WUmberto "Albert" Anastasia was an Italian-American mobster, hitman, and crime boss. One of the founders of the modern American Mafia, and a co-founder and later boss of the Murder, Inc. organization, Anastasia eventually rose to the position of boss in what became the modern Gambino crime family. He also controlled New York City's waterfront for most of his criminal career, including the dockworker unions. Anastasia was murdered on October 25, 1957, on the orders of Vito Genovese and Carlo Gambino; Gambino subsequently became boss of the family.
WDJ Carl Blaze was an American DJ of Dominican descent on New York City's Hip-Hop and R&B radio station Power 105.1 for over three years. He hosted many parties and was a DJ for several clubs throughout New York City. Rivera was born in the Washington Heights section of New York City.
WMaxwell Bodenheim was an American poet and novelist. A literary figure in Chicago, he later went to New York where he became known as the King of Greenwich Village Bohemians. His writing brought him international notoriety during the Jazz Age of the 1920s.
WBill Brennan was an American boxer who fought and lost to World Heavyweight Champion Jack Dempsey in a well attended title fight that ended in a twelfth-round knockout on December 14, 1920, in Madison Square Garden. He lost to Dempsey for the first time in a non-title fight on February 5, 1918, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in a sixth-round technical knockout.
WConstantino Paul Castellano, also known as "The Howard Hughes of the Mob" and "Big Paulie", was an American crime boss who succeeded Carlo Gambino as head of the Gambino crime family. Castellano was killed in an unsanctioned assassination on December 16, 1985, ordered by John Gotti, who subsequently became boss.
WMichael Chen was a Chinese-born American gangster who was leader of the notorious Flying Dragons gang from the late 1970s and early 1980s.
WClarence Edward Smith, better known as Clarence 13X and Allah, was an American religious leader and the founder of the Five-Percent Nation. He was born in Virginia and moved to New York City as a young man, before serving in the United States Army during the Korean War. After returning to New York, he learned that his wife had joined the Nation of Islam (NOI) and followed her, taking the name Clarence 13X. He served in the group as a security officer, martial arts instructor, and student minister before leaving for an unclear reason in 1963. He enjoyed gambling, which was condemned by the NOI, and disagreed with the NOI's teachings that Wallace Fard Muhammad was a divine messenger.
WLouis Cohen was a New York mobster who murdered labor racketeer "Kid Dropper" Nathan Kaplan and was an associate of labor racketeer Louis "Lepke" Buchalter. He was killed along with Isadore Friedman, another Buchalter associate, who was believed to be an informant. It is not known whether Cohen was murdered for being a potential informant or whether he was accidentally killed during the shooting that was supposed to target Friedman.
WVincent "Mad Dog" Coll was an Irish-American mob hitman in the 1920s and early 1930s in New York City. Coll gained notoriety for the allegedly accidental killing of a young child during a mob kidnap attempt.
WNicole duFresne was an American playwright and actress. She was murdered on a sidewalk on Manhattan's Lower East Side when a group of seven teens accosted and mugged a group consisting of duFresne, her fiancé Jeffrey Sparks, her close friend Mary Jane Gibson and Gibson's boyfriend Scott Nath sometime after 3:00 a.m. on January 27, 2005.
WHenry Dumas was an African-American writer and poet. He has been called "an absolute genius" by Toni Morrison, who as a commissioning editor at Random House published posthumous collections both of his poetry, Play Ebony, Play Ivory, and his short stories, Ark of Bones, in 1974.
WEdward "Monk" Eastman was a New York City gangster who founded and led the Eastman Gang in the late 19th and early 20th century; it became one of the most powerful street gangs in the city. His aliases included Joseph "Joe" Morris, Joe Marvin, William "Bill" Delaney, and Edward "Eddie" Delaney. Eastman is considered to be one of the last of the 19th-century New York City gangsters who preceded the rise of Arnold Rothstein and the Jewish mob. Later, more sophisticated, organized criminal enterprises also included the predominately Italian Cosa Nostra.
WOn February 23, 1997, Ali Hassan Abu Kamal, a 69-year-old Palestinian teacher, opened fire on the observation deck of the Empire State Building in Manhattan, New York City. The gunman killed one person and wounded six others before taking his own life with a gunshot to the head.
WOn August 24, 2012, a gunman shot and killed a former co-worker outside the Empire State Building in Manhattan, New York City. Following the initial shooting, the gunman, 58-year-old Jeffrey T. Johnson, was fatally shot by police officers after raising his weapon at them. Nine bystanders were wounded by stray bullets fired by the officers and ricocheting debris, but none suffered life-threatening injuries.
WJames Fisk Jr. – known variously as "Big Jim", "Diamond Jim", and "Jubilee Jim" – was an American stockbroker and corporate executive who has been referred to as one of the "robber barons" of the Gilded Age. Though Fisk was admired by the working class of New York and the Erie Railroad, he achieved much ill-fame for his role in Black Friday in 1869, where he and his partner Jay Gould befriended the unsuspecting President Ulysses S. Grant in an attempt to use the President's good name in a scheme to corner the gold market in New York City. Several years later Fisk was murdered by a disgruntled business associate.
WPaul Leicester Ford was an American novelist and biographer, born in Brooklyn, the son of Gordon Lester Ford and Emily Fowler Ford.
WAli He'shun Forney was an African-American gay and transgender youth who also used the name Luscious.
WJoseph Gallo, also known as "Crazy Joe", was an Italian-American mobster of the Colombo crime family of New York City.
WGiosuè Gallucci, also known as Luccariello, was a crime boss of Italian Harlem in New York City affiliated with the Camorra. He dominated the area from 1910–1915 and was also known as the undisputed "King of Little Italy" and "The Mayor of Little Italy", partly due to his political connections. He held strict control over the policy game, employing Neapolitan and Sicilian street gangs as his enforcers.
WFranklin Thomas Grube was a professional baseball player who played catcher in the Major Leagues from 1931 to 1941. He played for the Chicago White Sox and St. Louis Browns. He also played football for the New York Yankees. He was shot while visiting New York City, and died at Knickerbocker Hospital at age 40.
WJames "Wild Jimmy" Haggerty was an American criminal and well-known underworld mobfigure in Philadelphia and later in New York City during the mid-to late 19th century. Jimmy Haggerty was the leader of the Schuylkill Rangers, a predominantly Irish-American street gang, which terrorized the South Philadelphia waterfront, specifically its local wharves and coal yards, for over 25 years.
WRobert Emmett Harron, also known as Bobby Harron, was an American motion picture actor of the early silent film era. Although he acted in over 200 films, he is possibly best recalled for his roles in the D.W. Griffith directed films The Birth of a Nation (1915) and Intolerance (1916).
WOn August 24, 2012, a gunman shot and killed a former co-worker outside the Empire State Building in Manhattan, New York City. Following the initial shooting, the gunman, 58-year-old Jeffrey T. Johnson, was fatally shot by police officers after raising his weapon at them. Nine bystanders were wounded by stray bullets fired by the officers and ricocheting debris, but none suffered life-threatening injuries.
WMeir Kahane, an Israeli American rabbi, ultra-nationalist politician and militant, was assassinated by El Sayyid Nosair on 5 November 1990, shortly after 9:00 p.m. at the New York Marriott East Side, a hotel in Manhattan, New York City.
WDick Kallman was an American actor.
WOn February 23, 1997, Ali Hassan Abu Kamal, a 69-year-old Palestinian teacher, opened fire on the observation deck of the Empire State Building in Manhattan, New York City. The gunman killed one person and wounded six others before taking his own life with a gunshot to the head.
WThomas Kapatos, nicknamed as "The Greek", was a New York City mobster and an enforcer to Mickey Spillane during his war against Jimmy Coonan during the 1960s.
WJohn Winston Ono Lennon was an English singer, songwriter, musician and peace activist who achieved worldwide fame as co-lead vocalist, co-songwriter and rhythm guitarist of the Beatles as well as one of the founders of the group. His songwriting partnership with Paul McCartney remains the most successful in history. In 1969, he started the Plastic Ono Band with his second wife, Yoko Ono. After the Beatles disbanded in 1970, Lennon continued his career as a solo artist and as Ono's collaborator.
WOn the evening of 8 December 1980, English musician John Lennon, formerly of the Beatles, was shot and fatally wounded in the archway of The Dakota, his residence in New York City. His killer was Mark David Chapman, an American Beatles fan from Hawaii. Chapman said he was angered by Lennon's lifestyle and public statements, especially his much-publicized remark about the Beatles being "more popular than Jesus" and the lyrics of his later songs "God" and "Imagine". Chapman also said he was inspired by the fictional character Holden Caulfield from J. D. Salinger's novel The Catcher in the Rye.
WAllard Kenneth Lowenstein was an American Democratic politician who served as U.S. Representative for the 5th Congressional District in Nassau County, New York, for one term from 1969 to 1971.
WMalcolm X was an African-American Muslim minister and human rights activist who was a popular figure during the civil rights movement. He was a spokesman for the Nation of Islam, and a lifelong advocate for Black empowerment and critic of the civil rights movement led by Martin Luther King Jr.
WAnthony "Tony" Mirra was an American mobster, soldier and later caporegime for the Bonanno crime family. He is well known for being the individual who introduced FBI Special Agent Joseph "Donnie Brasco" Pistone into the Bonanno family.
WEdward Lee Morgan was an American jazz trumpeter and composer.
WNicole duFresne was an American playwright and actress. She was murdered on a sidewalk on Manhattan's Lower East Side when a group of seven teens accosted and mugged a group consisting of duFresne, her fiancé Jeffrey Sparks, her close friend Mary Jane Gibson and Gibson's boyfriend Scott Nath sometime after 3:00 a.m. on January 27, 2005.
WJacob "Little Augie" Orgen was a New York gangster involved in bootlegging and labor racketeering during Prohibition.
WFelix A. Pappalardi Jr. was an American music producer, songwriter, vocalist, and bassist. He is best known as the bassist and co-lead vocalist of the band Mountain, whose song "Mississippi Queen" peaked at #21 on the Billboard Hot 100 and has become a classic rock radio staple. Originating in the eclectic music scene in New York's Greenwich Village, he became closely attached to the British power trio Cream, writing, arranging, and producing for their second album Disraeli Gears. As a producer for Atlantic Records, he worked on several projects with guitarist Leslie West; in 1969 their partnership evolved into the band Mountain. The band lasted less than five years, but their work influenced the first generation of heavy metal and hard rock music. Pappalardi continued to work as a producer, session musician, and songwriter until he was shot and killed by his wife Gail Collins in 1983.
WDavid Graham Phillips was an American novelist and journalist of the muckraker tradition.
WWilliam Poole, also known as Bill the Butcher, was the leader of the Washington Street Gang, which later became known as the Bowery Boys gang. He was a local leader of the Know Nothing political movement in mid-19th-century New York City.
WThe Becker–Rosenthal trial was a 1912 trial in New York City for the murder of Herman Rosenthal, a bookmaker, by NYPD Lieutenant Charles Becker and members of the Lenox Avenue Gang. The trial ran from October 7 to October 30, 1912, and restarted on May 2 to May 22, 1914. Other procedural events took place in 1915.
WArnold Rothstein, nicknamed "the Brain", was an American racketeer, crime boss, businessman, and gambler who became a kingpin of the Jewish mob in New York City. Rothstein was widely reputed to have organized corruption in professional athletics, including conspiring to fix the 1919 World Series. He was also a mentor of future crime bosses Lucky Luciano, Meyer Lansky, Frank Costello, and numerous others.
WHoward Clifford Rushmore was an American journalist, nationally known for investigative reporting. As a communist, he reported for The Daily Worker; later, he became anti-communist and wrote for publications including the New York Journal-American and Confidential magazine. Rushmore killed himself and his wife in a murder-suicide in 1958.
WMeyer (1908–1931), Irving (1904–1931) and William Shapiro (1911–1934), collectively known as the Shapiro Brothers were the leaders of a group of Jewish-American mobsters from New York City and based in Williamsburg. Well established in the local garment industry, long dominated by Jacob "Gurrah" Shapiro and Louis "Lepke" Buchalter since the 1927 death of Jacob "Little Augie" Orgen, the two began to move against them in the summer of 1931. As the two sides battled for the garment industry in Brooklyn, Irving and Meyer Shapiro were killed by Joseph and Louis Amberg; Irving was gunned down near his apartment on July 11, and Meyer was found shot to death in the basement of a tenement building on Manhattan's Lower East Side on September 17, 1931. Three years later, on orders from Buchalter, Willie Shapiro was finally killed by Murder, Inc. members Martin "Bugsy" Goldstein and Abe "Kid Twist" Reles, supposedly being buried alive in a sandpit in the marshland of Canarsie by Reles, the Amberg brothers, and Frank Abbandando and Harry Maione on the night of July 20, 1934.
WLouis Mbarick Fall, known as Battling Siki, was a French-Senegalese light heavyweight boxer born in Senegal who fought from 1912 to 1925, and briefly reigned as the World light heavyweight champion after knocking out Georges Carpentier.
WCarlo Tresca was an Italian-American newspaper editor, orator, and labor organizer who was a leader of the Industrial Workers of the World during the 1910s. He is remembered as a leading public opponent of fascism, Stalinism, and Mafia infiltration of the trade union movement.
WStanford White was an American architect. He was also a partner in the architectural firm McKim, Mead & White, one of the most significant Beaux-Arts firms. He designed many houses for the rich, in addition to numerous civic, institutional, and religious buildings. His temporary Washington Square Arch was so popular that he was commissioned to design a permanent one. His design principles embodied the "American Renaissance".
W"Big" Jack Zelig was an American gangster and one of the last leaders of the Eastman Gang.