Harold Schechter - The Mad Sculptor

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In Memory of Harvey Shapiro

The Beekman Place Murders

VERA STRETZ , the Skyscraper Slayer, mistress and murderer of Fritz Gebhardt.

FRITZ GEBHARDT , prominent German industrialist with high political ambitions, Veras Nazi Loverboy.

NANCY TITTERTON , the Bathtub Beauty, editor, writer, murder victim.

LEWIS TITTERTON , Nancys husband, head of the script department of NBC radio.

JOHN FIORENZA , upholsterers assistant, Nancys killer.

The Artist and His Mentors

ROBERT IRWIN , the Mad Sculptor, artist, divinity student, mass killer.

CARLO ROMANELLI , renowned Hollywood sculptor, Robert Irwins first mentor.

LORADO TAFT , famed Chicago sculptor who took Irwin under his wing.

ANGUS MACLEAN , professor of religious history and future dean at the St. Lawrence University Theological School.

The Irwins

BENJAMIN HARDIN IRWIN , evangelist, founder of the Fire-Baptized Holiness Church, philanderer, father of the Mad Sculptor.

MARY IRWIN , Benjamins wife, religious fanatic, member of Florence Crawfords Apostolic Faith Mission, mother of the Mad Sculptor.

VIDALIN IRWIN , older brother of Robert Irwin, juvenile delinquent, future inmate of Oregon State Penitentiary.

PEMBER IRWIN , younger brother of Robert Irwin, juvenile delinquent, also a future inmate of Oregon State Penitentiary.

The Gedeons

ETHEL GEDEON , older daughter of the Gedeon family, object of Bobs amorous obsession.

VERONICA RONNIE GEDEON , party girl, artists model, murder victim.

JOSEPH GEDEON , Hungarian-born upholsterer, head of the Gedeon family, suspect in the Easter Sunday Massacre.

MARY GEDEON , Joes wife, speakeasy operator, landlady, murder victim.

JOE KUDNER , Ethel Gedeons second husband.

FRANK BYRNES , waiter at Manhattans Racquet and Tennis Club, boarded with the Gedeons, murder victim.

BOBBY FLOWER , briefly married to teenage Ronnie.

The Shrinks

FREDRIC WERTHAM , prominent New York psychiatrist who would treat and befriend Irwin.

CLARENCE LOW , president of the board of Rockland State Hospital and Bobs patron.

DR. RUSSELL E. BLAISDELL , superintendent of the Rockwell State Hospital.

The Cops

FRANCIS KEAR , Deputy Chief Inspector, NYPD.

JOHN A. LYONS , Assistant Chief Inspector, NYPD.

ALEXANDER O. GETTLER , renowned test tube sleuth of the NYPD crime lab.

LEWIS VALENTINE , Commissioner, NYPD.

The Newsmen

WEST PETERSON , editor of Inside Detective magazine, offered one-thousand-dollar reward for help in Irwins arrest.

HARRY ROMANOFF , city editor of the Chicago Herald-Examiner.

JOHN DIENHART , managing editor of the Herald and Examiner.

The Good Samaritan

HENRIETTA KOSCIANSKI , Cleveland hotel pantry girl who recognized Bob from Inside Detective article.

The Suits

SAMUEL LEIBOWITZ , the Great Defender, lawyer for clients ranging from Al Capone to the Scottsboro Boys.

THOMAS DEWEY, Manhattan District Attorney, future governor of New York and Republican presidential candidate.

JACOB J. ROSENBLUM , Assistant District Attorney, Deweys right-hand man, assigned to try Robert Irwin.

PETER SABBATINO , lawyer hired by Ethel to represent Joseph Gedeon.

April 1937

From the window of his rented attic room, he can look across the low rooftop of the adjoining building and watch the hectic scene in front of the police station on 51st Street: the grim-faced detectives shoving their way through the clamorous mob of reporters, the squad cars delivering a steady stream of witnesses and suspects, the neighborhood gawkers jamming the sidewalks. On a couple of occasions, he spots the old man being hustled in and out of the precinct house, doing his best to ignore the shouted questions of the newshounds.

By midweek, his meager provisions, the stuff he removed from their icebox, have run out. He will have to risk a trip outside for some food. Luckily, the scratches on his face have begun to fade. She had mauled him like nobodys business. Put up a hell of a fight. Must have taken her twenty minutes to die.

He waits until nightfall, then slips downstairs and out the front door. After a hasty bite at an all-night cafeteria, he returns to his room with a sackful of groceries and the final editions of the Mirror , the Journal , and the News .

The papers are full of the story: The Mystery of the Slain Artists

He counts more than twenty photographs of Ronnie in the tabloids, most in cheesecake poses, her nakedness barely concealed by a gauzy, airbrushed veil. By contrast, he finds only a couple of Ethel, bundled in a fur coat, her face drawn, her frowning husband beside her. The grainy pictures do nothing to capture her perfection.

He is sorry to have caused Ethel grief. If she had been home that night, none of this would have happened. Otherwise, he feels not a twinge of remorse. Why should he? They arent really dead. Sure, they might be gone from this plane. But their lives arent lost. You cant destroy one atom of matter. How are you going to destroy spirit?

He reads about the growing list of suspects Ronnies countless boyfriends, Marys former boarders, the Englishmans shady acquaintances. Every cop in the city is on the lookout for the mad slayer. And all the while, he is right under their noses, holed up just a block away. He has made absolutely no effort to cover his tracks. Must have left dozens of fingerprints all over the apartment. Didnt even bother to go back for the glove when he realized hed left it behind. The incompetence of the police and their supposed scientific experts amuses him.

Still, he knows it is only a matter of time before his name comes up. By the end of the week, he decides to skip town. Someday, when he has made his great contribution to the human race, he will be able to travel just by visualization. Time and space will mean nothing. For now, he will have to rely on more prosaic means.

On Sunday, April 4, exactly one week after the Easter morning slaughter, Robert Irwin boards a train to Philadelphia.

Over the following decades, the neighborhood continued to decline. As waves of European immigrants poured into the city and surged northward from the teeming ghettos of the Lower East Side, Beekman Place became engulfed by slums, its aging brownstones reduced to cheap boardinghouses for the foreign-born workers eking out a living at the waterside factories and abattoirs.

Its rehabilitation began in the 1920s when the East Side riverfront was colonized by Vanderbilts, Rockefellers, and other adventurous blue bloods. The old brownstones were renovated into stylish town houses, while several elegant apartment buildings, designed by some of the eras leading architects, arose on the site. One of the most impressive structures was the twenty-six-story Art Deco skyscraper at the corner of East 49th Street and First Avenue. Intended as a club and dormitory for college sorority women, it was originally known as the Panhellenic House but was renamed the Beekman Tower when it became a residential hotel for both sexes in 1934. By then, the now-fashionable neighborhood was home to a particularly rich concentration of artists, writers, and theatrical celebrities, among them Katharine Cornell, Ethel Barrymore, and Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne. In later years, the neighborhood would boast such residents as Irving Berlin, Greta Garbo, and Nol Coward.