50 Amazing Vintage Photos From the 1960s Volume 4
33 Photos Of Lepke’s Murder Inc., The Mob’s Most Brutal Hit Squad
In the New York City of the 1930s, murder was big business. And the best killers in the industry were Murder Inc., a ring of murderers-for-hire working as mob enforcers who, in less than 10 years, killed an estimated 1,000 people.
Murder Inc. was formed by notorious Jewish-American gangsters Meyer Lansky and Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel, and run by Louis “Lepke” Buchalter, a New York racketeer who figured out that he could make even more money contracting out killers to Sicilian mobsters. He set up shop inside of Rosie Gold’s Candy Store, a Brooklyn shop that catered to children through the front door and killers through the back.
A killer working for Lepke could count on $1,000 to $5,000 per job (as much as $70,000 today), depending on the target. Some made a small fortune off it. The hit squad’s most prolific killer, Harry Strauss, signed on for at least 100 jobs on his own, making enough to live comfortably for the rest of his life and single-handedly putting a minor dent in the population of New York City.
From Strauss on down, these killers were brutal. They didn’t just shoot their targets — they aimed to leave a message. They hacked up the bodies of their victims with meat cleavers and ice picks. One man was set on fire and left in a lot. Another was strapped to a slot machine and left in public view.
Murder Inc.’s reign of terror ran on like this throughout New York City until 1940. By then, they were so bold that they’d pull off their killings in broad daylight, sure that no one would even try to stop them.
Things came to an end, however, when one of their contract killers ratted them out to the police. Abraham “Kid Twist” Reles, a former Murder Inc. assassin, found himself in a police interrogation box, charged with multiple murders and realized the only way out was to tell the officers everything that they wanted to know about Lepke and his organization.
Working off of Reles’ tip, New York police arrested Lepke and some of his most prolific killers. The mob hitmen who’d terrorized the city were taken off the streets, most to face the electric chair in Sing Sing Prison in upstate New York.
After 10 years of tyranny and 1,000 body bags, Murder Inc. had come to an end.
But they didn’t go down without one last job. On November 12, 1941, the first day of the trial, Reles’ dead body was found outside his hotel room, crushed from a six-story fall out his hotel window. It was one last message from Murder Inc. — any canary who wanted to sing had better learn to fly.
Feinstein was set on fire by Murder Inc. killers Harry Strauss and Martin Goldstein and left exposed in a lot.
New York City. October 5, 1938.
While this photo was being taken, mobster Jacob “Gurrah” Shapiro was snarling at the police, “You can’t do nuttin’ to us.”
New York City. 1942.
Rosen’s death would ultimately lead to the downfall of Murder Inc. Their leader, Louis “Lepke” Buchalter would be convicted for this murder and sentenced to death.
Brooklyn. September 13, 1936.
New York City. Circa 1939-1940.
Sage was a New York racketeer who ran afoul of the mob. He was hacked to death with an ice pick, tied up to a slot machine, and left out in public as a warning.
New York City. 1937.
Schultz upset Murder Inc. and the rest of the New York underworld by attempting to order a hit on his prosecutor. They were afraid that his actions would turn the police against organized crime figures and thus had Schultz killed not long after this photo was taken.
New York. 1935.
Newark, New Jersey. 1935.
Though Schultz looks relaxed, he would be dead within a matter of hours.
Newark, New Jersey. 1935.
New York City. Circa 1940.
Rudnick was accused of being a police informant. Whether he was or not, the accusation won him a visit from Harry Maione and Frank Abbandando of Murder Inc.
New York City. May 25, 1937.
Rudnick’s death was particularly brutal. He was hacked apart with meat cleavers and ice picks.
New York City. May 25, 1937.
New York City. April 12, 1928.
New York City. 1931.
Chicago. 1937.
New York City. December 3, 1941.
New York City. Circa 1930-1940.
Brooklyn. September 13, 1936.
New York City. Circa 1930-1940.
New York City. Circa 1930-1941.
New York City. Circa 1940-1941.
New York City. December 13, 1940.
Brooklyn. December 2, 1941.
Brooklyn. August 1941.
The man with the gun next to him is a police officer, there to make sure he doesn’t try to run.
New York City. July 20, 1943.
New York City. August 14, 1935.
New York City. September 24, 1935.
Though Lepke was executed thanks to Reles’ testimony, the other two big figures in the organization — Albert Anastasia and Bugsy Siegel — managed to avoid the electric chair. Their times would come, though, when they were eventually killed by mob assassins much like the ones they’d employed.
Beverly Hills, California. 1947.
Beverly Hills, California. June 25, 1947.
Beverly Hills, California. June 25, 1947.
With Anastasia’s death, the last traces of Murder Inc.’s upper echelon were wiped off the face of the Earth.
1957.
Montparnasse Derailment: The Story Behind the Incredible Images of the Train That Broke Through a Building in Paris, 1895
These incredible photos of the wreck at Gare Montparnasse in Paris shows a very dramatic scene of a train that has crashed through the wall and partially tumbled to the street. The cause? Both mechanical failure and human error. The train was late, so the driver had it pull into the station at a high speed. It had two different types of braking systems: handbrakes and an air brake known as a Westinghouse brake. The conductor realized that the train was going too fast and applied the Westinghouse brake, however it didn’t work. Read on for the story behind the incredible images.
At first glance, the photos look like stills from an old disaster movie or a spectacular example of theme park scenery welcoming visitors to some wild new ride. However, these extraordinary images are actually testament to a real-life tragedy, the derailment of the Granville-Paris Express that on October 22, 1895 tore through the façade of the Gare Montparnasse, injuring a number of its conductors as well as a handful of passengers and claiming the life of a particularly unlucky mother of two.
Guillaume-Marie Pellerin had spent much of his life working the railroads. With 19 years of engineering experience behind him, the Express was in safe hands. As he fired up the engines that fateful Tuesday morning and the train pulled out of Granville station on time, there was nothing to suggest that the journey would result in one of the most infamous and instantly recognizable disasters in transportation history.
The route was a relatively simple one, roughly 400km from the seaside resort of Granville on the Lower Normandy coastline to the terminal at Paris Montparnasse. The train comprised a steam locomotive, three baggage cars, a postal car, and six passenger carriages. These days, the same journey takes around three hours, but back in 1895 it required closer to seven; despite a punctual start, Pellerin and his crew eventually realized that they were running a couple of minutes behind schedule. Keen to keep good time, the engineer made the momentous decision to approach Montparnasse at cruising speed, stoking the coals until the train was flat out at close to 60km/h.
With the station in sight, Pellerin applied the Westinghouse air brake which, unfortunately for all involved, chose that particular moment to fail. Conductor Albert Mariette, whose duty it was to apply the locomotive’s emergency handbrake, found himself temporarily indisposed, buried beneath a mountain of overdue paperwork. Failing to gauge the urgency of the situation until it was already too late, Mariette slammed on the brakes just a few feet short of the buffer and could only look on in horror as the train mounted the platform, skidded 100 feet across the station concourse before ploughing through the station facade and plummeting a final 30 feet to the Place de Rennes below.
Despite the damage to the station, the locomotive itself remained largely intact and all six passenger carriages stopped short of the obliterated façade, mercifully resulting in only a few minor injuries, a couple of squashed suitcases and some top hats knocked askew. Sadly, the sole casualty of the incident would usually have been nowhere near the scene. Marie-Augustine Aguilard, standing in for her newspaper vendor husband, was crushed by falling masonry as she stood awaiting his return.
An inquest into the disaster led to Pellerin, the engineer, being charged 50 francs for his reckless speeding while Mariette, the conductor who failed to apply brakes in a timely fashion, was also slapped with a hefty 25-franc fine. The train remained exactly where it had come to rest for two days while the investigation into its derailment was underway. An initial attempt to move it using a team of fourteen horses proved fruitless, ten men and a 250-ton winch eventually being required to lower the errant locomotive to the ground, where it was carted off for repair and found to have suffered remarkably little damage.
Mods on Scooters in London, 1979
Mod is a subculture that began in London and spread throughout Great Britain and elsewhere, eventually influencing fashions and trends in other countries, and continues today on a smaller scale. Focused on music and fashion, the subculture has its roots in a small group of stylish London-based young men in the late 1950s who were termed modernists because they listened to modern jazz. Elements of the mod subculture include fashion (often tailor-made suits); music (including soul, rhythm and blues, ska, jazz, and later splintering off into freakbeat); and motor scooters (usually Lambretta or Vespa). In the mid-1960s, the subculture listened to power pop rock groups with mod following, such as The Who and The Small Faces, after the peak Mod era. The original mod scene was associated with amphetamine-fuelled all-night dancing at clubs.
During the early to mid-1960s, as mod grew and spread throughout the UK, certain elements of the mod scene became engaged in well-publicised clashes with members of a rival subculture: rockers. The mods and rockers conflict led sociologist Stanley Cohen to use the term “moral panic” in his study about the two youth subcultures, which examined media coverage of the mod and rocker riots in the 1960s.
By 1965, conflicts between mods and rockers began to subside and mods increasingly gravitated towards pop art and psychedelia. London became synonymous with fashion, music, and pop culture in these years, a period often referred to as “Swinging London”. During this time, mod fashions spread to other countries and became popular in the United States and elsewhere—with mod now viewed less as an isolated subculture, but emblematic of the larger youth culture of the era.
As mod became more cosmopolitan during the “Swinging London” period, some working class “street mods” splintered off, forming other groups such as what eventually became known as skinheads. There was a mod revival in the United Kingdom in the late 1970s, which attempted to replicate the “scooter” period look and styles of the early to mid-1960s. It was followed by a similar mod revival in North America in the early 1980s, particularly in southern California. (Wikipedia)
The Models for ‘American Gothic’, 1940s
On show with the late Grant Wood’s American Gothic, one of the most famed U.S. paintings of its generation, went the models who posed for it, Nan Wood Graham, the painter’s sister, wife of an oil-station operator, and Dr. B. H. McKeeby, a dentist.
American Gothic is a painting by Grant Wood in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago. Wood’s inspiration came from what is now known as the American Gothic House, and a decision to paint the house along with “the kind of people I fancied should live in that house.”
The painting shows a farmer standing beside his spinster daughter. The figures were modeled by the artist’s sister and their dentist. The woman is dressed in a colonial print apron evoking 19th-century Americana, and the couple are in the traditional roles of men and women, the man’s pitchfork symbolizing hard labor, and the flowers over the woman’s right shoulder suggesting domesticity.
30 Amazing Photographs Showing Life in Mexico During the Early 20th Century
Agustín Víctor Casasola (1874-1928), others cite: (1874-1938) was a Mexican photographer and partial founder of the Mexican Association of Press Photographers.
Casasola began his career as a typographer for the newspaper El Imparcial, eventually moving to reporter then on to photographer in the early 1900s. He became a photographer in 1894. By 1911 Casasola was credited with founding the first Mexican press agency, Agencia Fotografica Mexicana. Casasola was later thanked by the interim president in 1911, Francisco León de la Barra, for having “inaugurated a new phase of freedom in the press photography.” By the end of 1912 the agency had expanded and changed its name to Agencia Mexicana de Informacion Fotografica. The agency brought on more photographers and began purchasing pictures from foreign agencies and amateurs, then redistributing those photographs to newspapers.
When El Imparcial went out of business in 1917, Casasola recovered the newspaper’s archives, eventually compiling many of the photographs into the famed “Album histórico gráfico” which covered the events of the Mexican Revolution. Casasola only managed to print the first 6 volumes covering the years 1910 to 1912. It is believed the work did not fare well due to the changing attitude of people wanting to move on from the death and suffering that plagued the civil war.
In 1920, Casasola as well as other notable Mexican photographers founded the Mexican Association of Press photographers.
Casasola’s collection was later dubbed the Casasola Archive where it was later housed at the National Institute of Anthropology and History of Mexico, the collection totaling over 500,000 prints and negatives.
Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and to the east by the Gulf of Mexico. Mexico covers 1,972,550 square kilometers (761,610 sq mi), making it the world’s 13th-largest country by area; with approximately 126,014,024 inhabitants, it is the 10th-most-populous country and has the most Spanish-speakers. Mexico is organized as a federation comprising 31 states and Mexico City, its capital and largest metropolis. Other major urban areas include Guadalajara, Monterrey, Puebla, Toluca, Tijuana, Ciudad Juárez, and León.
Pre-Columbian Mexico traces its origins to 8,000 BC and is identified as one of the six cradles of civilization; it was home to many advanced Mesoamerican civilizations, most notably the Maya and the Aztecs. In 1521, the Spanish Empire conquered and colonized the region from its base in Mexico City, establishing the colony of New Spain. The Catholic Church played an important role in spreading Christianity and the Spanish language, while also preserving some indigenous elements. Native populations were subjugated and heavily exploited to mine rich deposits of precious metals, which contributed to Spain’s status as a major world power for the next three centuries, and to a massive influx of wealth and a price revolution in Western Europe. Over time, a distinct Mexican identity formed, based on a fusion of European and indigenous customs; this contributed to the successful Mexican War of Independence against Spain in 1821.
Mexico’s early history as a nation state was marked by political and socioeconomic upheaval. The Texas Revolution and the Mexican–American War in the mid 19th century led to huge territorial losses to the United States. Liberal reforms were enshrined in the Constitution of 1857, which sought to integrate indigenous communities and curtail the power of the church and the military. This triggered an internal war of Reform and intervention by France, in which conservatives installed Maximilian Habsburg as emperor against the Republican resistance led by Benito Juárez. The last decades of the 19th century were marked by the dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz, who sought to modernize Mexico and restore order. The Porfiriato era ended in 1910 with the decade-long Mexican civil war, which killed approximately 10% of the population and after which the victorious Constitutionalist faction drafted a new 1917 Constitution, which remains in effect to this day. The revolutionary generals ruled as a succession of presidents until the assassination of Alvaro Obregón in 1928. This led to the formation of the Institutional Revolutionary Party the following year, which governed Mexico until 2000.
Mexico is a developing country, ranking 74th on the Human Development Index, but has the world’s 15th-largest economy by nominal GDP and the 11th-largest by PPP, with the United States being its largest economic partner. Its large economy and population, global cultural influence, and steady democratization make Mexico a regional and middle power; it is often identified as an emerging power but is considered a newly industrialized state by several analysts. However, the country continues to struggle with social inequality, poverty and extensive crime; it ranks poorly on the Global Peace Index, due in large part to ongoing conflict between the government and drug trafficking syndicates that led to over 120,000 deaths since 2006.
Mexico ranks first in the Americas and seventh in the world for the number of UNESCO World Heritage Sites. It is also one of the world’s 17 megadiverse countries, ranking fifth in natural biodiversity. Mexico’s rich cultural and biological heritage, as well as varied climate and geography, makes it a major tourist destination: as of 2018, it was the sixth most-visited country in the world, with 39 million international arrivals. Mexico is a member of United Nations, the G20, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the World Trade Organization (WTO), the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, the Organization of American States, Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, and the Organization of Ibero-American States. (Wikipedia)
Amazing Vintage Photos of McDonald’s First Restaurant
The McDonald’s restaurant concept was introduced in San Bernardino, California by Dick and Mac McDonald of Manchester, New Hampshire. It was modified and expanded by their business partner, Ray Kroc, of Oak Park, Illinois, who later bought out the business interests of the McDonald brothers in the concept and went on to found McDonald’s Corporation.
In 1937, Patrick McDonald opened “The Airdrome”, an octagonal food stand, on Huntington Drive (Route 66) near the Monrovia Airport in Monrovia, California. Hamburgers were ten cents, and all-you-can-drink orange juice was five cents.
In 1940, his two sons, Maurice and Richard (“Mac” and “Dick”), moved the entire building 40 miles (64 km) east, to West 14th and 1398 North E Streets in San Bernardino, California. The restaurant was renamed “McDonald’s Famous Barbeque” and served over forty barbequed items.
In October 1948, after the McDonald brothers realized that most of their profits came from selling hamburgers, they closed down their successful carhop drive-in to establish a streamlined system with a simple menu of just hamburgers, cheeseburgers, french fries, shakes, soft drinks, and apple pie. The carhops were eliminated to make McDonald’s a self-serve operation. Mac and Dick McDonald had taken great care in setting up their kitchen like an assembly line to ensure maximum efficiency. The restaurant’s name was again changed, this time to simply “McDonald’s,” and reopened its doors on December 12, 1948.
Mary Wallace: The First Female Bus Driver for Chicago Transit Authority, Beginning in 1974
In 1974, Englewood native, Mary Wallace, drove into history when she became the first woman to drive a Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) bus. Wallace was a popular driver who remained on the job for 33 years before retiring.
“I used to work for the Planning & Placement Center when I was going to college, and we had job orders for CTA bus drivers. So I decided I wanted to check this out for myself, and I did. I went for three years, and they kept saying no…”
People kept the wisecracks about female drivers to them-selves, but Mary Wallace remembers the mixed reactions she used to get from CTA riders on her bus routes when they noticed a woman behind the wheel.
“I would get cheers from the ladies and stares from the guys,” Wallace said in an interview with Chicago Sun-Times in 2007, recalling the start of her career with the CTA in 1974.
Wallace first applied to become a bus driver when she was 19 “because the CTA didn’t have any women and somebody needed to break that ice.” Plus, driving a bus seemed like a great may to meet new people, Wallace said. She had to badger the CTA for three years, though, before the agency hired her.
“They said, ‘We just can’t hire you as a bus operator because we don’t have the facilities. We could hire you as something else,’” Wallace said. “But I kept going down there and calling every week.”
Wallace started out driving the State Street bus in June 1974, the first of several routes she’d have during her 17 years as a bus operator. During that time, she was a fixture in the news under such colorful headlines as “CTA liberates its bus drivers” and “Fair sex first for the CTA will leave the driving to Ms. Wallace said the other drivers rarely gave her a hard time, but some guys were” jealous because I had my own private bathroom” in the bus garage.
Handling a 40-foot bus was easy, thanks to power steering. But early on, Wallace thought about quitting several times be-cause of security concerns.
Like other bus drivers lacking seniority, Wallace worked nights, and more than once, she had to fend off passengers who tried to attack her. Even so, Wallace said she’s glad she stayed on the job to see how the CTA has changed over the years.
“When I opened this door, it opened up a whole lot of opportunities,” she said.
Haunting Photographs That Captured the Horror of Martin Luther King Jr.’s Assassination
Martin Luther King Jr., an African-American clergyman and civil rights leader, was fatally shot at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968, at 6:01 p.m. CST. He was rushed to St. Joseph’s Hospital, where he died at 7:05 p.m. He was a prominent leader of the Civil Rights Movement and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate who was known for his use of nonviolence and civil disobedience.
James Earl Ray, a fugitive from the Missouri State Penitentiary, was arrested on June 8, 1968, at London’s Heathrow Airport, extradited to the United States, and charged with the crime. On March 10, 1969, he pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 99 years in the Tennessee State Penitentiary. He later made many attempts to withdraw his guilty plea and to be tried by a jury, but was unsuccessful. Ray died in prison in 1998.
The King family and others believe that the assassination was the result of a conspiracy involving the U.S. government, the mafia, and Memphis police, as alleged by Loyd Jowers in 1993. They believe that Ray was a scapegoat. In 1999, the family filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against Jowers for the sum of $10 million. During closing arguments, their attorney asked the jury to award damages of $100, to make the point that “it was not about the money”. During the trial, both sides presented evidence alleging a government conspiracy. The accused government agencies could not defend themselves or respond because they were not named as defendants. Based on the evidence, the jury concluded that Jowers and others were “part of a conspiracy to kill King” and awarded the family $100. The allegations and the finding of the Memphis jury were later disputed by the United States Department of Justice in 2000 because of the lack of evidence. The assassination was one of four major assassinations of the 1960s in the United States, coming several years after the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963 and the assassination of Malcolm X in 1965, and two months before the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy in June 1968. (Wikipedia)
Had Joseph Louw decided to finish his dinner on April 4, 1968, the photographs that captured the horror of Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination may never have come to be. Louw, a young South African photographer and filmmaker at work on a documentary about King, had been eating dinner in a Memphis restaurant during the hour before tragedy struck. A sudden urge to watch the NBC nightly news brought him back to the Lorraine Motel, where he soon heard a single shot fired.
Louw, who was staying three doors down from King, immediately rushed onto the balcony, where he saw King collapse to the ground. After realizing there was nothing he could do to help, he ran inside to get his camera. “At first,” he told LIFE the following week, “it was just a matter of realizing the horror of the thing. Then I knew I must record it for the world to see.”
Louw captured the chaos and emotion that hovered over that April evening. He shot four rolls of film, but one image in particular remains emblazoned on the memories of those alive to see it at the time. In the moments following the shot, as King lay unconscious on the balcony, his comrades turned their attention to a sight in the distance: the assassin, getting away. They pointed their fingers in concert in the direction of his flight.
Louw rushed to the studio of fellow photographer Ernest C. Withers to develop the film. As he did, his hands shook. “I remember the last stage of developing,” he said. “It was the longest 10 minutes of my life. The first picture I looked at was Dr. King laying behind the railing. I never did photograph him full in the face. I felt I had to keep my distance and respect.”
(Photos by Joseph Louw—The LIFE Images Collection/Getty Images)
Marriage Advice for Young Ladies From a Suffragette in 1918
The suffragettes fought hard for their right to vote and be strong independent women, but they also fought for equality when it came to men and women. Hence, the “Advice on Marriage. To Young Ladies”. It truly is a hilarious piece of advice that was probably created in 1918, but still very relevant today. The leaflet is on display at the Pontypridd Museum in Wales.
The anonymous suffragette started off her list of eight tips include not marrying at all. She advised young ladies to avoid “flirts”, “tailor’s dummies” and “football enthusiasts”, but instead look for a window cleaner or yard swiller – someone who cleans the yard.
The suffragette warned women “not to expect too much”, and described most men as “lazy, selfish, thoughtless, lying, drunken, clumsy, heavy-footed, rough, unmanly brutes, and need taming”.
She added that if a woman wants to keep her husband happy, she should “feed the brute” – commenting that the “same remark applies to dogs”.
She finished off her advice with the line: “You will be wiser not to chance it, it isn’t worth the risk”.
