is actually seven townhouses—each is a mansion—that he calls The Seven Beauties, located from 330 to 337 Riverside Drive in New York City's Upper West Side.

Lavishly built from 1899 to 1902 in the Beaux-Arts style, Wakin has framed this nonfiction book that almost reads like a novel around one of the most notorious robberies in New York City: the theft of nearly a half-million dollars from an armored car on August 21, 1934 by the so-called Rubel gangsters. One of them, Bernard "Bennie the Bum" McMahon accidentally shot himself in the kneecap during the gang's escape by boat. His comrades took him to 334 Riverside Drive, then owned by a boardinghouse madam, where a sympathetic doctor sawed off his leg. Hence, the title.

But Wakin also explores the truly fascinating lives of the residents of the other townhouses, which included:
• Marion Davies, an actress and mistress of William Randolph Hearst;
• Jokichi Takamine, who not only discovered the powers of adrenaline that led to the development of the EpiPen, but also was the one responsible for bringing the famous cherry blossoms to Washington, D.C.;
• The Davis baking powder king;
• Jazz musician Duke Ellington;
• Writer Saul Bellow;
• William P. Ahnelt, who created the fashion magazine;
• The Fabers of pencil-making fame;
• Julia Marlowe, America's leading Shakespearean actress.

This book is an absolutely fascinating juxtaposition of the two extremes of New York society in the early 1900s—the fabulously successful and wealthy, who often led soap opera-style personal lives, and the thugs and gangsters who would do anything for a buck.

It truly is a nonfiction page-turner!

[Kevin McGrath · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was intrigued by this book as I am interested in the history of the area a) as I used to live nearby for many years and b) just a general interest in turn of the century NYC history/ architecture. The book is interesting but the fact that I am choking through it (and I am reading other things in between) speaks volumes.

The best part of the book are the stories of some (not so) well known history all linked to this row of townhouses. Wealthy industrialist families who built empires in industries such as pencil production, baking powder, biotech, etc.... this was all extremely interesting. Beyond industrial empire lineage, there was the apartment where Randolph Heart housed his favorite mistress as well as Duke Ellington living there. (The Duke Ellington topic was so brief, wish more time was spent there).

While the history of this apartment row's inhabitants is somewhat fascinating to me, the bulk of this book (so far) covers a brazen bank heist and the only real attachment to the apartments is that one of the participants ended up there after being shot in the heist (and died). So overall, I would have like more on the inhabitants and less on the heist.

[Joan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an interesting book about New York history, the mob and a row of houses called The Seven Beauties on Riverside Drive.

At times, I felt, the author got so bogged down in details that might have better been served in footnotes, and other times, the author relaxed and simply told the story. It was obvious he had done a lot of research and had a true love of the city and it's stories, and that did shine through.

I also liked how the book was organized, alternating chapters with the main arc (The heist that lead to the sawed off leg) and the histories of the different houses and how the people might have interacted with each other.

Next time I go to New York, I'm going to have to take a special trip out to see them.

[Jessica · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Man with the Sawed-Off Leg and Other Tales of a New York City Block is an interesting step into the families who lived on a block in the Upper West Side of Manhattan during the early 1900s. I was interested in this because I actually also lived a few blocks away after college, so imagining the complicated lives that intertwined with my own, was appealing. Wakin tries to add extra drama with the interspersing of a famous armored car heist that was tangentially related to the block, but it ends up reading like too much of a different story, no less interested, but more liked to organized crime in Albany (a worthy topic on its own). A quick read, so this misstep isn’t too much of a drag on the overall book.

[Floyd Larck · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the best books about not only the buildings of a black in NYC but also the people who lived and died there. The author goes into detail about the design, building and rebuilding of the various buildings on this block. a side story runs through the book involving local criminal activities. To prevent spoiling the ending I will omit further details and invite readers to pick this book up at your local library like I did.

[Jean · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not a novel. He writes 7 townhouses n NY starting from late 1890s-1900s when they were built, to present day. What they looked like, who lived there and their stories. I’ve read something similar and I’m not sure why I like it, but he writes in a newspaper/novelist kind of way. Part is strictly facts, little emotion and part is story steeling. Who’s there could have been pics of each house. Oh well.

[Jan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fascinating book and well told, even though it got a little boring in places.

Wakin uncovers the history of a block of houses in New York City and focuses on a robbery that took place where the robbers made one of these houses their hideout. As he uncovers the history of the various houses and their occupants, he is able to tie the robbery back in, in unexpected ways.

[Sharon Bandhold · Rating 5 out of 5]

Riveting History

I chose this to read because I worked in NY City for 9 years. What fascinating history, by such an absorbing author! I love how stories of others who lived in Riverside Drive were woven around the Rubel robbery. If you're a history buff, Mr. Damon's book will not disappoint!

[Jeanne · Rating 5 out of 5]

I live on this block and walk past these houses regularly, in fact passed them every day when I went on walks with my little dog. But there are some really great stories of old New York, and a ripping tale of robbery gone wrong.

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the premise of this book more than the finished product. I felt that the stories included were either very loosely associated with the building on Riverside Drive or were simply not very interesting. I wanted to like it more than I did.

[Amity Kirby · Rating 3 out of 5]

Decent read. My favorite line of the book: He did, however, admit to something else: being a loser. This elicited a large guffaw while riding metro to work and resulted in many stares my way.

[Joyce · Rating 1 out of 5]

Had to put down; not my type of read

[Jackie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was OK. I think it should have remained a newspaper article or at best an expanded magazine article.

[Neddy · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

[Doug Carpenter · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bringing a row stolid facades to life, the Seven Beauties are a backdrop to an alternating narrative voice: the serial crime drama or the dusty Wikipedia entry.

[Tracy · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good read for those interested in the city and its history

[M C · Rating 4 out of 5]

Libby book. Fascinating stories. Lively. Live around the corner from this block.

[Claudia Reshetiloff · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an interesting book and I enjoyed it overall, but I feel like it would have read better if differently organized. Also, lots of tangents seem to take the reader far off topic too often.

[Bruce MacDonald · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interesting micro history

A block of townhouses ,their residents, events, and owners are well written and documented. The title grabs interest and the tale of the title character is engaging. An enjoyable read!

[Ingrid Rose · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book for us "window watchers"

I call myself a window watcher because when we go places, especially at night, and i can see into the windows of houses, I try to imagine the lives of the inhabitants. This book was great for a window watcher like me because i especially love history. Watkin took me through watching the windows of these seven townhomes, and it became like a roller coaster ride to follow the histories of the homes and the people. I was extremely surprised that the properties were held for such short periods. I highly recommend this book to other window watchers and if you are interested in New York City history (specific areas). The Rubel robbery as a thread, and the idiots, I mean characters, involved, made a REALLY interesting story!