An avid poker player, Big Tim invested in illegal gambling. #The east side gamblers the big machine movie#He partnered with pioneering movie mogul William Fox in a chain of cinemas. He owned a piece of Coney Island amusement park Dreamland. With another, he built a nationwide chain of vaudeville houses. With one partner, he opened the Dewey Theatre, a Union Square vaudeville house. A shrewd businessman, he gazed upon The Bowery’s entertainments and saw the future. However, Big Tim did not live by graft alone. #The east side gamblers the big machine plus#Big Tim personally pocketed at least $100,000 in graft a year, plus bribes paid him in Albany as a stalwart of the legislature’s infamous “Black Horse Cavalry,” a bipartisan caucus willing to kill bills for cash. Brothels and gambling dens ante’d far more. Pool halls, then illegal, paid $10 a day to stay open. Publicans and impresarios could flout that law by splitting the profits with Big Tim’s machine. City regulations required saloons and theaters to close on Sundays-for many customers, the only day off all week. So did businessmen anxious to avoid problems with city inspectors. Recipients of city jobs “donated” a tithe to Big Tim’s operation. Patrick’s Cathedral, followed by “a procession of nations.” (Library of Congress)īig Tim financed his good works Tammany style, through kickbacks and graft. Spared a pauper’s grave by chance, Big Tim Sullivan departed via Old St. All he asked in return was that on Election Day his people vote the straight Democratic ticket-twice, if possible. And all year long, Big Tim was a notoriously soft touch, handing cash to any petitioner with a tale of woe. #The east side gamblers the big machine free#On Labor Day, he packed hundreds of families into riverboats for a free cruise to an amusement park. Every February, he gave away shoes by the thousands of pairs. At Christmas, he fed thousands a turkey dinner washed down with beer. Big Tim helped constituents get jobs, distributed coal, and bailed their kids out of legal trouble. His Bowery district was the city’s most crowded, elbow to elbow with Irish, German, Italian, and Jewish immigrants. Tall, brawny, and handsome, with bright blue eyes and a warm smile, Big Tim won election to the state Assembly in 1886 and in 1894 to the state Senate. That makes every one of them good for four votes.” If that ain’t enough, and the box can stand a few more ballots, clean off the moustache and vote ‘em plain face. “Then to the barber again, off comes the sides and you vote ‘em a third time with just a moustache. Then you vote ’em again with side lilacs and moustache,” Sullivan said. “When they vote with their whiskers on, you take ’em to a barber and scrape off the chin fringe. The best repeaters began Election Day full-bearded. Soon, the youth was marshaling Tammany’s voter-fraud operation around The Bowery, using gang members to bully Republicans out of casting ballots and encourage “repeaters” to vote often for Democrats. At 21, young Sullivan bought a saloon that functioned as headquarters for the Whyos, an Irish gang allied with the Tammany machine. At 18, he was running an outfit that distributed five newspapers across Manhattan. At eight, he was hawking newspapers in the street. His father died before the boy started school his stepfather, a drunk, deserted the family, inspiring Tim to swear off booze for life. Timothy Sullivan was born in 1862 to impoverished Irish immigrants in Five Points, a lower Manhattan slum. Known as “King of The Bowery,” Sullivan served as a state senator, a congressman, and, most importantly, as boss of the Tammany Hall Democratic machine on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, where his reign combined politics, organized crime, and an emerging entertainment industry. Timothy “Big Tim” Sullivan had been one of the most powerful, most beloved, and most corrupt politicians in New York City history. Municipal regulations required a final inspection of each nameless casualty, so a policeman lifted the coffin lid. Nobody claimed the remains, and on September 13, 1913, city workers were readying the unknown dead man for burial on Hart Island, New York’s potter’s field. The corpse lay in a railroad yard in the Bronx, sliced nearly in half by a train. American Schemers: 'Big Tim' Sullivan, 'King of The Bowery' | HistoryNet Close
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