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Arnold Rothstein

 
Arnold Rothstein

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Arnold Rothstein



 
 
Arnold "The Brain" Rothstein (January 17, 1882–November 4, 1928) was a New York
New York

The State of New York is a U.S. state in the Mid-Atlantic States and Northeastern United States regions of the United States and is the nation's List of U.S....
 businessman and gambler
Gambling

Gambling is the wikt:wager#Verb of money or something of material Value on an event with an uncertain outcome with the primary intent of winning additional money and/or material goods....
 who became a famous kingpin of organized crime
Organized crime

Organized crime or criminal organizations comprise groups or operations run by crimes, most commonly for the purpose of generating a money profit....
. Rothstein was also widely reputed to have been behind baseball
Baseball

Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two team sport of nine players each. The goal of baseball is to score run by hitting a thrown Baseball with a baseball bat and touching a series of four markers called base arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot square, or diamond. Players on one team take turns hitting against...
's Black Sox Scandal
Black Sox Scandal

The Black Sox Scandal refers to a number of events that took place around and during the play of the 1919 World Series. The name "Black Sox" also refers to the Chicago White Sox team from that year....
, in which the 1919 World Series
1919 World Series

The 1919 World Series matched the American League champion Chicago White Sox against the National League champion Cincinnati Reds. Although most World Series have been of the best-of-seven format, the 1919 World Series was a best-of-nine series ....
 was fixed
Match fixing

In organized sports, match fixing or game fixing occurs when a match is played to a completely or partially pre-determined result, violating the rules of the game and often the law....
. His notoriety inspired several fictional characters based on his life, including "Meyer Wolfsheim" in F. Scott Fitzgerald
F. Scott Fitzgerald

Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was an United States writer of novels and short stories, whose works are evocative of the Jazz Age, a term he coined himself....
's novel The Great Gatsby
The Great Gatsby

The Great Gatsby is a novel by the United States author F. Scott Fitzgerald. First published on April 10, 1925, it is set in Long Island's North Shore and New York City during the summer of 1922....
, and "Nathan Detroit" in the Damon Runyon
Damon Runyon

Damon Runyon was a newspaperman and writer.He was best known for his short stories celebrating the world of Broadway in New York City that grew out of the Prohibition in the United States era....
 story The Idyll of Miss Sarah Brown
The Idyll Of Miss Sarah Brown

"The Idyll of Miss Sarah Brown" is a short story by Damon Runyon upon which the musical theater Guys and Dolls is based. It was first published in 1933....
, which was made into the musical Guys and Dolls
Guys and Dolls

Guys and Dolls is a musical theater, with the music and lyrics written by Frank Loesser and book by Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows, based on "The Idyll of Miss Sarah Brown" and "Blood Pressure", two short stories by Damon Runyon....
.

According to crime writer Leo Katcher, Rothstein "transformed organized crime from a thuggish activity by hoodlums into a big business, run like a corporation, with himself at the top." According to Rich Cohen, Rothstein was the person who first saw in Prohibition
Prohibition

Prohibition of alcohol, often referred to simply as prohibition, also known as The Noble Experiment, refers to a sumptuary law which prohibits alcohol....
 a business opportunity, a means to enormous wealth, who "understood the truths of early century capitalism (hypocrisy, exclusion, greed) and came to dominate them".






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Encyclopedia


Arnold "The Brain" Rothstein (January 17, 1882–November 4, 1928) was a New York
New York

The State of New York is a U.S. state in the Mid-Atlantic States and Northeastern United States regions of the United States and is the nation's List of U.S....
 businessman and gambler
Gambling

Gambling is the wikt:wager#Verb of money or something of material Value on an event with an uncertain outcome with the primary intent of winning additional money and/or material goods....
 who became a famous kingpin of organized crime
Organized crime

Organized crime or criminal organizations comprise groups or operations run by crimes, most commonly for the purpose of generating a money profit....
. Rothstein was also widely reputed to have been behind baseball
Baseball

Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two team sport of nine players each. The goal of baseball is to score run by hitting a thrown Baseball with a baseball bat and touching a series of four markers called base arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot square, or diamond. Players on one team take turns hitting against...
's Black Sox Scandal
Black Sox Scandal

The Black Sox Scandal refers to a number of events that took place around and during the play of the 1919 World Series. The name "Black Sox" also refers to the Chicago White Sox team from that year....
, in which the 1919 World Series
1919 World Series

The 1919 World Series matched the American League champion Chicago White Sox against the National League champion Cincinnati Reds. Although most World Series have been of the best-of-seven format, the 1919 World Series was a best-of-nine series ....
 was fixed
Match fixing

In organized sports, match fixing or game fixing occurs when a match is played to a completely or partially pre-determined result, violating the rules of the game and often the law....
. His notoriety inspired several fictional characters based on his life, including "Meyer Wolfsheim" in F. Scott Fitzgerald
F. Scott Fitzgerald

Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was an United States writer of novels and short stories, whose works are evocative of the Jazz Age, a term he coined himself....
's novel The Great Gatsby
The Great Gatsby

The Great Gatsby is a novel by the United States author F. Scott Fitzgerald. First published on April 10, 1925, it is set in Long Island's North Shore and New York City during the summer of 1922....
, and "Nathan Detroit" in the Damon Runyon
Damon Runyon

Damon Runyon was a newspaperman and writer.He was best known for his short stories celebrating the world of Broadway in New York City that grew out of the Prohibition in the United States era....
 story The Idyll of Miss Sarah Brown
The Idyll Of Miss Sarah Brown

"The Idyll of Miss Sarah Brown" is a short story by Damon Runyon upon which the musical theater Guys and Dolls is based. It was first published in 1933....
, which was made into the musical Guys and Dolls
Guys and Dolls

Guys and Dolls is a musical theater, with the music and lyrics written by Frank Loesser and book by Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows, based on "The Idyll of Miss Sarah Brown" and "Blood Pressure", two short stories by Damon Runyon....
.

According to crime writer Leo Katcher, Rothstein "transformed organized crime from a thuggish activity by hoodlums into a big business, run like a corporation, with himself at the top." According to Rich Cohen, Rothstein was the person who first saw in Prohibition
Prohibition

Prohibition of alcohol, often referred to simply as prohibition, also known as The Noble Experiment, refers to a sumptuary law which prohibits alcohol....
 a business opportunity, a means to enormous wealth, who "understood the truths of early century capitalism (hypocrisy, exclusion, greed) and came to dominate them". Rothstein was the Moses
Moses

Moses is a Hebrew Bible Hebrews religious leader, lawgiver, prophet, to whom the Mosaic authorship of the Torah is traditionally attributed. Also called Moshe Rabbeinu in Hebrew , he is the most important prophet in Judaism, and also an important prophet of Christianity, Islam, the Bah?'? Faith, Rastafari movement, Chrislam and many ot...
 of the Jewish gangsters, according to Cohen, the progenitor, a rich man's son who showed the young hoodlums of the Bowery
Bowery

Bowery may refer to:* Bowery , an area of and street in New York City** Bowery Amphitheatre, a building in the Bowery neighborhood of New York City...
 how to have style; indeed, the man who, the Sicilian-American gangster Lucky Luciano
Lucky Luciano

Charles "Lucky" Luciano was a Sicilian mobster. Luciano is considered the father of modern organized crime and the mastermind of the massive postwar expansion of the international heroin trade....
 would later say, "taught me how to dress."

Prohibition and organized crime

With the advent of Prohibition
Prohibition

Prohibition of alcohol, often referred to simply as prohibition, also known as The Noble Experiment, refers to a sumptuary law which prohibits alcohol....
, Rothstein diversified into bootlegging
Rum-running

Rum-running is the business of smuggling or transporting of alcoholic beverages illegally, usually to circumvent taxation or prohibition. The term usually applies to transport of goods over water, over land it is commonly referred to as bootlegging....
 and narcotics. His criminal organization included such underworld luminaries as Meyer Lansky
Meyer Lansky

Meyer Lansky was a organized crime who, with Charles Luciano, was instrumental in the development of The Commission in the United States.Lansky developed a gambling empire which ranged from Saratoga, Miami, Las Vegas and was officially in charge of gambling concessions in Cuba....
, Jack "Legs" Diamond, Charles "Lucky" Luciano
Lucky Luciano

Charles "Lucky" Luciano was a Sicilian mobster. Luciano is considered the father of modern organized crime and the mastermind of the massive postwar expansion of the international heroin trade....
, and Dutch Schultz
Dutch Schultz

Dutch Schultz was a New York City-area gangster of the 1920s and 1930s. Born Arthur Flegenheimer, he made his fortune in organized crime-related activities such as rum-running alcohol and the numbers racket....
. Rothstein's various nickname
Nickname

A nickname is a descriptive name given in place of or in addition to the official name of a person, place or thing. Another class of nickname is the familiar or truncated form of the proper name, such as Bob, Bobby, Rob, Robbie, and Bert for Robert, more properly called a short name....
s were Mr. Big, The Fixer, The Man Uptown, The Big Bankroll and The Brain. Rothstein frequently mediated differences between the New York gangs and reportedly charged a hefty fee for his services. His favorite "office" was Lindy's Restaurant
Lindy's

Lindy's is a deli and restaurant in New York City, formerly located in the middle of Times Square at 1626 Broadway . Lindy's midtown locations are 825 7th Avenue and 401 7th Avenue ....
, at Broadway
Broadway (New York City)

Broadway, as the name implies, is a wide avenue in New York City. While New York has several other Broadways, in the context of the city it usually refers to the Manhattan street....
 and 49th Street in Manhattan, where he would stand on the corner surrounded by his bodyguards and do business on the street. Rothstein made bets and collected debts from those who had lost the previous day.

Murder

On November 3, 1928, Arnold Rothstein was shot and mortally wounded while conducting some business affairs at Manhattan's Park Central Hotel
Park Central Hotel

The Park Central Hotel is a 31-story, 935-room hotel located at 870 7th Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, New York.Built in the pre-Depression Era late-twenties, its grand opening took place on June 12, 1927....
. He died the next day at the Stuyvesant Polyclinic Hospital in Manhattan. The shooting was allegedly linked to a gambling event that Rothstein had participated in the previous month with several associates and acquaintances. According to underworld folklore, it was a spectacular three-day, high-stakes poker
Poker

Poker is a family of card game that share betting rules and usually List of poker hands. Poker games differ in how the cards are dealt, how hands may be formed, whether the high or low hand wins the pot in a showdown , limits on bets and how many rounds of betting are allowed....
 game held somewhere in Manhattan
Manhattan

Manhattan is one of the five borough of New York City, located primarily on Manhattan Island at the mouth of the Hudson River.With a United States Census of 1,620,867 living in a land area of 22.96 square miles , Manhattan, coextensive with New York County, is the most population density county in the United States, w...
. Rothstein apparently experienced a cold streak with the cards and ended up owing $320,000 at the end of the game. However, Rothstein refused to pay the debt, claiming the game was fixed. The hit was arranged to punish Rothstein for welshing on this debt. Gambler George "Hump" McManus was arrested for the murder, but later acquitted for lack of evidence. Rothstein, on his deathbed, refused to identify his killer, answering police inquiries with "You stick to your trade. I'll stick to mine" and "Me mudder
Mother

A mother is a biological and/or Maternal bond female parent of an offspring. Because of the complexity and differences of the social, cultural, and religious definitions and roles, it is challenging to define a mother in a universally accepted definition....
 did it". Rothstein was buried at Ridgewood
Ridgewood, Queens

Ridgewood is a neighborhood in the New York City Borough of Queens, that borders the neighborhoods of Maspeth, Queens, Middle Village, Queens and Glendale, Queens, as well as the Brooklyn neighborhood of Bushwick, Brooklyn....
's Union Field Cemetery in a Jewish Orthodox
Orthodox Judaism

Orthodox Judaism is a Jewish denominations of Judaism that adheres to a relatively strict constructionist and application of the laws and ethics first canonized in the Talmudic texts and as subsequently developed and applied by the later authorities known as the Gaonim, Rishonim, and Acharonim....
 ceremony.

Another theory about Rothstein's death is offered by crime reporter Paul Sann in his book Kill the Dutchman. Sann alleges that Dutch Schultz murdered Rothstein in retaliation for the murder of Schultz's friend and associate, Joey Noe, by Rothstein's protégé, Jack "Legs" Diamond.

Frank Erickson
Frank Erickson

Sorry, no overview for this topic
, Meyer Lansky
Meyer Lansky

Meyer Lansky was a organized crime who, with Charles Luciano, was instrumental in the development of The Commission in the United States.Lansky developed a gambling empire which ranged from Saratoga, Miami, Las Vegas and was officially in charge of gambling concessions in Cuba....
, Bugsy Siegel
Bugsy Siegel

Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel was an United States gangster who was a major driving force behind large-scale development of Las Vegas, Nevada....
, and other former associates inherited Rothstein's various "enterprises" after his death. Politically, Rothstein's death contributed to the fall of the corrupt Democratic political machine
Political machine

A political machine is a disciplined political organization in which an authoritative boss or small group commands the support of a corps of supporters , who receive rewards for their efforts....
 known as Tammany Hall
Tammany Hall

Tammany Hall , was the History of the United States Democratic Party political machine that played a major role in controlling History of New York City politics and helping immigrants rise up in American politics from the 1790s to the 1960s....
 and the rise of Mayor Fiorello La Guardia.

Ten years after his death, Arnold Rothstein's only surviving brother declared Rothstein's estate bankrupt.

In popular culture

  • The author F. Scott Fitzgerald
    F. Scott Fitzgerald

    Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was an United States writer of novels and short stories, whose works are evocative of the Jazz Age, a term he coined himself....
     used Arnold Rothstein as the inspiration for Jay Gatsby's crooked associate Meyer Wolfsheim in the novel The Great Gatsby
    The Great Gatsby

    The Great Gatsby is a novel by the United States author F. Scott Fitzgerald. First published on April 10, 1925, it is set in Long Island's North Shore and New York City during the summer of 1922....
    . At one point, Gatsby says to narrator Nick Carraway, "That's the man who fixed
    Match fixing

    In organized sports, match fixing or game fixing occurs when a match is played to a completely or partially pre-determined result, violating the rules of the game and often the law....
     the 1919 World Series."
  • Rothstein's legendary pool-playing marathon, against a Philadelphia pool shark called Jack Conway shipped in by Rothstein's enemies to humiliate him, took place over two days and nights in 1911 at McGraw's Billiard Parlor, off Herald Square
    Herald Square

    File:Naked Pictures of Bea Arthur 0124.jpgHerald Square is formed by the intersection of Broadway , Sixth Avenue and 34th Street in the borough of Manhattan in New York City....
     in Manhattan. Rothstein just kept playing and betting until Conway's backers had lost $10,000. Eventually, the owner (John McGraw) stepped in and shut down the hall, saying "That's it. If I let you go on I'll have one o' youse dead on my hands." This was the real-life inspiration for the opening pool contest between Minnesota Fats
    Minnesota Fats

    Rudolf Walter Wanderone, Jr. was an United States professional pocket billiards player, best known as "Minnesota Fats". As "Fats", in spite of the fact that he never won a major pool tournament, he was perhaps the most publicly recognized pool player in the United States – not only as a player, but also as an entertainer....
     (Jackie Gleason
    Jackie Gleason

    Herbert Walton Gleason, Jr. , whose birth name was John Herbert "Jackie" Gleason, was an American comedian, actor and musician.He was known for his brash visual and verbal comedy styling, especially as delivered by his character Ralph Kramden on the sitcom The Honeymooners....
    ) and Fast Eddie Felson (Paul Newman
    Paul Newman

    Paul Leonard Newman was an United States actor, film director, entrepreneur, Humanitarianism, and auto racing enthusiast. He won numerous awards, including an Academy Award for his performance in the 1986 Martin Scorsese film The Color of Money and eight other nominations three Golden Globe, a BAFTA Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, a...
    ) in the 1961 film The Hustler
    The Hustler (film)

    The Hustler is a 1961 in film American drama film. It tells the story of small-time pool Hustling, "Fast Eddie" Felson, and his desire to prove himself the best player in the country by beating legendary pool player "Minnesota Fats." After initially losing to Fats and getting involved with unscrupulous manager Bert Gordon, Eddie returns t...
    . Rothstein's patronage of floating crap games
    Craps

    Craps is a dice game played against other players or a bank. Craps developed from a simplification of the Old English game Hazard . Its origins are highly complex and may date to the Crusades, later being influenced by French gamblers....
     also provided the model for Nathan Detroit in the musical Guys and Dolls
    Guys and Dolls

    Guys and Dolls is a musical theater, with the music and lyrics written by Frank Loesser and book by Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows, based on "The Idyll of Miss Sarah Brown" and "Blood Pressure", two short stories by Damon Runyon....
    . Rothstein also appears as "The Brain" in several of Damon Runyon
    Damon Runyon

    Damon Runyon was a newspaperman and writer.He was best known for his short stories celebrating the world of Broadway in New York City that grew out of the Prohibition in the United States era....
    's short stories, including a fictional version of his death in The Brain Goes Home.
  • In the film The Godfather, Part II, Hyman Roth
    Hyman Roth

    Hyman Roth is a fictional character, one of the primary antagonists in The Godfather Part II, based on Mario Puzo's bestselling novel The Godfather , played by the actor and acting teacher Lee Strasberg, who was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for the role ....
     mentions that Rothstein is his inspiration. In a sequence cut from the original film, Roth adopts his surname after Rothstein's in honor of his part in the Black Sox Scandal.
  • Rothstein was portrayed in several films: by F. Murray Abraham
    F. Murray Abraham

    Fahrid Murray Abraham is an Academy Award-winning United States actor. He became known during the 1980s, after winning the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in Amadeus , and has since appeared in many roles, both leading and supporting, in films, television, and mainly on stage....
     in the 1991 Mobsters
    Mobsters

    Mobsters is a 1991 in film Crime film-drama film detailing the creation of the National Crime Syndicate/The Commission. Set in New York, New York during the Prohibition in the United States era, it is a semi-fictitious account of the rise of Lucky Luciano, Meyer Lansky, Frank Costello, and Bugsy Siegel....
    , by David Janssen
    David Janssen

    David Janssen was a Golden Globe-winning Emmy Award- nominated United States film and television actor who is best known for his starring role as Dr....
     in the 1961 King of the Roaring 20s, and by Michael Lerner
    Michael Lerner (actor)

    Michael Lerner is an Academy Award-nominated American actor....
     in the 1988 Eight Men Out
    Eight Men Out

    Eight Men Out is an United States dramatic sports film, released in 1988, based on 8 Men Out, published in 1963, by Eliot Asinof. It was written and directed by John Sayles....
    , based on the Black Sox Scandal
    Black Sox Scandal

    The Black Sox Scandal refers to a number of events that took place around and during the play of the 1919 World Series. The name "Black Sox" also refers to the Chicago White Sox team from that year....
    .


External links

  • , Legal Affairs, March-April, 2004