Joe Bruno's Mobsters - Six Volume Set (27 page)

After Adams'
s death, Connors decided that maybe the streets of Chinatown were not too safe for him anymore. Adams had friends in Chinatown, and Connors heard rumors that they were gunning for him. His incessant drinking was also a hindrance to Connors's health, so Connors moved uptown to start a new life.

No drinking. No doping. No more heavy-handed work.

Soon, Connors met a woman he liked named Nellie, and he married her. To support himself and his wife, Connors took a job as a conductor on the Third Avenue El. During this period of marital bliss, Nellie taught Connors how to read and write.

But alas, the education of Chuck Connors came to an abrupt end, when Nellie died suddenly. As a result, Connors went back deep into the bottle. One day Connors got so drunk, he was shanghaied onto a ship, which set sail for London, England.

In London, Connors escaped his captors and hid in the inner city of Whitechapel. Connors made friends with the local costermongers, who were people who sold fish and produce from street stands and carts.

Connors absorbed and copied the local culture, and when he returned to his old New York
City haunts, he was dressed smartly in the costermonger attire of bell-bottom trousers, blue striped shirt, yellow silk scarf, and a blue pea coat, resplendent with big pearl buttons, which also traveled down the seams of his trousers.

Connors'
s transformation included a little song he had learned on the other side of the pond:

Pearlies on my front shirt,

Pearlies
on my coat,

Little bit of dicer, stuck up on my nut,

If you don't think I'm de real thing,

Why, tut, tut, tut.

The “little bit of dicer” Connors wore on his head was a derby two sizes too small, instead of t
he traditional costermonger cap which was frowned upon by the Bowery residents.

It was around this time that Connors became a bit of an eccentric (if he wasn't one already). With no visible means of support, Connors became best pals with
Police Gazette
publisher Richard K. Fox. Fox owned a row of buildings on Doyers Street, and he let Connors live at 6 Doyers Street rent free, as long as Fox could regale his readers with the real and imagined exploits of “The Great Chuck Connors.” Fox even co-wrote Connors' autobiography called
Bowery Life
, in which he called Connors the “Mayor of Chinatown,” which solidified Connors's reputation for life.

According to Luc Sante's wonderful book about the underb
elly of New York City entitled
Low Life
, Fox's writings about Connors “was included in a series that otherwise ran mostly to boxing, wrestling, club-swinging, and poker manuals, was illustrated with photographs of Chuck in typical costume, striking poses (cigar in corner of mouth; one hand pointing forward with index, or back with thumb; the other hand in coat pocket with thumb sticking out; legs set apart, one forward, one back; pail of beer at the ready).”

The text of Fox's writings
is dotted with many of Connors's unique colloquialisms, such as:

Here's to me new graft. I'm one of dose guys now wot gits

ink all over his flippers and looks wise. Say, it's a cinch,

and I've got some of dem blokes wot writes books skinned

a mile.

Or, Connors'
s musings on what he would do if he became a millionaire:

Me headquarters would be de Waldorf, but I would hev a

telephone station in Chinatown, so I could get a hot chop

suey w'en I wanted it quick. Ev'ry mornin' at 10 o'clock – or

near
dere – I'd call up me Chat'am Square agent an' tell

him
ter give cologne ter der gals an' segars an' free lunch ter

der gorillas.
Ev'ry bloke dat wuz hungry would have a feed

bag an
w'enever he wanted it. How does dat grab yer?

With no visible means of legal support, Connors had to find himself a quick way to make a buck. And he did so by becoming, what was called in those days, a “lobbyglow”: Chinese slang for “tour guide.” Connors worked the Bowery area, where there was some competition for his services. However, Chinatown, because of Connors's closeness to the Chinese leaders, was Connors's exclusive territory. No other lobbyglow would dare enter Chinatown with his customers.

Connors specialized in what was called “the vice tour,” where Connors would take his customers to seedy venues to witness the depravity of the Bowery and Chinatown. While other lobbyglows took any curiosity seeker who could pay the freight, Connors, because of his fame as the Mayor of Chinatown, specialized in bringing celebrities from all walks of life on his tours. Some of Connors'
s customers included Sir Thomas Lipton, novelists Israel Zangwell and Hall Caine, actors Henry Irving, Ellen Terry, and Anna Held, and Swedish and Danish royal families. Of course, because of Connors's cache in the Chinatown and Bowery areas, he was able to charge higher prices than his competition, especially to the swells just noted who could certainly afford it.

During Connors's
“vice tour,” he would regale his customers with stories of hatchet murders and white slavery. But the highlight of Connors's tour was when he showed his customers the inside of a real-life opium den. These dens, of which Connors had several, were, in fact, total fakes. Connors employed several Chinese accomplices to stage his fabrications.

Two of Connors'
s cohorts were George Yee and his wife Blond Lulu. As soon as Connors gave them the secret knock on the door signaling his impending entrance with his crew, George and Lula would fake a drug-induced stupor, while smoking something purported to be opium, complete with the exotic aromas.

Then, as the tourists watched in amazement, Connors'
s assistant would proceed with a solemn monologue, spoken through a megaphone, saying, “These poor people are slaves to the opium habit. And whether you came here or not to see them, they would have spent the night smoking opium as you see them doing it now!”

Then on cue, Yee would stop smoking and stagger to his feet. Yee would start dancing slowly, gyrating his body in a suggestive way, while s
inging a little ditty entitled
Alle Samee Jimmy Doyle
. Connors would tell his enthralled customers that this was unimpeachable evidence that Yee had become crazed due to the effects of his non-stop opium smoking.

Then without another word, Connors would lead his crew out of the apartment to a Chinese restaurant, which would complete that particular tour. Meanwhile, George and Blond Lulu would tidy up and get ready for the next go-around, which took place in just a few hours.

Another duo of opium-smoking fakes, whom Connors employed was a prostitute named “Chinatown Gertie” and her partner (pimp?) Charlie Lee. Gertie's brothel was located at 12 Pell Street, right above “Nigger Mike's” Pelham Saloon. When Gertie was informed her apartment would be on Connors's tour that day, she immediately canceled any appointments with “customers,” and turned her brothel into a phony opium-smoking den. The only problem was, that instead of smoking opium, which would have been safer, they smoked molasses, which caused Charlie Lee's premature demise.

When Connors was at the height of his fame, he started the Chuck Connors Association, which was for the benefit of (you guessed it) Chuck Connors himself. The sole purpose of the Chuck Connors Association was to throw a yearly gala that was attended by all the
local politicians, millionaires, and members of most of the city's illustrious clubs, including the Princeton Club and New York Athletic Club, and by anybody in New York City who was somebody.

In December 1903, Connors held his yearly gala in Tammany Hall on East 14
th
Street. The joint was jumping with such celebrities as pugilists John L. Sullivan, James J. Corbett and Jim Jeffries (who was accompanied by actress Anna Held), French actress Maxine Elliot, as well as millionaire industrialist George F. Train. The music was provided by two bands: Professor Wolf's Orchestra, and to throw a bone to Connors's Chinatown connections, Professor Yee Wah Lung's Chinese Orchestra.

At the time, Connors'
s main squeeze was a charming gal named “Pickles,” who was known as the “Belle of Chinatown.” While Connors was busy running the festivities, Pickles, a tall and buxom broad, arrived at the party around 11 p. m., accompanied by Ling Quong, the owner of a Chinatown opium den, who barely topped out at five feet tall. Both were a little high on something, liquid or otherwise.

Immediately, Pickles caused a stir at the ball, when she asked a passing older lady, who had her nose up in the air and was in the company of several gentlemen, “Hey sis, have you got any cigarettes?”

The lady stiffened and tried to barge past Pickles, but Pickles would have none of that.

Pickles
grabbed the lady by the arm and pulled her back. “Go on and give me a pipe. Don't mind dem guys you wid. Give me the pipe!”

The lady sniffed at Pickles, “My poor girl, I don't smoke cigarettes.”

Pickles thought about giving the lady the back of her hand. But then she reconsidered and said, “Back to der woods for yours!”

The lady and her male crew scurried away.

Looking around, Pickles realized she was greatly under-dressed for the upcoming march, in which she was supposed to be accompanying Connors. So she conned a young girl, with some loose change no doubt, to lend her the skirt the girl was wearing.

While Pickles was in the dressing room changing and sprucing up a bit, Connors began asking around as to
Pickles's whereabouts. A young girl in a pink dress told Connors, “My sister Mamie is lending her a blue skirt. Mamie will stay in the dressing room until the march is over.”

Minutes later, Pickles made her grand entrance, resplendent in the borrowed skirt which was about six inches too short. She sauntered over to Connors who was waiting not too patiently, flipped her cigarette to the floor,
and then snapped at Connors, “Come on Chuck, yer needn't be ashamed of me. I'd be the best looking rag in the hall.”

Connors apparently agreed. He took Pickles by the arm and marched her around the hall, followed by 300 or so well-lit celebrants.

The joint was really jumping, when Carrie Nation made her unexpected and unwelcome appearance. Nation was a highly viable and quite loquacious member of the Ladies Temperance Movement, which opposed alcohol in pre-Prohibition America, as well as the notion of women smoking cigarettes. Nation was quite an imposing figure, standing over six-feet tall and weighing in the neighborhood of 175 pounds. If she were a boxer, male or female, Carrie Nation would certainly have been a heavyweight.

At first, Nation was stopped at the door by the bouncers, but Connors, obviously slightly in the bag himself, went to the door and said, “Sure she can come in. Der are udder automobiles upstairs with loose wheels.
Jist step in and help yourself to a twist.”

That was a big mistake.

Nation immediately stampeded past Connors, and she hustled to the bar area, where she saw several girls smoking cigarettes. Nation smacked the cigarettes from the girls' hands and did the same thing to their male counterparts.

“I came here to stop this ball!” Nation bellowed to the crowd. “I received a letter from a
heartbroken mother about it, and she said her son lost his job by attending it last year. I'm going to break it up!”

Her face beet red, Nation approached a table where ladies were sitting with alcoholic drinks in front of them. Nation brushed the drinks off the table
, and she told the startled ladies, “You ought to be arrested for drinking!”

Then Nation hurried to the main stage, climbed the steps, and proceeded to read a letter she had received, begging her to stop the Chuck Connors Association Ball.

Connors ordered the band to drown her out by playing a popular song named
Bedilia
. The crowd started singing,
“Bedilia, I'd like ter steal yer.”

Nation stood on the main stage, dumbfounded, as another segment of the crowd started chanting, “Put her out! Rats! Rats! Shut her up! Hey! Hey! Hey!”

By this time, Connors knew he had to do something, so he went to the main stage and induced Nation to leave the stage. Connors walked Nation toward the back door, and he told her, “I'd like to introduce you to a little girl who ought to be home in bed.”

Outside, waiting under the steps leading to the back exit, was none other than Pickles, who screamed up at Nation, “If yer don't
git down the stairs in a minute, I'll push your nose through the back of yer neck!”

Pickles hurried up the steps
, and she grabbed Nation by the throat. Connor grabbed both women in a bear hug, and with the help of three bouncers, Carrie Nation was evicted from the premises.

After Nation was safely outside, Connors snapped at her, “The street is all yours!”

On May 10, 1913, Chuck Connors returned to his room at 6 Doyers Street, not feeling too chipper. He told Mrs. Chin, who had cared for him the past few years, “I'm not good for several more days.”