CALLING JUDGE CRATER Chapter Two

 

Theatrical lawyer William Klein reached the fulcrum of his life at 1:38 in the morning of Thursday, 11 May, 1905, while sleeping in a lower berth on a Pullman car of the Pennsylvania Railroad's Cincinnati Overnight Express - 25 years and one month before his cold dinner with Judge John Force Crater.  The train had departed Manhattan's Penn Station about 10:00 pm on Wednesday, and had reached Harrisburg, Pennsylvania well after midnight.

"Willie" was traveling to Pittsburgh with his client, Samuel Shubert (above), youngest and most ambitious of the very ambitious Shubert brothers. Messrs. Shubert had already bought or built 13 theaters,.  And Bill Klein was the feisty, pushy, legal hammer which pounded any opposition to the Shuberts into dust. Said one Broadway historian, "...to most people a litigation was a breakdown in human relations, to the Shuberts...it was an arm of diplomacy."

Leaving Harrisburg's red brick station (above) at 1:30am, the Express was just picking up speed when it hit that fulcrum. A railroad work crew had hooked their 2 car train onto a westbound 100 car freight. Then, the freight was shunted onto a siding above the Susquehanna River, to clear the track for the Cincinnati Express.  But the unexpected work train extended at least one car onto a curve beyond the "safe zone" of the siding,  And when the Express came barreling out of Harrisburg, picking up speed, its cars swaying as it rounded the curve, it slammed into that single car left hanging out. It was the work train's dynamite car.

The Pullman cars disintegrated, their elaborate wooden interiors wrenching apart, the berths collapsing, trapping the sleeping passengers.  Kerosene lamps were smashed, and fires were sparked, and almost immediately there was a tremendous explosion, then another as the dynamite began to cook off. Quickly the entire freight began to burn, as did the Pullman cars. The 29 year old Sam Shubert was trapped in his burning bunk,  By the time another passenger freed him, he had deep burns over 100% of his body. His legs were almost charred. 

Wrote a local newspaper, "Horrific explosions shattered the darkness, lighting up the sky like daylight. Passengers were tossed from their berths. Some were flung from the cars. Others died horribly in the burning wreckage. "  Willie Klein was dragged semiconscious from his berth, badly burned on his face, hands and legs. 

The resulting devastation (above)  reduced the wooden passenger cars to splinters and kindling, more easily consumed by the flames.  More than a dozen passengers were burned to death. Almost another dozen would die within a few days. Most of the rest would be scarred for life.

There was little left of either train (above). And little left of many of the victims. Sam Shubert survived in agony, with burns over 100% of his body, until he mercifully passed into a coma and died at 9:30 the next morning.

William Klein would survive, but with extensive scars. Because of that terrible wreck, there are  few photos of Bill Klein, giving a hint at the internal scars.  For the rest of his life, Bill, a "Tall, craggy faced, rather homely man, would occasionally look at himself in a mirror and announce, “What an ugly bastard I am."

Over the next quarter of a century, William Klein laid the bricks of  surviving Shubert brothers Lee and Jacob's  theatrical empire.  As Jerry Stagg noted in his detailed 1968  "The Brothers Shubert, “Not only did he fight their legal battles but he negotiated their contracts, and used every device of a devious man to further Shubert interests, and, as a by product, created a large part of today's theatrical law." And the center of that empire would forever be, Times Square.

In April, the year before Sam's death,  the New York City Council renamed Longacre Square in honor of the new 25 story New York Times building,  which had just opened at the head of the space where Broadway formed a pair of X's across 8th and 7th Avenues.  But by the summer of 1930, three of tallest buildings in the world, all more than double the height of the Times building, were either standing or under construction in New York City. 

Begun first, in May of 1928,  was the 71 story tall Bank of Manhattan Building (above, center) at 40 Wall Street.  It was one of the most powerful financial firms in the world, with 100 branches in 23 foreign countries. 

During the previous 8 years, the Bank's growth had been guided by Chairman of the Board,  "Sunshine" Charlie Mitchell (above).  In October of 1929, a month after the stock market crash, Mitchell insisted the economy was, "...like a weather-vane pointing into a gale of prosperity". But that same month, U.S. Senator Carter Class would claim that "Mitchell, more than any 50 men, is responsible..." for the coming "Great Depression". 

The second tower, begun in September of 1928, at Lexington Avenue and East 42nd Street, was the  

1,000 foot tall, 77 story Chrysler Building (above). It was built by Walter P. Chrysler, intended to secure the future wealth of his children.   

In January of 1930 construction began on the Empire State Building, on Fifth Avenue, between 33rd and 34th streets. (Above, left. Chrysler building BG center. 40 wall Street, spiral top middle BG. Woolworth, far BG, behind Chrysler)  Rising 1,404 feet in just 410 days, the Empire States's 102 stories would be completed on 1 May, 1931, as a funeral monument to the excesses of the Roaring Twenties. Almost immediately it became known as "The Empty State Building".

Rising to dominate the Broadway Theatre community were the towering Shubert brothers,  J.J.(above)...

....and Lee (above), They owned half the theatres on Broadway and a hundred others from London to Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles  

In the words of  Howard Tubman,  writing for the New York Times in 1964, "...they were merchants in show business...They drove hard bargains...They made money—lots of it."  Even during the Great Depression.

During the 1930 season the 31 theaters with 500 or more seats in the Broadway Theatre district presented 230 shows, limiting the average run of a play to just 7 weeks.  Besides indicating the time it took for a show to "break even", this turnover required a constant stream of new investors, always with new money they were willing to risk in the hopes of the occasional big hit.

After the crash of 1929 there were only three groups of investors willing put money into such a short run cash business, investors to whom "finishing in the red" was not only profitable, but preferable - the bootlegger, the pimp and the gangster.

Broadway was not their business. But money made dirty because it came from an illegal  "Speakeasy" or a brothel could finance the rental of theatrical lighting for "The Ballyhoo of 1930" or costumes for "The Dancing Partner".  Passing through these mundane exchanges, dirty money was now laundered. Clean and legal, it could return as kickbacks to the investor. This was where the world of lawyers like Willie Klein and "Good Time" Joe Crater met the world of gangsters like Jack "Legs" Diamond and  Charles "Lucky" Luciano - backstage in the Broadway theatres, chasing showgirls.  

The women who survived in this world, were either like upscale prostitute Vivian Gordon, the girlfriend of "Legs" Diamond, or dancer showgirls, like Sally Lou Ritz,  who dined with Judge Crater the night he disappeared. They were trapped in a world which allowed them to dance or sing only as long as they were of interest to the men.  It was not about intimacy, you could even say it was rarely about sex. It was always about power.

Jerry Stagg provides a description - albeit solely male - of this junction of worlds from the Shubert Brother's perspective (above). In Chapter Six of "The Brothers Shubert" he writes, "Jake (above, left) was the "cruder" of the two, and legion are the tales of his assignations - in dressing rooms, in telephone booths, in corridors, behind scenery flats, and, of course, in hotel rooms and apartments.  Lee (above right)...calculated that time was money, (and) made his office a convenient place. 

"To one side of it...he had an apartment complete with bedroom. To the other side of his office was a small meagerly furnished room...which also contained a bed.   A former secretary... remarked, "....You see the bedroom was for stars and important people. The room - well that just for girls. The room got most of the action." 

It was a dangerous and violent place for these women.  And in 1930, it was the only place in New York city, where women were tolerated close to power

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