Bad Seeds in the Big Apple

Bandits, Killers, and Chaos in New York City, 1920-1940
A vast number of outlaws - male and female - terrorized New York in the years between the World Wars. It was a period of lawlessness unprecedented in American history - including the gun-slinging old West. This book offers a look at the bandits, gunmen, and desperados of Prohibition- and Depression-era New York.
Bad Seeds in the Big Apple' is the first book to profile New York City's notorious bandits, gunmen, and desperados of the Prohibition and Depression eras. While numerous books have been written on the city's organized-crime scene, this book completes the picture by introducing readers to infamous New Yorkers such as Richard Reese Whittemore, leader of a gang of jewel thieves; extortion queen Vivian Gordon; bandit and Sing Sing escapee James Nannery; Al Stern and his gang of kidnappers, the men behind the ill-fated 1926 Tombs Prison break; the marauders behind the 1934 Rubel Ice Plant armored car robbery; and dozens of other law breakers who have never before been covered in book form. Patrick Downey also includes a fresh look at a few characters of the era who have received individual book-length treatments.