Spanish Louie

Spanish Louie
Spanish Louie
Born	John Lewis; New York City, New York, United States
Died	April 1, 1910; Manhattan, New York
Cause of death	Murdered
Nationality	American
Other names	Spanish Louis; Indian Louis
Occupation	Criminal
Known for	New York gunman and member of the Humpty Jackson Gang

Last updated June 17, 2024

John Lewis (died April 1, 1910), better known by his alias Indian or Spanish Louie (Lewis), was an American criminal and member of the Humpty Jackson Gang, serving as the gang leader's longtime lieutenant from around the turn of the 20th century until his murder in either 1900^[1]^[2] or 1910.^[3]^[4] His death was the first recorded use of a drive by shooting as a means of gangland execution in New York City.^[5]^[6]

Early years in the New York underworld

John Lewis was born in New York City, although his background remained a mystery to both the underworld and authorities for much of his life. Lewis did not have a criminal record with the New York City Police Department and was one of the few underworld figures to have avoided being "booked" by the famed Central Office despite being investigated for an unsolved homicide. It was the Mulberry Police Precinct that investigated this claim, at the time mostly based on rumor but one which he had admitted to, yet was cleared after finding no evidence to substantiate these claims.^[1]

He first became known as an up-and-coming thug for hire from the Lower East Side and began frequenting "Big" Jack Zelig's club in Chatham Square around 1900. Lewis was also a regular at Barney Flynn's and Mike Salter's establishments as well as the Chatham Club. He was nicknamed Spanish Louie by friends and associates to distinguish him from the many other East Side gangsters who shared that name. He was also called Indian Louie which was attributed to his "dark skin, black eyes, thin lips, high cheek-bones and high curved nose". This, along with his penchant for wearing a black sombrero and similarly styled clothing, started the rumor that he had come from South America and was "of Spanish or Portuguese extraction".^[1] It was also said that he had served in the military but these rumors "failed to name the regiment or the ship".^[2]

Lewis never confirmed or denied the rumors although he occasionally made vague comments mentioning "his noble Spanish and Portuguese forefathers, and also let it be known that the hot blood of Indian chieftains flowed in his veins, and that he had inherited all the vices and none of the virtue of the red man". Tall tales of his supposed "feats" were often told in dive bars throughout Chinatown and The Bowery, and the New York Times once described him as "big bodied and muscular and could deliver more knockouts with his right than any man his size or double it for that matter", but there was always a certain degree of suspicion from his underworld contemporaries. He was never short on money, supposedly having "no fewer than three girls walking the streets for him", but was rarely known to engage in violent crime and his lack of a police record caused some to wonder if his personality was all an act. Sardinia Frank, a Mulberry Bend thug who killed celebrated bouncer "Eat-'em-Up" Jack McManus in 1905, said following his death that "he was a bluff; he wasn't th' goods. He went around wit' his hat over his eyes, bulldozin' everybody he could, an' lettin' on to be a hero. An' he's got what heroes get."^[2]

Lewis was sometimes referred to as "the best shot on the East Side" or "the deadest of dead shots", and he was often seen wearing a brace of Colt revolvers, although there is no record of his ever having used them. There is only one incident in which Lewis displayed his skill when he led a robbery of Valenski's stuss house on Third Avenue near Fourteenth Street. Lewis single-handedly held the customers at bay while his accomplices looted the safe stealing $380 in all. The money was returned two days later, Lewis claiming the robbery was a practical joke, but many thought Lewis had been forced to give back the money by "one high in politics and power" and his reputation suffered because of this belief.^[1]

Murder of Crazy Charlie

Soon afterwards, a "Bowery Bum" known as Crazy Charlie was found dead in the mouth of a passageway off Mulberry Street near the Bowery. Charlie had been brutally murdered, his throat having been slashed, and it was claimed by a police informer known as "the Ghost" that Lewis was responsible. This was highly doubted in the underworld, Lewis well known for being a mercenary, and would have had no motive to kill a penniless drug addict. Nevertheless, Lewis was picked up by two plainclothes detectives from the Eldridge Police Precinct. Lewis was never told why he was arrested and neither was he officially booked, given their evidence relied mainly on hearsay, investigators wanted to gather more evidence before pressing charges.^[1]

His revolvers and a seven-inch knife, found inside his waistcoat, were confiscated when he was brought in. The desk sergeant remarked that the gangster's knife could have been the possible murder weapon although it was later found that the knife had not been recently used. The detectives hoped to get a confession out of Lewis and, having yet to inform him as to why he had been arrested, they put him in the back of a paddy wagon and drove him to the city morgue. Once there, they took Lewis inside and showed him the mutilated body of Crazy Charlie hoping to frighten a confession from him. Yet Lewis "neither started nor exclaimed" and instead took out a cigarette and turned to one of the detectives for a match. When one of the detectives pointed out the body and asked "Do you see this?", Lewis replied "Yes. Also, I'll tell you bulls another thing. You think to rattle me. Say, for ten cents I'd sit on this stiff all night an' smoke a pipe." Seeing their attempt to bluff Lewis had failed, the detectives let him go.^[1]

In November 1909 a pickpocket named Jacob Lavine was drinking with a woman known to be "Spanish Louie's"; Louie wounded Lavine; when Lavine refused to appear against Louie, Louie was fined $10.00 {or $25.00} for carrying a concealed weapon December 30, 1909.^[7]

Death

After less than a year in the Lower East Side, Lewis's bullet-riddled body was found in Twelfth Street near Second Avenue. He was found with $170 in his pocket, $700 in his shoe and had about $3,000 deposited in the Bowery Savings Bank. The murder was never solved and it was also revealed at his funeral, held as an orthodox Jewish burial by his father, that Lewis was in actuality from a Sephardic Jewish family in Brooklyn.^[1]^[2]

Although killed in an underworld dispute, there seems to be some confusion as to the date and circumstances of his death. One account claims he was killed in 1900 by The Grabber, a fellow lieutenant of Humpty Jackson, after Lewis withheld his share from the proceeds of a Tammany Hall fundraiser they had co-hosted.^[2] According to a second version, Lewis was shot to death in a drive-by shooting by the Lenox Avenue Gang, on the orders of Jack Zelig, on the night of April 1, 1910.^[8]^[3]^[4]^[5] Lewis had been hired by Herman Rosenthal in 1909 to beat up one of his rivals, Bridgie Webber. Lewis was later targeted to be killed because of his association with Rosenthal and, after being lured to his East Eleventh Street apartment late one evening, several men in a passing Pierce Arrow called out to him as he stood on the doorstep. The men opened fire and Lewis was killed as he ran towards a side street.^[6]

In popular culture

Lewis has been appeared in several historical novels including Before My Life Began (1985) by Jay Neugeboren, Dreamland (1999) by Kevin Baker and Cityside (2003) by William Heffernan.

Related Research Articles

The Lenox Avenue Gang was an early 20th-century New York City street gang led by Harry Horowitz; it was considered one of the most violent gangs of the pre-Prohibition era. It was based in Harlem in Upper Manhattan, New York City, around 125th Street, in what was then a predominantly Jewish neighborhood.

"Big" Jack Zelig was an American gangster and one of the last leaders of the Eastman Gang.

The Morello crime family was one of the earliest crime families to be established in the United States and New York City. The Morellos were based in Manhattan's Italian Harlem and eventually gained dominance in the Italian underworld by defeating the rival Neapolitan Camorra of Brooklyn. They were the predecessors of what eventually became known as the Genovese crime family.

The Eastman Gang was the last of New York's street gangs which dominated the city's underworld during the late 1890s until the early 1910s. Along with the Five Points Gang under Italian-American Paolo Antonio Vaccarelli, best known as Paul Kelly, the Eastman gang succeeded the long dominant Whyos as the first non-Irish street gang to gain prominence in the underworld during the 1890s. Its rise marked the beginning of a forty to fifty-year period of strong Jewish-American influence within organized crime in New York City.

Philip "Red Phil" Davidson was an American criminal and underworld figure in New York City during the early 20th century. A known associate of Jack Sirocco, a lieutenant in Paul Kelly's Five Points Gang, he was responsible for the 1912 murder of Eastman Gang leader "Big" Jack Zelig, though at the time of his arrest police were unable to find a police record.

Louis "Louie the Lump" Pioggi was an American criminal and member of the Five Points Gang, known most prominently for the murder of Eastman Gang leader Max "Kid Twist" Zwerbach and Vach "Cyclone Louie" Lewis. He appears in newspaper accounts and public records as Louis Poggi.

Louis William "Bridgie" Webber was an underworld figure in New York City and a former associate of gang leader Monk Eastman who later testified against police lieutenant Charles Becker during his murder trial in 1912.

William Lustig was an American gang leader and labor racketeer. He was one of several independent gang leaders operating in Manhattan's Lower East Side and, along with Abe "Little Rhodey" Roch and Philip "Pinchy" Paul, led a small coalition of gangs to break the monopoly held by Joseph "Joe the Greaser" Rosenzweig and Benjamin "Dopey Benny" Fein during the first "Labor Slugger War". Lustig was also employed as a clerk and whose brother was a detective attached to the office of District Attorney Charles S. Whitman.

Lewis "Lew" Baker was a Welsh-American patrolman in the New York Police Department who was simultaneously employed as a "slugger" for Tammany Hall. He was involved in voter intimidation and election fraud during the 1840s and 1850s. A close friend and associate of Irish mob boss John Morrissey, Baker frequently battled supporters of the nativist Know-Nothing movement for over a decade. He is most remembered however as the assassin of William "Bill the Butcher" Poole. Baker shot and killed Poole in a Broadway saloon during a brawl. Both Baker and Morrissey were placed on trial for murder, but were acquitted.

Jacob Siegel, also known as Kid Jigger or simply Jigger, was an American gunman-turned-gambler who operated one of the most successful stuss parlors in Manhattan's East Side during the early 20th century. He was one of the few gamblers not under the control of the many street gangs active in the city, supposedly due to his reputation, and generally ran his operations free of interference from more powerful underworld figures.

Giovanni de Silvio or Jimmy Kelly was an American saloon keeper, political organizer and underworld figure in New York City during the start of the 20th century. He was the owner the Fourteenth Street saloon The Folly as well as the popular Mandarin Cafe in Chinatown, located in the notorious "Bloody Angle" along Doyers Street, and was a hangout for politicians, gang leaders and other noted criminals of the era. His cafe was also the scene of several violent incidents, especially during the Tong War, which included, in 1910, the fourth attempted suicide of Chinatown character John "Dippy" Rice and the 1912 murder of Hen Ken Yum, the latter a high-level member of the On Leong Tong and a lieutenant of Mock Duck.

The Dead Rabbits riot was a two-day civil disturbance in New York City evolving from what was originally a small-scale street fight between members of the Dead Rabbits and the Bowery Boys into a citywide gang war, which occurred July 4–5, 1857. Taking advantage of the disorganized state of the city's police force—brought about by the conflict between the Municipal and Metropolitan police—the fighting spiraled into widespread looting and damage of property by gangsters and other criminals from all parts of the city. It is estimated that between 800 and 1,000 gang members took part in the riots, along with several hundred others who used the disturbance to loot the Bowery area. It was the largest disturbance since the Astor Place Riot in 1849 and the biggest scene of gang violence until the New York Draft Riots of 1863. Order was restored by the New York State Militia, supported by detachments of city police, under Major-General Charles W. Sandford.

Jacob Rosenzweig was an American gambler and underworld figure in New York City. He was one of several star witnesses in the Becker-Rosenthal trial, among these being fellow gamblers Bridgie Webber, Harry Vallon, and Sam Schepps. Rose's testimony was the most damaging because he directly implicated Becker in arranging the murder of Herman Rosenthal. As Becker's debt collector, Rose confessed to hiring the Lenox Avenue Gang, providing the getaway car. He testified he did it all on the orders of Charles Becker.

Sam Paul was an American gambler and underworld figure in New York City at the start of the 20th century. Founder of the Sam Paul Association, he was also a major political organizer for Tammany Hall.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tanner Smith</span> American criminal and gang leader

Thomas F. "Tanner" Smith was an American criminal and gang leader in New York City during the early 20th century. He was the founder and leader of the Marginals, or "Irish Paddy Gang", which was active in Greenwich Village and along the Hudson River waterfront from around the turn of the 20th century until his murder in 1919. He was closely associated with Owney Madden and the Gophers; he and Madden briefly ran the Winona Club together until the New York City Police Department closed the clubhouse around 1910.

"Big" Jack Poggi or Pioggi was an American saloon keeper and underworld figure in New York City at the start of the 20th century. His bar was the scene of a legendary gang fight in 1912.

The Becker–Rosenthal trial was a 1912 trial in New York City for the murder of Herman Rosenthal (1874-1912), a bookmaker, by NYPD Lieutenant Charles Becker and members of the Lenox Avenue Gang. The trial ran from October 7 to October 30, 1912, and restarted on May 2 to May 22, 1914. Other procedural events took place in 1915.

Frank "Chick" Tricker was an American gangster in New York who, as a member of the Eastman Gang, served as one of its last leaders alongside Jack Sirocco.

This is a list of organized crime in the 1880s, arranged chronologically.

This is a list of organized crime in the 1910s, arranged chronologically.

References

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Lewis, Alfred Henry. The Apaches of New York. New York: G.W. Dillingham Company, 1912. (pp. 89–116)
1 2 3 4 5 Asbury, Herbert. The Gangs of New York: An Informal History of the New York Underworld. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1928. (pp. 247–248) ISBN 1-56025-275-8
1 2 Logan, Andy. Against the Evidence: The Becker-Rosenthal Affair. New York: McCall Publishing Company, 1970. (p. 25)
1 2 Fried, Albert. The Rise and Fall of the Jewish Gangster in America. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1980. (p. 31) ISBN 0-231-09683-6
1 2 Lardner, James and Thomas Reppetto. NYPD: A City and Its Police. New York: Henry Holt & Co., 2000. (p. 154) ISBN 978-0-8050-6737-8
1 2 Dash, Mike. Satan's Circus: Murder, Vice, Police Corruption, and New York's Trial of the Century. New York: Random House, 2008. (pp. 99–100) ISBN 1-4000-5472-9
↑ "Spanish Louie Shot Dead; Bad Man Too Bad Even for the Other Crooks". The Sun. April 2, 1910. p. 4.
↑ "Spanish Louie, A Gun Toter, Shot: Fellow White Slaver Too Quick With His Revolver for This Bad Man". The Detroit Free Press. April 2, 1910. p. 2.