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SUNDAY,JULY11,1999 OURCENTURYteachingcleveland.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/1975.pdf ·...
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THE PLAIN DEALER . SUNDAY, JULY 11, 1999 5-H OUR CENTURY 1975 AT A GLANCE Car bomb kills Shondor Birns By Fred McGunagle It truly can be said of Shondor Birns that nothing in life so befitted him as the way he left it. On Holy Saturday evening in 1975, he left Christy’s Bar at W. 25th St. and Detroit Ave. and walked to his 1975 Lincoln Continental. He got in and turned the key. With a blast heard for blocks, Shondor was blown through the roof. Parts of him came down across the street at St. Malachi Church, where parishioners were gathering for the 8 p.m. Easter Vigil Mass. Shondor Birns had died as he lived — violently, and with Page One head- lines. • The papers called him Alex “Shon- dor” Birns, but that was backwards. He was born Szandor (Hungarian for Alexander) Birnstein in either 1905 or 1907 in what is now the Slo- vak Republic town of Lemesany, which was then part of the Austro- Hungarian Empire. He was only a month old when his family came to Cleveland and went into the bootlegging business. Author Rick Porrello records that in 1920 Birns’ mother was killed when the still in their home exploded. The red- headed youth spent his teens in the Jewish Orphanage. On graduation, he fell in with the Maxie Diamond gang. In the next 12 years, his “rap sheet” showed 18 ar- rests. In 1925, Birns was sent to the Mansfield Reformatory for two years for auto theft. In 1933, he served 30 days in the Workhouse for assault and 60 days for bribery. In 1934, Birns was shot during a scuffle with a nightclub bouncer named Rudy Duncan. On the witness stand, Birns denied knowing who shot him. Duncan was acquitted. A few weeks later, Duncan was killed by gunfire from a car that pulled along- side his. Birns soon became a power in what was variously called the “numbers” or “policy” or “clearinghouse” racket, in which operators enforced their territory by bomb and gun. In effect, it was an illegal lottery; news- papers regularly denounced it until the state went into the business. Soon the papers were labeling Birns Public Enemy No. 1. He loved the publicity; it was good for business. On the legit side, he operated night- clubs — the 1011 Club on Chester Ave. and then the Alhambra at E. 105th St. and Euclid Ave. The latter became the place to be seen. A genial host, Birns especially enjoyed enter- taining news people and police. During World War II, Birns tried to enlist. His draft board, figuring that better he should be shooting Ger- mans, went to bat for him, but the armed forces refused him. Instead, since was still a Hungarian citizen, he was interned as an enemy alien. After the war, the United States tried to de- port him to what had become Czecho- slovakia. Czechoslovakia wouldn’t take him. In 1949, Birns beat up a policeman and served nine months in the Work- house. The Workhouse superinten- dent was later fired for allowing Birns to take virtual control of the place. While he was there, the home of policy operator Henry “Buster” Mathews was bombed. Mathews blamed Birns, and a Workhouse guard said he helped Birns plan the bombing. The newspapers had a field day with the two-month trial of Birns and four other hoods. Witnesses told of mob operations and payoffs to police. Defense attorney William Corrigan demanded: “Why is Buster Mathews allowed to conduct the biggest policy racket in the city unmolested?” The jury deadlocked; Safety Director Al Sutton later charged that Birns had tried to bribe and scare off witnesses. Birns served three years in federal prison for income tax evasion in the 1950s, but repeatedly beat local charges. In 1957, a numbers operator named Donald “the Kid” King — later a nationally known boxing promoter — stopped paying protec- tion money. When King’s house was bombed, he told police he would tes- McGunagle is a Cleveland free- lance writer. tify that Birns was responsible, and he did — even after he suffered head wounds from shotgun pellets. How- ever, King’s testimony failed to con- vince the jury. In 1959, somebody shot at Birns. Word on the street was it was Clar- ence “Sonny” Coleman, a numbers operator. Soon afterward Coleman was shot from a passing car; he said Birns was the driver. In court, Cole- man suddenly said he had been wrong: it wasn’t Birns. He was ar- rested as a material witness and the next day testified it had been Birns after all. The jury didn’t know which version to believe. Once more, Birns walked. The most sensational case involv- ing Birns was the murder of financier Mervin Gold. In 1961, Gold was ac- cused of defrauding banks and the Small Business Administration by us- ing stolen Canadian bonds as collat- eral for loans. He fled to Israel, but returned in 1962 to face trial and in- dicated he would cooperate. In July 1963, Gold’s wife reported him missing. On July 5, his car was found in the woods of Solon with his body in the trunk. He had been stran- gled and shot. His wife gave police an envelope he had left in case he ever disappeared. It contained an affidavit that he had gotten the stolen bonds from Birns. His wife said he had planned to meet Birns on the night he disappeared. Birns was nowhere to be found, though his leased auto was spotted near a motel in Toledo. Five days later, he showed up in Cleveland and told police he had heard he was wanted. He insisted that on the night Gold was killed he had been at home — and could produce a woman “of fine character” who would swear she had been with him all night. Her identity was a shock. She was a 24-year-old Garfield Heights school- teacher named Allene Leonard. Frus- trated police could not bring charges. Shortly afterward, Birns married Leonard, having recently divorced his first wife. • His cronies at the Theatrical Res- taurant on Short Vincent Ave. re- membered “Shon” as a nice guy, gen- erous to those in need. Reporters mourned him because, as the Press put it, “he was good copy and ever ready to stand them a drink.” Even the police who knew him as a cold- blooded killer found him hard to dis- like. His murder went down as unsolved, like so many of which he himself was suspected. In “To Kill the Irishman: The War that Crippled the Mafia,” Rick Porrello fingers Danny Greene, a young hood who had once worked for Shondor as an enforcer and had ambitions of taking over the rackets. Barely two years later, Greene met a similar fate as he left his dentist’s office. Nobody could match the half- century survival record of Shondor Birns, the charming killer. PLAIN DEALER FILE PHOTO Bewildered Browns Coach Forrest Gregg and owner Art Modell. Another year, another fiscal crisis Thousands of Clevelanders jammed Public Square to welcome 1975. Emcee Doug Adair introduced Mayor Ralph Perk, who would sing “that great and beautiful song, ‘I Believe.’ ” It was a fitting choice. When “Auld Lang Syne” died away, Perk would face a financial crisis for the fourth time in his four New Year’s Days as mayor. His plan to lay off 269 police and firefighters had been ruled illegal because it had not been approved by City Council. Perk was under court orders to get rid of 300 “temporary” employees — many of them patronage appointees — who had served beyond the 90-day limit set by civil service regulations. Through horse-trading with Council Presi- dent George Forbes, Perk won approval of the safety layoffs, and by appealing the civil serv- ice ruling he won enough time for a crash test- ing program to legalize the employees. Cuyahoga County voters approved a 1 per- cent “piggyback” sales tax for the Regional Transit Authority, enabling RTA to pay Cleve- land for the Cleveland Transit System. Perk transferred the money-losing city zoo to the Metroparks. Federal funds from the new Community Development Block Grants and the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act allowed him to rehire laid-off employees or find other ways to do their jobs. It would turn out later than Finance Direc- tor Warren Riebe was also “borrowing” bond funds for city operations. For now the banks, which had lent the city money routinely, “rolled over” the loans at the end of each year. • Perk finished 5,000 votes behind school board President Arnold Pinkney in the seven- man Sept. 30 mayoral primary. But there were two ways to look at the results. One was that Democrats (four of them) had outpolled Republicans (Perk) 70,000 to 45,000. The other was that, counting three minor- party candidates, whites had outpolled blacks 67,000 to 50,000. County Democratic Chairman Anthony Ga- rofoli said his party, which had stayed neutral in the primary, would give “enthusiastic and unqualified” support to Pinkney. The third and fourth candidates, State Rep. Patrick Sweeney and former state lottery official James Dickerson, endorsed Pinkney. Pinkney, who is black, declared, “We’ve proved once for all that racism is dead, that polarization is dead.” In the campaign, however, white Demo- crats, especially council members, were nota- ble by their absence. The Nov. 4 count was Perk, 98,000, Pinkney, 83,000. • The National Weather Service was predict- ing a 20 percent chance of rain on Sunday, Aug. 24. Suddenly, it was as though Lake Erie had been picked up and dropped on Cleveland. Up to 4 inches of rain fell between 2:30 and 8:30 p.m. Thirty families were evacuated from southeastern Cleveland and Warrensville Heights. Two boys, 12 and 14, were killed by lighting as they ran under a tree at Kingsbury Park. A 10-year-old girl wading along W. 130th St. drowned when she plunged into a catch basin whose cover had washed away. A 41-year-old man drowned swimming across University Circle in an attempt to find his daughter’s car, one of a number under the water. Some East Side intersections were still under water Monday morning. Case Western Reserve University was flooded. • All four Cleveland sports franchises had los- ing seasons, though the Indians and the Cava- liers came close to .500. Nick Mileti’s Crusad- ers slipped to 35-40-3, but his Cavaliers improved to 40-42. The addition of center Jim Chones and guard Dick Snyder gave the Cavs reason to look forward to the 1975-76 season. Frank Robinson was baseball’s first black manager and the Indians’ first playing man- ager since Lou Boudreau. He got Mileti’s Indi- ans off to a memorable start before 56,000 on Opening Day when he hit a home run in his first at bat. Boog Powell, Robinson’s old team- mate with the Baltimore Orioles, hit 27 home runs for the Indians, but the team finished fourth, at 79-80. The Browns opened with a 24-17 loss to Cin- cinnati, a 42-10 loss to Minnesota and a 42-6 loss to Pittsburgh. After the third loss, owner Art Modell held a closed-door meeting with rookie coach Forrest Gregg and hinted at dras- tic changes. The next week, the Browns lost to Houston 40-10. A bewildered Gregg hired and fired kick returners almost weekly. After los- ing its first nine games, the team won three of its last five; Gregg was retained. PLAIN DEALER FILE PHOTOS When Shondor Birns’ Lincoln Continental exploded, the blast was heard for blocks. Birns appears in court in 1937 on charges of carrying concealed weapons. Birns puts up bond at the Central Police Station in 1950, a familiar procedure by then. Birns in 1950, after a “not guilty” verdict. LOOKING AT A YEAR Feb. 11: Britain’s Conservative Party elects its first female leader. She is Margaret Thatcher, former minister of education. Feb. 21: John Mitchell, John Ehr- lichman and H.R. Haldeman are sen- tenced to prison for their roles in the Watergate cover-up. April 30: Saigon surrenders to Viet- namese Communists. A few days later, it is renamed Ho Chi Minh City. April 13: Jack Nicklaus wins a record-setting fifth Masters golf tour- nament. Sept. 18: Hostage-turned-fugitive Patty Hearst is arrested in San Fran- cisco. Oct. 1: Muhammad Ali defeats Joe Frazier in a Philippines boxing match that becomes known as the Thrilla in Manila. Nov. 12: In failing health, William O. Douglas retires from the U.S. Su- preme Court. Dec. 17: Lynette “Squeaky“ Fromme and Sara Jane Moore are sentenced to life in prison for trying to assassinate President Gerald Ford. Born: Tiger Woods, Drew Barry- more. Died: Chiang Kai-shek, Francisco Franco, Susan Hayward, Fredric March, Aristotle Onassis, Casey Stengel.
Transcript of SUNDAY,JULY11,1999 OURCENTURYteachingcleveland.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/1975.pdf ·...
THE PLAIN DEALER . SUNDAY, JULY 11, 1999 5-H
OUR CENTURY1975
AT A GLANCE
Car bomb kills Shondor BirnsBy Fred McGunagle
It truly can be said of ShondorBirns that nothing in life so befittedhim as the way he left it.
On Holy Saturday evening in 1975,he left Christy’s Bar at W. 25th St.and Detroit Ave. and walked to his1975 Lincoln Continental. He got inand turned the key. With a blastheard for blocks, Shondor was blownthrough the roof. Parts of him camedown across the street at St. MalachiChurch, where parishioners weregathering for the 8 p.m. Easter VigilMass.
Shondor Birns had died as he lived— violently, and with Page One head-lines.
•The papers called him Alex “Shon-
dor” Birns, but that was backwards.He was born Szandor (Hungarian
for Alexander) Birnstein in either1905 or 1907 in what is now the Slo-vak Republic town of Lemesany,which was then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
He was only a month old when hisfamily came to Cleveland and wentinto the bootlegging business. AuthorRick Porrello records that in 1920Birns’ mother was killed when thestill in their home exploded. The red-headed youth spent his teens in theJewish Orphanage.
On graduation, he fell in with theMaxie Diamond gang. In the next 12years, his “rap sheet” showed 18 ar-rests. In 1925, Birns was sent to theMansfield Reformatory for two yearsfor auto theft. In 1933, he served 30days in the Workhouse for assault and60 days for bribery.
In 1934, Birns was shot during ascuffle with a nightclub bouncernamed Rudy Duncan. On the witnessstand, Birns denied knowing who shothim. Duncan was acquitted. A fewweeks later, Duncan was killed bygunfire from a car that pulled along-side his.
Birns soon became a power in whatwas variously called the “numbers”or “policy” or “clearinghouse”racket, in which operators enforcedtheir territory by bomb and gun. Ineffect, it was an illegal lottery; news-papers regularly denounced it untilthe state went into the business. Soonthe papers were labeling Birns PublicEnemy No. 1. He loved the publicity;it was good for business.
On the legit side, he operated night-clubs — the 1011 Club on ChesterAve. and then the Alhambra at E.105th St. and Euclid Ave. The latterbecame the place to be seen. A genialhost, Birns especially enjoyed enter-taining news people and police.
During World War II, Birns tried toenlist. His draft board, figuring thatbetter he should be shooting Ger-mans, went to bat for him, but thearmed forces refused him. Instead,since was still a Hungarian citizen, hewas interned as an enemy alien. Afterthe war, the United States tried to de-port him to what had become Czecho-slovakia. Czechoslovakia wouldn’ttake him.
In 1949, Birns beat up a policemanand served nine months in the Work-house. The Workhouse superinten-dent was later fired for allowingBirns to take virtual control of theplace. While he was there, the homeof policy operator Henry “Buster”Mathews was bombed. Mathewsblamed Birns, and a Workhouseguard said he helped Birns plan thebombing.
The newspapers had a field daywith the two-month trial of Birns andfour other hoods. Witnesses told ofmob operations and payoffs to police.Defense attorney William Corrigandemanded: “Why is Buster Mathewsallowed to conduct the biggest policyracket in the city unmolested?” Thejury deadlocked; Safety Director AlSutton later charged that Birns hadtried to bribe and scare off witnesses.
Birns served three years in federalprison for income tax evasion in the1950s, but repeatedly beat localcharges. In 1957, a numbers operatornamed Donald “the Kid” King —later a nationally known boxingpromoter — stopped paying protec-tion money. When King’s house wasbombed, he told police he would tes-
McGunagle is a Cleveland free-lance writer.
tify that Birns was responsible, andhe did — even after he suffered headwounds from shotgun pellets. How-ever, King’s testimony failed to con-vince the jury.
In 1959, somebody shot at Birns.Word on the street was it was Clar-ence “Sonny” Coleman, a numbersoperator. Soon afterward Colemanwas shot from a passing car; he saidBirns was the driver. In court, Cole-man suddenly said he had beenwrong: it wasn’t Birns. He was ar-rested as a material witness and thenext day testified it had been Birnsafter all. The jury didn’t know whichversion to believe. Once more, Birnswalked.
The most sensational case involv-ing Birns was the murder of financierMervin Gold. In 1961, Gold was ac-cused of defrauding banks and theSmall Business Administration by us-ing stolen Canadian bonds as collat-eral for loans. He fled to Israel, butreturned in 1962 to face trial and in-dicated he would cooperate.
In July 1963, Gold’s wife reportedhim missing. On July 5, his car wasfound in the woods of Solon with hisbody in the trunk. He had been stran-gled and shot. His wife gave police anenvelope he had left in case he everdisappeared. It contained an affidavitthat he had gotten the stolen bondsfrom Birns. His wife said he hadplanned to meet Birns on the night hedisappeared.
Birns was nowhere to be found,though his leased auto was spottednear a motel in Toledo. Five dayslater, he showed up in Cleveland andtold police he had heard he waswanted. He insisted that on the nightGold was killed he had been at home— and could produce a woman “offine character” who would swear she
had been with him all night.Her identity was a shock. She was a
24-year-old Garfield Heights school-teacher named Allene Leonard. Frus-trated police could not bring charges.Shortly afterward, Birns marriedLeonard, having recently divorcedhis first wife.
•His cronies at the Theatrical Res-
taurant on Short Vincent Ave. re-membered “Shon” as a nice guy, gen-erous to those in need. Reportersmourned him because, as the Pressput it, “he was good copy and everready to stand them a drink.” Eventhe police who knew him as a cold-blooded killer found him hard to dis-like.
His murder went down as unsolved,like so many of which he himself wassuspected. In “To Kill the Irishman:The War that Crippled the Mafia,”Rick Porrello fingers Danny Greene,a young hood who had once workedfor Shondor as an enforcer and hadambitions of taking over the rackets.
Barely two years later, Greene met
a similar fate as he left his dentist’soffice. Nobody could match the half-century survival record of ShondorBirns, the charming killer.
PLAIN DEALER FILE PHOTO
Bewildered Browns Coach Forrest Greggand owner Art Modell.
Another year,another fiscal crisis
Thousands of Clevelanders jammed PublicSquare to welcome 1975. Emcee Doug Adairintroduced Mayor Ralph Perk, who would sing“that great and beautiful song, ‘I Believe.’ ”
It was a fitting choice. When “Auld LangSyne” died away, Perk would face a financialcrisis for the fourth time in his four NewYear’s Days as mayor. His plan to lay off 269police and firefighters had been ruled illegalbecause it had not been approved by CityCouncil. Perk was under court orders to getrid of 300 “temporary” employees — many ofthem patronage appointees — who had servedbeyond the 90-day limit set by civil serviceregulations.
Through horse-trading with Council Presi-dent George Forbes, Perk won approval of thesafety layoffs, and by appealing the civil serv-ice ruling he won enough time for a crash test-ing program to legalize the employees.
Cuyahoga County voters approved a 1 per-cent “piggyback” sales tax for the RegionalTransit Authority, enabling RTA to pay Cleve-land for the Cleveland Transit System.
Perk transferred the money-losing city zooto the Metroparks. Federal funds from the newCommunity Development Block Grants andthe Comprehensive Employment and TrainingAct allowed him to rehire laid-off employeesor find other ways to do their jobs.
It would turn out later than Finance Direc-tor Warren Riebe was also “borrowing” bondfunds for city operations. For now the banks,which had lent the city money routinely,“rolled over” the loans at the end of each year.
•Perk finished 5,000 votes behind school
board President Arnold Pinkney in the seven-man Sept. 30 mayoral primary. But there weretwo ways to look at the results.
One was that Democrats (four of them) hadoutpolled Republicans (Perk) 70,000 to 45,000.The other was that, counting three minor-party candidates, whites had outpolled blacks67,000 to 50,000.
County Democratic Chairman Anthony Ga-rofoli said his party, which had stayed neutralin the primary, would give “enthusiastic andunqualified” support to Pinkney. The thirdand fourth candidates, State Rep. PatrickSweeney and former state lottery officialJames Dickerson, endorsed Pinkney. Pinkney,who is black, declared, “We’ve proved once forall that racism is dead, that polarization isdead.”
In the campaign, however, white Demo-crats, especially council members, were nota-ble by their absence. The Nov. 4 count wasPerk, 98,000, Pinkney, 83,000.
•The National Weather Service was predict-
ing a 20 percent chance of rain on Sunday,Aug. 24. Suddenly, it was as though Lake Eriehad been picked up and dropped on Cleveland.Up to 4 inches of rain fell between 2:30 and8:30 p.m. Thirty families were evacuated fromsoutheastern Cleveland and WarrensvilleHeights.
Two boys, 12 and 14, were killed by lightingas they ran under a tree at Kingsbury Park. A10-year-old girl wading along W. 130th St.drowned when she plunged into a catch basinwhose cover had washed away.
A 41-year-old man drowned swimmingacross University Circle in an attempt to findhis daughter’s car, one of a number under thewater. Some East Side intersections were stillunder water Monday morning. Case WesternReserve University was flooded.
•All four Cleveland sports franchises had los-
ing seasons, though the Indians and the Cava-liers came close to .500. Nick Mileti’s Crusad-ers slipped to 35-40-3, but his Cavaliersimproved to 40-42. The addition of center JimChones and guard Dick Snyder gave the Cavsreason to look forward to the 1975-76 season.
Frank Robinson was baseball’s first blackmanager and the Indians’ first playing man-ager since Lou Boudreau. He got Mileti’s Indi-ans off to a memorable start before 56,000 onOpening Day when he hit a home run in hisfirst at bat. Boog Powell, Robinson’s old team-mate with the Baltimore Orioles, hit 27 homeruns for the Indians, but the team finishedfourth, at 79-80.
The Browns opened with a 24-17 loss to Cin-cinnati, a 42-10 loss to Minnesota and a 42-6loss to Pittsburgh. After the third loss, ownerArt Modell held a closed-door meeting withrookie coach Forrest Gregg and hinted at dras-tic changes. The next week, the Browns lost toHouston 40-10. A bewildered Gregg hired andfired kick returners almost weekly. After los-ing its first nine games, the team won three ofits last five; Gregg was retained.
PLAIN DEALER FILE PHOTOS
When Shondor Birns’ Lincoln Continental exploded, the blast was heard for blocks.
Birns appears in court in 1937 oncharges of carrying concealedweapons.
Birns puts up bond at the Central Police Station in 1950, a familiarprocedure by then.
Birns in 1950, after a “not guilty”verdict.
LOOKING AT A YEAR
Feb. 11: Britain’s ConservativeParty elects its first female leader.She is Margaret Thatcher, formerminister of education.
Feb. 21: John Mitchell, John Ehr-lichman and H.R. Haldeman are sen-tenced to prison for their roles in theWatergate cover-up.
April 30: Saigon surrenders to Viet-
namese Communists. A few dayslater, it is renamed Ho Chi Minh City.
April 13: Jack Nicklaus wins arecord-setting fifth Masters golf tour-nament.
Sept. 18: Hostage-turned-fugitivePatty Hearst is arrested in San Fran-cisco.
Oct. 1: Muhammad Ali defeats JoeFrazier in a Philippines boxing matchthat becomes known as the Thrilla inManila.
Nov. 12: In failing health, WilliamO. Douglas retires from the U.S. Su-preme Court.
Dec. 17: Lynette “Squeaky“
Fromme and Sara Jane Moore aresentenced to life in prison for tryingto assassinate President Gerald Ford.
Born: Tiger Woods, Drew Barry-more.
Died: Chiang Kai-shek, FranciscoFranco, Susan Hayward, FredricMarch, Aristotle Onassis, CaseyStengel.
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