Satan's Circus

March 19, 2007
The sole police officer to be executed in U.S. history, NYPD lieutenant Charles Becker died in the electric chair in 1915 for the murder of a lowlife gambler who pimped his own wife. Set apart from other, mostly Irish, New York policemen by his German ancestry and "markedly intelligent," Becker bribed his way in 1894 onto a force infected by Tammany Hall and worked undercover patrolling the crime-riddled midtown Manhattan district called Satan's Circus, the city's center of entertainment and vice. Acquitted in 1896 of charges of falsely arresting a woman for prostitution, a charge testified to by novelist Stephen Crane, Becker went on to commit graft, perjury and theft, but by 1911 he headed his own vice squad and by 1912 he had built up a vast extortion racket. Gambler Herman Rosenthal, one of Becker's victims, exposed him to the media and the DA, and when Rosenthal was shot to death, Becker became the notorious prime suspect although some doubted his guilt. Peopled by mobsters and crooked cops and politicians, and chronicling the early years of the NYPD as well as Becker's ruin and comeuppance, this engrossing, well-researched history by the author of Batavia's Graveyard
immerses readers in the corrupt hurly-burly that was old New York. Map.

March 1, 2007
Journalist and historian Dash ("Batavia's Graveyard") proves that truth is often stranger than fiction with this monograph on Charles Becker (18701915), the only New York City police officer to be executed for murder. A Republican of German descent who stood out in a predominantly Irish and Democratic police force, Becker presided over Satan's Circus (a.k.a. the Tenderloin), midtown Manhattan's entertainment, gambling, and prostitution zone. His indictment and conviction for conspiracy to murder gambler Herman Rosenthal resulted in what the contemporary press called the "trial of the century" in 1912, followed by a retrial in 1914 and Becker's subsequent electrocution. Drawing from legal documents, newspapers, magazines, detective reports found in the Municipal Archives, the private Becker family collections, and Sullivan County (NY) repositories, Dash crisply traces the descent of a "crooked cop" in the context of a corrupt and crime-ridden metropolis. He augments his tale with appearances by characters like Tammany politico "Big Tim" Sullivan, writer Stephen Crane, and Police Commissioner Theodore Roosevelt. Using colloquialisms he freely explainse.g., "sporting men" frequenting "blind tigers" (unlicensed drinking dens)Dash serves up an intriguing story that will interest social historians and general readers alike. Highly recommended. [See Prepub Alert, "LJ" 2/15/07.]Frederick J. Augustyn Jr., Library of Congress

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