BARGAIN BOOKS
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JACK "LEGS" DIAMOND
ANATOMY OF GANGSTER

by Gary Levine

From Chapter 5--"The Big Clean Up":

"In the early hours of April 27, 1931, Legs, Garry Saccio [Legs' bodyguard], Kiki Roberts [Legs' mistress], and several friends were drinking at the Aratoga's crowded bar [the Aratoga Inn was in Cairo, Greene County], oblivious to the hired killers dressed in hunters' outfits who were siting in a parked car just outside the front door. Legs, awaiting an important phone call from his attorney, paced the floor nervously. As he turned toward the front door to get some fresh air, the report of gunfire echoed everywhere. . . . As the blasts tore through the enclosed porch door, one hit its mark. Legs Diamond was shot down, for the fourth time.

The would-be killers sped away quickly, believing they had accomplished their mission. Inside the Aratoga there was pandemonium. . . . Most of the overhead lights were shot out and for a few seconds everyone was in darkness. . . . The badly wounded gangster was pulled to one side by Saccio. In all probability, he was alive only because he was facing sideways in the dimly lit doorway. [Rushed to an Albany hospital, the attending physician later told reporters that he had never seen a person able to survive such massive and continuing hemorrhaging in the chest cavity. Emerging after a month in the hospital, Legs declared,] "I made it again, nobody can kill Legs Diamond. I am going to settle a few scores just as soon as I get my strength back, just you wait and see."

Prohibition was tailor-made for Legs Diamond. Already an army deserter, a hijacker, and a car thief, he moved readily into the new opportunities offered by the public's thirst for illicit alcohol. Along with easy profit, he found notoriety and power. he was fawned on by society women and pursued by the press. A survivor of four shootings, he appeared to lead a charmed life. At the height of Prohibition, Diamond moved to Greene County with his bodyguard, his gang, his wife, and his mistress. There he alternately charmed and terrorized his neighbors as he sought to control bootlegging in the Hudson Valley. The public avidly followed his wild parties, his arrests, his battles with rivals, and his love affairs.

Dr. Levine taught history and criminology at Columbia-Greene Community College. He was killed in an automobile accident in 1996.

THE JEWS OF WESTCHESTER
A SOCIAL HISTORY

by Baila R. Shargel and Harold L. Drimmer

From the last chapter:

"The comforts and prestige for which Jewish Westchesterites struggled during the course of three centuries have not been secured without a price. Today's suburbanites are certainly more comfortable than their predecessors of 1873 and 1933 and more secure than those of 1953. Poverty will not deny them an education; antisemitism is not likely to affect their credit rating. Yet nowhere is the Gemeinschaft of the first Westchester Jewish communities in evidence today. Instead of the `two cultures' of the early part of this century, Jewish Westchester remains fragmented along religious, social, and geographic lines. Nevertheless, recent progress is also in evidence: the multiplication of innovative religious groupings, the strengthening of day schools and adult education programs, the legitimation of Jewish purpose in social welfare and defense organizations, the efforts to integrate Westchester Jewry around a strategic center. Westchester Jewry has not yet achieved cohesion or eliminated defection by the young, but the efforts of serious people to achieve these goals offer promise for the future."

The Jewish settlement of many American cities and small towns has been chronicled, but suburban communities have been largely overlooked. This book relates the story of the Jews and how they met the challenges of establishing an important presence in America's first suburb, Westchester County.

The few hardy souls who ventured into the undeveloped county in colonial times struggled for legal equality, largely achieved, and economic security, never fully accomplished. Only in the latter half of the twentieth century did Jews rise from a position of marginality to assume leadership roles in business, the professions, education, and the arts in the county.

"[This book] will long stand as the reference work on the Jews of Westchester." --Joseph Hankin, Ph.D., President, Westchester County Community College

Dr. Baila Shargel is a social historian and biographer of Israel Friedlaender. Harold Drimmer is a retired business executive with degrees from Harvard and Columbia.