Founded in 2017, Strange Times is a twice-monthly newsletter that explores the weirdest news of 1921, one day at a time. To get free games and the original PDFs of every article that runs in Strange Times—plus stories that didn’t make the cut—back me on Patreon.
Things I Like
Changeover! This year’s French Open, whose men’s title was won on Sunday by a seemingly awful dude, really grabbed my attention. Maybe it was the way all the big names flamed out early, guaranteeing new champions for both the women’s and men’s draws. Maybe it’s because the Mets have been so wretched that I’m desperate for other sports. Either way, I’ve been thinking about tennis a lot lately and since it’s been a decade since I followed the sport closely, I grabbed Giri Nathan’s book about Alcarez and Sinner to bring me up to speed. I’ve been loving it! It’s some of the best sportswriting I’ve read in ages—Roger Angell type stuff, which is the highest praise I have.
Tennis Elbow 4! Because video games are my favorite way to learn about a sport, I impulse bought this indie tennis—which is on sale until Wednesday—and I’m so glad I did. It’s a little janky but it was clearly made with a ton of love and it feels like tennis in a way other, more luxe games don’t.
Ecstasy! That’d be the Lou Reed album, not the drug. I got five of his later albums for $21 at the record store last week and I’m enjoying digging into them—it’s nice to see all the cool stuff he did post-Transformer. I’ve got Ecstasy on right now and it’s got a nice heavy sound.
Today we’ve got a hero in Philly and some villains in New York. Hide your stick pins on…
September 5, 1921
The National Woman’s Party summons a council to approve final language for a proposed constitutional amendment that would remove all legal inequalities for women.
A White Russian officer interrupts a Paris screening of a film called “Rasputin” to protest the unfair depiction of the former Tsar and Tsarina.
Despite increased tuition, joblessness spurs record enrollment at major Eastern colleges, with Dartmouth College—which recently raised its annual tuition to $250—refusing 1,500 applicants.
Authoress Louise Rosine, jailed in Atlantic City for refusing to cover her knees at the beach, has refused to roll up her stockings while awaiting her Wednesday court date.
A riot aboard the excursion steamboat Pocahontas, begun by passengers apparently avenging a crewman’s insult of a woman, ends in the death of an employee of the National Biscuit Company who falls overboard during the fighting. Oddly, this is not the only article mentioning the National Biscuit Company, which has been charged with price fixing by the Federal Trade Commission. I smell a conspiracy!
The Weather: Unsettled today, local thunderstorms; Tuesday fair, slightly cooler; moderate variable winds.
Father O’Donnell had no trouble saving his church from fire but even he couldn’t save it from development.
PHILADELPHIA, Sept. 4.—Father William J. O’Donnell averted a panic during a fire in the Church of the Most Precious Blood at 7:30 o’clock mass this morning. There is a small shrine to the Blessed Virgin on one side of the altar and while Father O’Donnell was preaching his sermon a flash of fire was seen in the corner of the shrine. In an instant the whole shrine was ablaze, the flames leaping to the ceiling.
With hardly a break in his voice, Father O’Donnell said:
“This is a concrete building. There is no possible danger.”
The congregation sat silent in the pews. Then he continued:
“If two men will step into the hall and get the fire extinguishers we can easily put this fire out.”
Two men near the rear door brought the extinguishers and applied the streams to the blaze. All the while the congregation remained seated, watching the fire as it burned the frame work of a door near the altar.
Some one sent in an alarm to the fire department. When the first piece of apparatus arrived the firemen found Father O’Donnell finishing his sermon. The fire was out.
I love how hyped the Times gets for a crime story. They’re having so much fun with the atmosphere and the lingo and the gun-waving, but they’re still so uptight that they have to put scare quotes on “wise guys.” It’s sweet.
Four armed men, with faces concealed by blue, polka-dotted handkerchiefs, interrupted a craps game in the rear of 49 Allen Street about 5 o’clock yesterday afternoon and after a leisurely and systematic search of forty or more players fled with money and jewelry valued at $5,000 to $10,000.
The lining up and search of the victims at the point of revolvers was accomplished in broad daylight and in view of the occupants of several tenements surrounding a courtyard in which the craps game was being played. The robbers’ flight, attempted in a taxi-cab through the holiday crowds in the lower east side, was equally bold, but it led to a chase that ended in the arrest of one man, whom several of the craps players identified as one of the bandits.
The scene of the hold-up, according to persons who live in the neighborhood, has been a rendezvous for crap shooters for many months. The players, in the parlance of the district, are all “wise guys,” and the stakes have been heavy. The courtyard, where the games are played, is surrounded by high board fences and its only entrance is through the tenement at 49 Allen Street. The games have been secure from police interference, although they have been the subject of gossip in the neighborhood.
Masked Men Appear Through Hall.
The players had about $150 piled on the concrete pavement when the four masked men appeared through the tenement hallway. The command “hands up” was followed by another from one who seemed to be the leader of the quartette:
“Come, put ‘em up quick and get against that wall.”
One of the masked men stood at the doorway. A second covered the forty men. The other two divided the forty players off into equal sections and began the search. The sight of scores of heads poked out of the tenement windows led the leader to exclaim to one of the band:
“Hey, Jimmy, work a little faster. You act like an amateur. You’ve been out of that class long ago.”
There was nothing amateurish so far as the thoroughness of the search was concerned. No pockets were overlooked. Hats, shoes and socks were carefully examined and seams were examined with the eyes and fingers of experts.
Two men, known in the Allen Street neighborhood as “Juba” and “Turk,” were made to strip before the bandits. A total of $1,500 was found in their possession. One of the victims began to let his arms fall through weariness, but “Jimmy” gave him a blow across the mouth with the butt end of a revolver and cried:
“Where is that pin you had?”
Other demands of the bandits indicated a familiarity with the players’ affairs.
Robbers Flee to Waiting Taxi.
After the last man had been searched the victims were ordered to turn toward the wall and were warned not to stir for ten minutes. Then the four robbers backed out through the tenement hallway. Outside the building they ran for the southeast corner of Grand and Allen Streets, where a taxicab was waiting. The taxi started at top speed and ran five blocks to Norfolk Street, turned south into Hester Street and then east into Suffolk Street.
The players had started after the escaping robbers and a large crowd had joined them. The call of “Thieves! Robbers!” was taken up along the way, but no one paid any heed to the taxi until it got to Suffolk Street. There the holiday crowd was thick and the taxi was held up in a jam of pedestrians. The four men leaped from the cab and ran into the crowd.
Patrolman Stephen Stadtmuller of the Clinton Street Station came along in time to arrest one man, but the others ran into Seward Park and were lost in a throng of several thousand persons. The prisoner was taken to the Clinton Street Station, where he said he was Frank Ross, 30, an Italian laborer of the Bayard Hotel, Bayard Street and the Bowery.
Twelve of the victims identified Ross as one of the four bandits. A blue polka-dotted handkerchief was found in one of his pockets. Although he denied all knowledge of the hold-up, he was held at Clinton Street Station on a charge of robbery. Only one jeweled stickpin and no money was found in the prisoner’s possession.
Most of the craps players kept away from the police station, but several went there to report the amount of their Jacob Bloom of 231 Monroe Street said the bandits had taken $1,200 from him. Isadore Essenfield and Isadore Neerman of 104 Division Street, Brooklyn, reported losing $700 each. Louis Kramer of 245 Broome Street said he had been robbed of $163, and Harry Strauss of 75 Orchard Street reported $50 and a gold watch and chain had been taken.
