CITY LORE; Willie Sutton, Urbane Scoundrel (original) (raw)
New York|CITY LORE; Willie Sutton, Urbane Scoundrel
https://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/17/nyregion/city-lore-willie-sutton-urbane-scoundrel.html
Advertisement
You have a preview view of this article while we are checking your access. When we have confirmed access, the full article content will load.
CITY LORE
- Feb. 17, 2002
See the article in its original context from
February 17, 2002
,
Section 14, Page
TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers.
FOR years afterward, Willie Sutton would curse himself for squeezing into the BMT subway train at Union Square station just before it rumbled toward Brooklyn that early afternoon in February 1952.
Mr. Sutton, then 52, was America's most celebrated criminal, a fixture on the F.B.I.'s Most Wanted List ever since he had escaped from a Pennsylvania prison five years earlier. He was a gentleman bandit who robbed scores of banks without firing a shot, sometimes while disguised as a policeman or a telegram messenger. He was a brainy ne'er-do-well who escaped from prison three times, read Schopenhauer for fun and loved to stroll through the roses at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. Known variously as the Babe Ruth of Bank Robbers, Willie the Actor and Slick Willie, the Brooklyn native claimed to have stolen $2 million during his 25-year career in robbery.
In the 1940's and 1950's, New York newspapers were filled with lurid black-and-white photographs of crime victims splayed on the sidewalk. But crime levels were low, and flamboyant gangsters, like Frank Costello and Bugsy Siegel, fascinated rather than repulsed the citizenry.
''Crime was less prevalent but the criminals were more glamorous,'' said Kenneth T. Jackson, professor of history at Columbia University and president of the New-York Historical Society. In the tense, high-crime decades that followed, that image was largely lost. No one ever had a warm feeling toward David Berkowitz, also known as Son of Sam.
But Mr. Sutton, with his trademark pencil-thin mustache and well-tailored double-breasted suits, enjoyed near folk-hero status in that era. Young boys idolized him. One year, a group of them chanted his name during the St. Patrick's Day parade. He was beloved by the tabloids, too. When asked why he robbed banks, he famously replied, ''Because that's where the money is.'' It didn't matter that he said he never uttered the phrase. And it didn't matter that the Field Marshal of Crime wasn't such a master criminal, ultimately spending nearly half his life behind bars.
Fifty years ago tomorrow, Mr. Sutton's illustrious career came to an end with that 10-cent subway ride. As his train pulled into the DeKalb Avenue station in Downtown Brooklyn, a chubby-cheeked 24-year-old named Arnold Schuster boarded for the short trip to his Borough Park home.
Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.
Thank you for your patience while we verify access.
Already a subscriber? Log in.
Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Advertisement