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Beware the Enemy: World War II Upstate New York Manhunts

May 13, 2025 by Joseph W. Zarzynski Leave a Comment

It was July 1942, the seventh month of the United States in World War II (1941–1945). The German military had driven into the Caucasus region of southeastern Europe. New York residents were shocked, too, by news that fascists from a German U-boat had landed several weeks earlier in eastern Long Island but the Nazi agents were captured.

Then the media reported that on July 16, six parachutists had been spotted in the skies near Hyde Park, NY, home of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The government worried that enemy spies or assassins might be near Roosevelt’s Hudson Valley residence. [Read more…] about Beware the Enemy: World War II Upstate New York Manhunts

Italian-Americans as Alien Enemies: Westchester Opera Star Ezio Pinza

February 16, 2025 by Jaap Harskamp 1 Comment

In 1766 jurist William Blackstone published his Commentaries on the Law of England in which he defined the term “enemy alien” as it was understood in common law. He confirmed that during a time of war “alien enemies have no rights, no privileges.” The Crown exercises absolute power. In a simple turn of phrase, the Oxford professor anticipated the agony of millions of migrants. [Read more…] about Italian-Americans as Alien Enemies: Westchester Opera Star Ezio Pinza

James Colby Harrington: Con Man Extraordinaire

December 6, 2024 by Dave Waite Leave a Comment

In 1898, James Colby Harrington was known in Schuylerville as an honest and friendly young man, yet only four years later he had gained the title “Schuylerville’s Star Swindler.”

And that is only the beginning, as this story spans 30 years and traverses a thousand miles as it follows the life of this notorious con man. [Read more…] about James Colby Harrington: Con Man Extraordinaire

FDR, The New Deal, And A Mass Lynching in Georgia

July 26, 2024 by John Warren Leave a Comment

During the Great Depression of the 1930s, President Franklin D. Roosevelt developed New Deal programs to hire unemployed men to work on public works projects. In the South, New Deal jobs typically provided higher wages than those in the private sector and under those programs black men were paid the same wage as white men. [Read more…] about FDR, The New Deal, And A Mass Lynching in Georgia

FBI’s Covert Anti-Nazi Long Island Radio Station

June 6, 2023 by Guest Contributor Leave a Comment

On this episode of the A New York Minute in History podcast, Devin Lander and Lauren Roberts tell the recently declassified story of a covert radio station built by the FBI on Long Island to deceive the Nazis during the Second World War. [Read more…] about FBI’s Covert Anti-Nazi Long Island Radio Station

Paintings Stolen 50 Years Ago Returned to Historic Huguenot Street

June 9, 2022 by Editorial Staff 1 Comment

The New York Art Crime Team of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) recently returned two paintings by 19th-century portrait artist Ammi Phillips to Historic Huguenot Street (HHS).

The two portraits, depicting prominent New Paltz residents Dirck D. Wynkoop (1738-1827) and his wife Annatje Eltinge (1748-1827), were missing for fifty years, after they were stolen on February 16th, 1972 while on display at the 1799 Ezekiel Elting (aka LeFevre) House on Huguenot Street. [Read more…] about Paintings Stolen 50 Years Ago Returned to Historic Huguenot Street

Gamblers and Gangsters of Saratoga

August 17, 2021 by Guest Contributor Leave a Comment

Saratoga has always been a gambling town. Even before the famous racetrack was built, Saratoga was full of gambling dens.

Many of the early gambling places were run by men who were considered “gentlemen gamblers.” They ran relatively clean games and generally avoided violence or other forms of vice. They were professional gamblers.

Later, with gambling well entrenched and Saratoga’s location along the notorious bootleg trail from Canada during prohibition, Saratoga attracted nationally known gangsters. [Read more…] about Gamblers and Gangsters of Saratoga

Whittaker Chambers and Alger Hiss in New York

July 21, 2019 by Randall Whitestone 5 Comments

Seventy years ago this month, a lower Manhattan courtroom provided the stage for a remarkable confrontation – much of which played out in New York – that symbolized the frustration of a nation that had recently won the Second World War but felt more insecure than ever.

The euphoria of victory had been quickly succeeded by a perception of global communism on the march. In Europe, the Soviet Union had only recently ended an 11-month blockade of Berlin and had, since 1945, rung down the Iron Curtain across Eastern Europe. In China, Mao’s communists were winning their civil war against Chiang Kai-Shek’s U.S.-backed Nationalists, who would soon flee the mainland for Taiwan. And the Soviets were about to end the U.S. monopoly on the atom bomb with a successful test explosion. [Read more…] about Whittaker Chambers and Alger Hiss in New York

Historians Podcast: The Diary Of A Top Nazi Official

April 22, 2016 by Bob Cudmore Leave a Comment

This week on “The Historians” podcast the guest is journalist David Kinney, co-author of The Devil’s Diary: Alfred Rosenberg and the Stolen Secrets of the Third Reich. (HarperCollins, 2015) The co-author is retired FBI expert on cultural property crime Robert Wittman. You can listen to the podcast here. [Read more…] about Historians Podcast: The Diary Of A Top Nazi Official

1939: Nazi Saboteurs In Sullivan County

January 7, 2015 by John Conway 1 Comment

There have long been stories – most of them unsubstantiated – about the activities of the German American Bund in Sullivan County in the years leading up to World War II.

While the activities of that particular pro-Nazi organization in the region may be debatable, there is no question that a small group of men charged with plotting to overthrow the U.S. government and replacing it with a Nazi style dictatorship spent much of the summer of 1939 in Sullivan County. [Read more…] about 1939: Nazi Saboteurs In Sullivan County

The Fuehrer In Sullivan County

December 30, 2014 by John Conway 1 Comment

During the summer of 1939, a small group of men from out of the area rented a camp just outside Narrowsburg, a small community on the Delaware River in Sullivan County, where they spent most of their time shooting rifles. Their need for such extensive practice was understandable; locals who observed the target practice described the men’s aim as “plumb awful.” [Read more…] about The Fuehrer In Sullivan County

Theatre: The Unsung Song of Ethel Rosenberg

July 8, 2014 by Kathleen Hulser Leave a Comment

Cold warriors of the 1950s achieved one of their most macabre victories by frying Ethel Rosenberg in the electric chair, not for sharing atomic secrets, but simply as leverage to coerce her husband Julius to reveal sources.

Joan Beber’s play, “Ethel Rosenberg Sings: The Unsung Song of Ethel Rosenberg” at the Beckett Theatre until July 13th probes gender politics and personal story. This lively and intelligent exploration doesn’t flinch at setting Ethel’s story to music, since as a smart Jewish girl from the Lower East side bursting to escape the confines of immigrant horizons Ethel (Tracy Michaelidis) saw herself on stage “hitting a high C.” Undercover Productions and Perry Street Theatricals give this rendition of “straight from the spy files” of history an imaginative twist by framing it with prison politics and interracial casting that bounces the themes in an echo chamber of past and present. [Read more…] about Theatre: The Unsung Song of Ethel Rosenberg

Ticonderga Scoundrel: Bernard Champagne

February 26, 2013 by Lawrence P. Gooley 1 Comment

Fort Ticonderoga’s connection to the world of chocolate has been well documented over the years. Several additions and improvements were funded by Forrest Mars, Jr., husband of Deborah Adair Clark of Ticonderoga (they are now divorced). Forrest is worth approximately $10 billion as one of the heirs of the Mars candy company.

Eighty years ago, another famous name in chocolate—Baker—was bandied about in Ticonderoga, and it again involved mention of great wealth ($80 million at the time, equal to $1 billion in 2013). But for the village, the story left in its wake an embarrassment as bitter as the company’s most famous product (Baker’s bittersweet chocolate). [Read more…] about Ticonderga Scoundrel: Bernard Champagne

Mad Ones: Media Darling Crazy Joe Gallo

July 22, 2009 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

Tom Folsom’s new book, The Mad Ones: Crazy Joe Gallo and the Revolution at the Edge of the Underworld, takes readers back to a time when Red Hook, Brooklyn called to mind a bloody guerrilla war with the mafia, and not a new IKEA store. Because he writes about the history and cultural fabric of the city in a fresh and inventive way Folsom recently appeared on Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show. You can also find a YouTube video of Folsom discussing what the neighborhood at the junction of Columbia and Union Streets in Red Hook was like before waterfront crime and the construction of the BQE and Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel.

Joe Gallo’s short life as gangster, gunman, and racketeer of the Profaci crime family (later known as the Colombo crime family) drew much media attention. Joey and his two brothers initiated one of the bloodiest mob conflicts since the Castellammarese War of 1931. He was an inspiration for Jimmy Breslin and Mario Puzo, considered a threat by both Jimmy Hoffa and Bobby Kennedy, and was teh subject of spreads in Life magazine and Women’s Wear Daily. His gangster chic was the popularized by Harvey Keitel in Reservoir Dogs. His death would be the subject of Bob Dylan’s 1976 song “Joey”.

The Mad Ones tells the story of the Gallo brothers, a trio of reckless young gangsters from Red Hook who staged a coup against the Mafia. In the book, author Tom Folsom recreates the New York City Joey Gallo and the Gallo brothers inhabited. To do this, Folsom—who went inside the FBI Witness Protection Program to research the critically acclaimed “>Mr Untouchable: The Rise and Fall of the Black Godfather written with its subject Nicky Barnes, immersed himself in the strange, brutal, and sometimes poetic world of the Gallo brothers. He waded through almost 1,500 pages of unpublished FBI files, spent hours in the tabloid archives at the New York Public Library, interviewed the Federal agents and NYPD detectives who had staked out the Gallo headquarters almost a half a century ago, and culled what made sense from wiretaps of underworld conversations and leads from informants.

Stolen 1612 Map of Canada to be Auctioned?

October 16, 2008 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

Thanks to The Map Room we learn that a rare copy of Samuel de Champlain’s 1612 map of Canada set to be auctioned at Sotheby’s next month, may be the same map discovered missing from Harvard University in 2005.

The Calgary Herald has the whole story:

The Harvard map was found missing in 2005 during an FBI investigation into a string of thefts from major libraries in the U.S. and Britain that saw about 100 cartographic treasures – worth an estimated $3 million US in total – sliced from centuries-old atlases and exploration journals.
Massachusetts antiquarian E. Forbes Smiley, a well-known collector and dealer of rare maps, eventually admitted to the thefts and is serving three years in a U.S. prison for the crime.
He helped authorities recover many of the stolen maps as part of a plea bargain, but the 1612 Champlain map removed from Harvard’s Houghton Library was not among those he admitted taking.

The Champlain map is one of top-priced items at Sotheby’s Nov. 13 Natural History, Travel, Atlases and Maps sale. According to the Calgary Herald the map was the first to be published to show Montreal, Lake Champlain and the Great Lakes as a chain of connected waterways.

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