Max Greenberg
Encyclopedia
Max "Big Maxie" Greenberg (1883-1933) was an American bootlegger and organized crime figure in Detroit, Michigan
and later as a member of Egan's Rats
in St. Louis
. He oversaw the purchasing of sacramental wine
from Orthodox
rabbis, then allowed under the Volstead Act
, which were sold to bootleggers in the St. Louis
-Kansas City, Missouri
area during Prohibition
. He was also associated with mobsters in this particular method of acquiring illegal liquor including Waxey Gordon
, Meyer Lansky
and Arnold Rothstein
.
By the early 1910s, Max Greenberg had joined the Egan's Rats and become one of their best members. Max, his brother Morris, and two others were suspected in the murder of Sam Mintz on December 5, 1914. It was disclosed that Mintz had informed on the boys in an arson/insurance scam they were running. Greenberg managed to beat the rap. Max Greenberg was also believed to have played a key role in the Rats' first known bank robbery, that of the Baden Bank on April 10, 1919. The take was $59,000.
Soon after the Baden bank heist, Max Greenberg, Ben Milner, and Edward "Big Red" Powers were sentenced to Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary on an interstate theft charge, stemming from the Egan-sponsored robbery of some railroad cars in Danville, Illinois
. Egan gang boss William Egan
and Missouri State Senator Michael Kinney managed to finagle the three men pardons from none other than President Woodrow Wilson
himself.
Soon after their release, Max Greenberg and Ben Milner decided to go into the bootlegging racket for themselves. They accomplished this by betraying the very same man who had saved them from prison; Willie Egan. Egan gave Greenberg $2,000 to make a deal with a Mexican smuggler for a load of whiskey. Max, it later turned out, paid the smuggler but kept the booze for himself. Egan was furious and demanded that Greenberg reimburse him, but Maxie claimed the whiskey barge had sunk in the Mississippi River
. These bad feelings came to a head in the early morning hours of October 16, 1920, when Greenberg and his pals engaged the rest of the Egan's Rats in a huge brawl at Willie Egan's Franklin Avenue saloon. One of the men severely injured was attorney John Sweeney. A month later, Ben Milner would be shot and killed during a running gun battle with the Russo Gang. After these two incidents his bootleg business fell into disarray, forcing Max Greenberg to leave St. Louis for Detroit.
In the fall of 1920, he was introduced to Rothstein by Waxey Gordon and asked for a $175,000 loan to purchase speedboats to bring in alcohol from Ontario
to Detroit as well as additional funds for graft
payoffs. Rothstein liked the idea, but instead decided to apply rumrunning to New York where the demand was the highest demand in the country. Gordon was allowed to run the operation as a junior partner while Greenberg, in order not to be cut out entirely, was allowed to take part in the deal under the condition that he mortgage all his personal property to Rothstein and take out an expensive life insurance policy with Rothstein's insurance company.
In March 1921, Greenberg returned to St. Louis to lay the groundwork for his new business. Willie Egan gave Max one last chance to account for the missing whiskey. The two, along with John Sweeney and an unidentified man, met at the corner of Sixth and Chestnut streets in downtown St. Louis on March 11, 1921. Greenberg refused to pay once again. As the meet broke up, a lone gunman appeared out of the shadows and started shooting. Sweeney was killed and Max Greenberg was shot through the jaw. Despite the severity of his wounds, Maxie survived. In the wake of this attempt on his life, Greenberg formed an alliance with the rival Hogan Gang.
The Egan's Rats would steadfastly believe that Max Greenberg was the driving force behind the murder of Willie Egan, who was gunned down in front of his saloon on October 31, 1921. It was said that Greenberg paid the three shooters $10,000 each for the hit. During the ensuing gang war, new Egan boss Dint Colbeck
made getting Greenberg a top priority. After Monsignor Timothy Dempsey negotiated a truce between the Egan and Hogan gangs in June 1922, several armed Hogan gangsters escorted Max Greenberg onto a New York-bound train.
Returning to New York City, Max and Gordon then began leasing a fleet motorboats and trucks which brought in bonded whiskey and scotch
from Rothstein's contacts in Canada and Great Britain. Their rum running system protected by Rothstein's payoffs to certain members of the U.S. Coast Guard as well as police and local politicians in Long Island
and the Jersey Shore
, the alcohol would be delivered to high-class hotels in Manhattan
among Rothstein's clientele. The bootlegging operation became one of the biggest and most successful in the country for five years until September 1925 when Prohibition agents seized one of their ships off Astoria, Long Island. Greenberg and Gordon were arrested with 13 others a month later and charged with conspiracy to violate prohibition laws.
He later went to New Jersey where, in July 1929, he formed a bootlegging cartel with Waxey Gordon and Max Hassel. Greenberg managed Gordon's vast real estate, hotel and gambling interests while Gordon's muscle and Hassel's experience and political connections made a formidable alliance and their operation eventually became the largest producer of real beer in the New York-Philadelphia area. By 1933, the three owned at least 16 or 17 breweries stretching from Buffalo
, Elmira
and Syracuse, New York
to eastern Pennsylvania
, New Jersey
, Delaware
and Maryland
according to the US government. They also controlled smaller unlicensed breweries known as "cold water" or "wild cats".
Greenberg and his partners began to come under pressure to join the Italian-Jewish criminal syndicate controlled by Lucky Luciano
and Meyer Lansky. They also began receiving threats from rival Dutch Schultz
. On the afternoon of April 12, 1933, Greenberg and Gordon were scheduled to meet with Hassel at his suite on the eighth floor of the Carteret Hotel in Elizabeth, New Jersey
. Between 2:30 and 4:00 pm, taxi driver George Hickman told police he drove Greenberg and two other unidentified men from the hotel to the Harrison brewery. He then drove them back to the Carteret where he saw Greenberg entered the building. The two men who were with him stayed outside for a few moments before following him inside. Although these men remained unidentified, it was suggested they may have been Greenberg's bodyguards who were making sure no one followed their boss up to Hassel's hotel room. This was supported by the hotel barber who said Greenberg waved to him as he entered the hotel at 4:10 pm. A second theory developed by police suggested that Greenberg never left the hotel at all as hotel employees claimed his bulletproof sedan was not taken out of the hotel garage that day. Investigators found it unlikely that Greenberg would risk taking a taxi, and without his regular bodyguard, knowing that his life may have been in danger.
Shortly after the meeting started, Gordon left his partners and walked down the hall where he claimed to have entered the room of a young lady, 22-year-old mob prostitute Nancy Presser, with whom he spent the rest of the afternoon. He admitted he had talked to some men after leaving the meeting, but police did not release their names. Lou Parkowitz was also present the room and left when the participants began discussing serious matters. He was the last to see Greenberg and Hassel alive as, several minutes later, he returned to the room after hearing gunfire and found both men had been shot to death. Parkowitz claimed that he had passed several men running past him as he hurried back to the room. Entering the room, Parkowitz discovered Hassel's body laying face down near the office doorway while Greenberg was slumped over a closed rolltop desk
shot five times in the chest and head.
Frankie Carbo
, a gunman for Murder Incorporated, was later charged with the murders of Greenberg, Hassel and Gordan following his arrest in 1935. He spent six months in jail before the case was dropped. Joseph Stassi claimed that Meyer Lansky, Abner "Abe" Zwillman
and Joe Adonis
had ordered the three men killed in order to consolidate their control over bootlegging operations in North Jersey.
Detroit, Michigan
Detroit is the major city among the primary cultural, financial, and transportation centers in the Metro Detroit area, a region of 5.2 million people. As the seat of Wayne County, the city of Detroit is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan and serves as a major port on the Detroit River...
and later as a member of Egan's Rats
Egan's Rats
Egan's Rats was an American organized crime group that exercised considerable power in St. Louis, Missouri from 1890 to 1924. Its 35 years of criminal activity included bootlegging, labor slugging, voter intimidation, armed robbery, and murder...
in St. Louis
St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis is an independent city on the eastern border of Missouri, United States. With a population of 319,294, it was the 58th-largest U.S. city at the 2010 U.S. Census. The Greater St...
. He oversaw the purchasing of sacramental wine
Sacramental wine
Sacramental wine, Communion wine or altar wine is wine obtained from grapes and intended for use in celebration of the Eucharist...
from Orthodox
Orthodox Judaism
Orthodox Judaism , is the approach to Judaism which adheres to the traditional interpretation and application of the laws and ethics of the Torah as legislated in the Talmudic texts by the Sanhedrin and subsequently developed and applied by the later authorities known as the Gaonim, Rishonim, and...
rabbis, then allowed under the Volstead Act
Volstead Act
The National Prohibition Act, known informally as the Volstead Act, was the enabling legislation for the Eighteenth Amendment which established prohibition in the United States...
, which were sold to bootleggers in the St. Louis
St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis is an independent city on the eastern border of Missouri, United States. With a population of 319,294, it was the 58th-largest U.S. city at the 2010 U.S. Census. The Greater St...
-Kansas City, Missouri
Kansas City, Missouri
Kansas City, Missouri is the largest city in the U.S. state of Missouri and is the anchor city of the Kansas City Metropolitan Area, the second largest metropolitan area in Missouri. It encompasses in parts of Jackson, Clay, Cass, and Platte counties...
area during Prohibition
Prohibition
Prohibition of alcohol, often referred to simply as prohibition, is the practice of prohibiting the manufacture, transportation, import, export, sale, and consumption of alcohol and alcoholic beverages. The term can also apply to the periods in the histories of the countries during which the...
. He was also associated with mobsters in this particular method of acquiring illegal liquor including Waxey Gordon
Waxey Gordon
Waxey Gordon was an American gangster who specialized in bootlegging and illegal gambling. An associate of Arnold Rothstein during prohibition he was caught up in a power struggle following his death...
, Meyer Lansky
Meyer Lansky
Meyer Lansky , known as the "Mob's Accountant", was a Polish-born American organized crime figure who, along with his associate Charles "Lucky" Luciano, was instrumental in the development of the "National Crime Syndicate" in the United States...
and Arnold Rothstein
Arnold Rothstein
Arnold Rothstein , nicknamed "The Brain", was a New York businessman and gambler who became a famous kingpin of the Jewish mafia. Rothstein was also widely reputed to have been behind baseball's Black Sox Scandal, in which the 1919 World Series was fixed...
.
By the early 1910s, Max Greenberg had joined the Egan's Rats and become one of their best members. Max, his brother Morris, and two others were suspected in the murder of Sam Mintz on December 5, 1914. It was disclosed that Mintz had informed on the boys in an arson/insurance scam they were running. Greenberg managed to beat the rap. Max Greenberg was also believed to have played a key role in the Rats' first known bank robbery, that of the Baden Bank on April 10, 1919. The take was $59,000.
Soon after the Baden bank heist, Max Greenberg, Ben Milner, and Edward "Big Red" Powers were sentenced to Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary on an interstate theft charge, stemming from the Egan-sponsored robbery of some railroad cars in Danville, Illinois
Danville, Illinois
Danville is a city in Vermilion County, Illinois, United States. It is the principal city of the'Danville, Illinois Metropolitan Statistical Area' which encompasses all of Danville and Vermilion County. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 32,467. It is the county seat of...
. Egan gang boss William Egan
William Egan (gangster)
William Egan was a St. Louis politician and organized crime figure involved in bootlegging and illegal gambling. His brother was the namesake of the infamous Egan's Rats....
and Missouri State Senator Michael Kinney managed to finagle the three men pardons from none other than President Woodrow Wilson
Woodrow Wilson
Thomas Woodrow Wilson was the 28th President of the United States, from 1913 to 1921. A leader of the Progressive Movement, he served as President of Princeton University from 1902 to 1910, and then as the Governor of New Jersey from 1911 to 1913...
himself.
Soon after their release, Max Greenberg and Ben Milner decided to go into the bootlegging racket for themselves. They accomplished this by betraying the very same man who had saved them from prison; Willie Egan. Egan gave Greenberg $2,000 to make a deal with a Mexican smuggler for a load of whiskey. Max, it later turned out, paid the smuggler but kept the booze for himself. Egan was furious and demanded that Greenberg reimburse him, but Maxie claimed the whiskey barge had sunk in the Mississippi River
Mississippi River
The Mississippi River is the largest river system in North America. Flowing entirely in the United States, this river rises in western Minnesota and meanders slowly southwards for to the Mississippi River Delta at the Gulf of Mexico. With its many tributaries, the Mississippi's watershed drains...
. These bad feelings came to a head in the early morning hours of October 16, 1920, when Greenberg and his pals engaged the rest of the Egan's Rats in a huge brawl at Willie Egan's Franklin Avenue saloon. One of the men severely injured was attorney John Sweeney. A month later, Ben Milner would be shot and killed during a running gun battle with the Russo Gang. After these two incidents his bootleg business fell into disarray, forcing Max Greenberg to leave St. Louis for Detroit.
In the fall of 1920, he was introduced to Rothstein by Waxey Gordon and asked for a $175,000 loan to purchase speedboats to bring in alcohol from Ontario
Ontario
Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....
to Detroit as well as additional funds for graft
Graft (politics)
In general graft is an unscrupulous use of one’s authority for personal gain. However, the gain may also end up in party coffers...
payoffs. Rothstein liked the idea, but instead decided to apply rumrunning to New York where the demand was the highest demand in the country. Gordon was allowed to run the operation as a junior partner while Greenberg, in order not to be cut out entirely, was allowed to take part in the deal under the condition that he mortgage all his personal property to Rothstein and take out an expensive life insurance policy with Rothstein's insurance company.
In March 1921, Greenberg returned to St. Louis to lay the groundwork for his new business. Willie Egan gave Max one last chance to account for the missing whiskey. The two, along with John Sweeney and an unidentified man, met at the corner of Sixth and Chestnut streets in downtown St. Louis on March 11, 1921. Greenberg refused to pay once again. As the meet broke up, a lone gunman appeared out of the shadows and started shooting. Sweeney was killed and Max Greenberg was shot through the jaw. Despite the severity of his wounds, Maxie survived. In the wake of this attempt on his life, Greenberg formed an alliance with the rival Hogan Gang.
The Egan's Rats would steadfastly believe that Max Greenberg was the driving force behind the murder of Willie Egan, who was gunned down in front of his saloon on October 31, 1921. It was said that Greenberg paid the three shooters $10,000 each for the hit. During the ensuing gang war, new Egan boss Dint Colbeck
William Colbeck
William "Dint" Colbeck was a St. Louis politician and organized crime figure involved in bootlegging and illegal gambling. He succeeded William Egan as head of the Egan's Rats bootlegging gang in the early 1920s....
made getting Greenberg a top priority. After Monsignor Timothy Dempsey negotiated a truce between the Egan and Hogan gangs in June 1922, several armed Hogan gangsters escorted Max Greenberg onto a New York-bound train.
Returning to New York City, Max and Gordon then began leasing a fleet motorboats and trucks which brought in bonded whiskey and scotch
Scotch whisky
Scotch whisky is whisky made in Scotland.Scotch whisky is divided into five distinct categories: Single Malt Scotch Whisky, Single Grain Scotch Whisky, Blended Malt Scotch Whisky , Blended Grain Scotch Whisky, and Blended Scotch Whisky.All Scotch whisky must be aged in oak barrels for at least three...
from Rothstein's contacts in Canada and Great Britain. Their rum running system protected by Rothstein's payoffs to certain members of the U.S. Coast Guard as well as police and local politicians in Long Island
Long Island
Long Island is an island located in the southeast part of the U.S. state of New York, just east of Manhattan. Stretching northeast into the Atlantic Ocean, Long Island contains four counties, two of which are boroughs of New York City , and two of which are mainly suburban...
and the Jersey Shore
Jersey Shore
The Jersey Shore is a term used to refer to both the Atlantic coast of the U.S. state of New Jersey and the adjacent resort and residential communities. . The New Jersey State Department of Tourism considers the Shore Region, Greater Atlantic City, and the Southern Shore to be distinct, each having...
, the alcohol would be delivered to high-class hotels in Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
among Rothstein's clientele. The bootlegging operation became one of the biggest and most successful in the country for five years until September 1925 when Prohibition agents seized one of their ships off Astoria, Long Island. Greenberg and Gordon were arrested with 13 others a month later and charged with conspiracy to violate prohibition laws.
He later went to New Jersey where, in July 1929, he formed a bootlegging cartel with Waxey Gordon and Max Hassel. Greenberg managed Gordon's vast real estate, hotel and gambling interests while Gordon's muscle and Hassel's experience and political connections made a formidable alliance and their operation eventually became the largest producer of real beer in the New York-Philadelphia area. By 1933, the three owned at least 16 or 17 breweries stretching from Buffalo
Buffalo, New York
Buffalo is the second most populous city in the state of New York, after New York City. Located in Western New York on the eastern shores of Lake Erie and at the head of the Niagara River across from Fort Erie, Ontario, Buffalo is the seat of Erie County and the principal city of the...
, Elmira
Elmira, New York
Elmira is a city in Chemung County, New York, USA. It is the principal city of the 'Elmira, New York Metropolitan Statistical Area' which encompasses Chemung County, New York. The population was 29,200 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Chemung County.The City of Elmira is located in...
and Syracuse, New York
Syracuse, New York
Syracuse is a city in and the county seat of Onondaga County, New York, United States, the largest U.S. city with the name "Syracuse", and the fifth most populous city in the state. At the 2010 census, the city population was 145,170, and its metropolitan area had a population of 742,603...
to eastern Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
, New Jersey
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...
, Delaware
Delaware
Delaware is a U.S. state located on the Atlantic Coast in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It is bordered to the south and west by Maryland, and to the north by Pennsylvania...
and Maryland
Maryland
Maryland is a U.S. state located in the Mid Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware to its east...
according to the US government. They also controlled smaller unlicensed breweries known as "cold water" or "wild cats".
Greenberg and his partners began to come under pressure to join the Italian-Jewish criminal syndicate controlled by Lucky Luciano
Lucky Luciano
Charlie "Lucky" Luciano was an Italian mobster born in Sicily. Luciano is considered the father of modern organized crime in the United States for splitting New York City into five different Mafia crime families and the establishment of the first commission...
and Meyer Lansky. They also began receiving threats from rival Dutch Schultz
Dutch Schultz
Dutch Schultz was a New York City-area Jewish American gangster of the 1920s and 1930s who made his fortune in organized crime-related activities such as bootlegging alcohol and the numbers racket...
. On the afternoon of April 12, 1933, Greenberg and Gordon were scheduled to meet with Hassel at his suite on the eighth floor of the Carteret Hotel in Elizabeth, New Jersey
Elizabeth, New Jersey
Elizabeth is a city in Union County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the city had a total population of 124,969, retaining its ranking as New Jersey's fourth largest city with an increase of 4,401 residents from its 2000 Census population of 120,568...
. Between 2:30 and 4:00 pm, taxi driver George Hickman told police he drove Greenberg and two other unidentified men from the hotel to the Harrison brewery. He then drove them back to the Carteret where he saw Greenberg entered the building. The two men who were with him stayed outside for a few moments before following him inside. Although these men remained unidentified, it was suggested they may have been Greenberg's bodyguards who were making sure no one followed their boss up to Hassel's hotel room. This was supported by the hotel barber who said Greenberg waved to him as he entered the hotel at 4:10 pm. A second theory developed by police suggested that Greenberg never left the hotel at all as hotel employees claimed his bulletproof sedan was not taken out of the hotel garage that day. Investigators found it unlikely that Greenberg would risk taking a taxi, and without his regular bodyguard, knowing that his life may have been in danger.
Shortly after the meeting started, Gordon left his partners and walked down the hall where he claimed to have entered the room of a young lady, 22-year-old mob prostitute Nancy Presser, with whom he spent the rest of the afternoon. He admitted he had talked to some men after leaving the meeting, but police did not release their names. Lou Parkowitz was also present the room and left when the participants began discussing serious matters. He was the last to see Greenberg and Hassel alive as, several minutes later, he returned to the room after hearing gunfire and found both men had been shot to death. Parkowitz claimed that he had passed several men running past him as he hurried back to the room. Entering the room, Parkowitz discovered Hassel's body laying face down near the office doorway while Greenberg was slumped over a closed rolltop desk
Rolltop desk
A rolltop desk is a 19th century reworking of the pedestal desk with, in addition, a series of stacked compartments, shelves, drawers and nooks in front of the user, much like the bureau à gradin or the Carlton House desk...
shot five times in the chest and head.
Frankie Carbo
Frankie Carbo
Paul John Carbo better known as "Frankie Carbo" was a New York City Mafia soldier in the Lucchese crime family, who operated as a boxing promoter and a gunman with Murder, Inc....
, a gunman for Murder Incorporated, was later charged with the murders of Greenberg, Hassel and Gordan following his arrest in 1935. He spent six months in jail before the case was dropped. Joseph Stassi claimed that Meyer Lansky, Abner "Abe" Zwillman
Abner Zwillman
Abner "Longie" Zwillman , known as the "Al Capone of New Jersey," was an early Prohibition gangster, founding member of the "Big Seven" Ruling Commission and a member of the National Crime Syndicate, who was also associated with Murder Incorporated.-Biography:According to the Social Security Death...
and Joe Adonis
Joe Adonis
Joe Adonis , also known as "Joey A", "Joe Adone", "Joe Arosa", "James Arosa", and "Joe DiMeo", was a New York mobster who was an important participant in the formation of the modern Cosa Nostra crime families.-Early years:Adonis was born Giuseppe Antonio Doto in the small town of Montemarano,...
had ordered the three men killed in order to consolidate their control over bootlegging operations in North Jersey.
Further reading
- Block, Alan A. East Side-West Side: Organizing Crime in New York, 1930-1950. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Transaction Publishers, 1983. ISBN 0-87855-931-0
- Joselit, Jenna Weissman. Our Gang: Jewish Crime and the New York Jewish Community, 1900-1940. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1983. ISBN 0-253-15845-1
- Smith, Richard Norton. Thomas E. Dewey and His Times. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1982. ISBN 0-671-41741-X
- Tomlinson, Gerald. Murdered in Jersey. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1994. ISBN 0-8135-2078-9
- Waugh, Daniel. Egan's Rats: The Untold Story Of The Gang That Ruled Prohibition-era St. Louis. Nashville: Cumberland House, 2007. ISBN 1-58182-575-6