Real Life Unsolved Murder of NYC Gangster Arnold Rothstein as Featured in Godfather II Movie, Big George Did It For Dutch

ARNOLD ROTHSTEIN MURDER SUSPECT IS NAMED TO POLICE BY WOMAN WITNESS; Ruth Keyes Partly Identifies Gunman's Picture as Man She Saw in NYC Hotel Room Sunday Nov 4th, 1928. PLACES BIG GEORGE McMANUS BY PHOTO, He Is Sought Over Nation, Detectives Doubt Murder Was His Intent. For the first time since they began their investigation into the shooting of Arnold Rothstein, the gambler, in the Park Central Hotel on the night of Sunday, Nov. 4, 1928, the police started in quest of a suspect as the slayer. Their quest began when Mrs. Ruth Keyes, a cloak model made an photo ID of man she saw in room 349, big George McManus. Park Central chamber maid Bridget Farry also saw George McManus in Room 349 on the night of the murder, Sunday Nov 4th, 1928. 

Art imitates life. In the movie Godfather II Hyman Roth is shot in the stomach by an assassin with a .38 caliber revolver, Roth is a Jewish mobster. In real life Arnold Rothsten is shot in the stomach by an assassin with a .38 caliber revolver, Rothstein is a Jewish mobster. Fictional Hyman Roth's background is supplied in a deleted scene in The Godfather Part II. In the scene, set in Little Italy, New York in the early 1920s, Hyman is working as a car mechanic. He is noticed by Peter Clemenza, who is calling him "Johnny Lips". Clemenza introduces him to Vito Corleone, who suggests that he change his name, which was originally Hyman Suchowsky. When Vito asks Hyman whom he admires, Suchowsky says Arnold Rothstein, for having fixed the 1919 World Series; accordingly, Hyman changes his last name to Roth.

Arnold Rothstein ran the speakeasies in New York City during the 1920's, he got a cut of the action for protection from police, paying them off to keep the underground bars in business from 1921 till the day he was shot on Sunday Nov 4th, 1928. Arnold Rothstein was the paramount fixer, a smooth operator, one who acted as go-between in business contracts with the city, in the quashing of arrests, in extralegal "permissions to operate speakeasies" and other criminal enterprises, and in other bargainings that paid off politicians and police. Arnold Rothstein was an American racketeer, crime boss, businessman, and gambler in New York City until his assassination Nov 4th 1928. Arnold Rothstein was gunned down at the Park Central Hotel 56th and 7th Avenue Manhattan, a .38 caliber detective special Colt revolver was found outside on the street by taxi driver Al Bender.
November 4, 1928, late at night, a telephone call came in to Lindy’s restaurant, on Broadway. Caller asked to speak with Arnold Rothstein, he took the call, returned moments later and handed a long-barreled, pearl-handled pistol to his associate, James Meehan. He parted ways with Meehan and ventured to the Park Central Hotel and headed to Room 349 and a big stakes poker game without a gun or a bodyguard. Abe Attell served Rothstein well as his bodyguard but was not here in room 349 on Sunday Nov 4.  

Around 11:10 p.m. someone shot Rothstein in the stomach, a single shot from a Colt .38 caliber revolver. The gun was thrown out the window of the Hotel room into 7th Ave. A Park Central Hotel maid saw Rothstein stumbling and bleeding badly at a hotel service door before collapsing. An ambulance rushed him to Polyclinic Hospital, where surgeons struggled to remove the slug and perform a blood transfusion, he died two days later. Rothstein was set up, this was a mob hit! Who would stand to gain millions if Rothstein was out of the picture? Dutch Schultz had been mentored by Arnold Rothstein, but Rothstein could not abide by Dutch Schultz's very violent ways. Instead Rothstein turned all his attention to another mobster who he had mentored, Lucky Luciano, and took him under his wing. In his book Kill the Dutchman!, a biography of Dutch Schultz published in 1971, the crime reporter Paul Sann suggested that Dutch Schultz had Arnold Rothstein murdered. He says this was in retaliation for the murder of Schultz's friend and associate Joey Noe by Rothstein's protégé Jack "Legs" Diamond.

“Who shot A.R.?" Cops in NYC did not try too hard to solve the murder of Arnold Rothstein, as too many politicians and police brass would be hit if they did. Arnold Rothstein's associates include Charlie “Lucky” Luciano, Meyer Lansky, Dutch Schultz, and Jack “Legs” Diamond. Prohibition helped Rothstein reach new heights of power and income. Rothstein was quicker than some of his mobster colleagues to see the huge profits that could come from illegal sales of banned alcohol in speakeasies. Notably, although Rothstein was often considered a professional, even corporate, member of the Mob, he was also unafraid to use his connections with violent New York City street gangs to further his business interests. The Hotel Metropole opened in 1910 at 147 West 43rd Street and became a nightlife nexus of the Tenderloin district known as Satan’s Circus. Owned by Tammany Hall power broker, Big Tim Sullivan, The Metropole boasted a 24 hour liquor license and a casino managed by Arnold Rothstein. Arnold Rothstein, the Brain of Broadway, managed Big Tim’s gambling parlor on the second floor. 

The opulent Metropole casino featured faro tables and roulette wheels. Some of the biggest crap games New York City history went down in the Metropole. It was also in the Metropole where Abe Attell, a former champion featherweight boxer, caught the attention of Arnold Rothstein becoming "The Brain’s" bagman and enforcer. Abe Attell served Rothstein well as his bodyguard and the go between during fixing of the 1919 World Series, insulating the gangster from criminal prosecution, serving as a go between for Rothstein and the Chicago White Sox's players, who all originally met at the Ansonia Hotel at 2109 Broadway at W 73rd Street in September 1919. Baseball super star Babe Ruth coincidentally moved into the Ansonia Hotel at 2109 Broadway at W 73rd Street with his wife in November 1919

At a poker game in September 1928 , Arnold Rothstein lost $320,000 and then refused to pay George McManus on the grounds that the game had been rigged. George "Hump" McManus was a bookmaker and gambler in New York City. Two months later, his gambling buddy, big George "Hump" McManus invited Rothstein to play what would be his final poker game on November 4th. Around 11:10 p.m. someone shot Rothstein in the stomach, a single shot from a Colt .38 caliber revolver. Asked who had shot him before dying, Rothstein reportedly put his finger to his lips, keeping the gangsters’ code of silence. McManus was later tried and acquitted of the crime. 

Arnold Rothstein's was killed in November 1928. A succession of murders followed including the Coral Gables, Florida murder of Fatty Walsh, formerly one of Rothstein's bodyguards. Dutch Schultz formed a gang with friend and fellow criminal Joey Noe to run the speakeasies in NYC. The group soon expanded its operations from the Bronx into Manhattan, but this led to a territorial conflict with Legs Diamond. On October 16, 1928 Joey Noe was shot several times outside the Chateau Madrid, a speakeasy at 231 West 54th by members of Legs Diamond's gang. Dutch Schultz is believed to have ordered the killing of Legs Diamond's associate and mentor Arnold Rothstein in retaliation on November 4th, 1928 by big George "Hump" McManus. Joey Noe seriously wounded, his wounds became infected and he died on November 21, 1928. In further retaliation by Dutch, on October 12, 1930 Legs Diamond was shot and wounded at the Hotel Monticello 35-37 West 64th Street on Manhattan’s West Side, he survived. Legs Diamond met a bitter end reportedly at the hands of Dutch Schultz's thugs. Legs Diamond killed on December 18, 1931, two men entered the room he was staying in and shot him 3 times in the head.

NYC Det. Joseph A. Daly, was the lead detective in the Arnold Rothstein unsolved murder for a number of years until his retirement in 1928. Det. Joe Daly one of the city's best known detectives, died March 6 1938 at St. Elizabeth's Hospital, 190th Street and Fort Washington Avenue New York City, after an abdominal operation. He was 58 years old. Who shot Rothstein? No one involved was in the mood to ever discuss the case, but someone finally did. Someone wrestled the gun out of the shooter's hand and flung it through the window onto Seventh Avenue. One night, a drunken McManus revealed, "I did it, you know. I was the one who gave it to Rothstein, (on Sunday Nov 4th, 1928)." 

George McManus also talked to his old associates, confiding details of how he shot A. R. He either told Titanic Thompson directly, or Thompson heard it from people McManus had spoken with. McManus tried reason. Now he rushed to a table and pulled out a revolver and shouted, "A. R., I got nothing against you, but I'm being held responsible for something you are supposed to be taking care of. And I don't like that. I'm not asking you to make those I. 0. U.'s good; I'm telling you. Goddamn you, Rothstein, pay the money." A. R. pleaded. "I'm gonna pay; don't worry. I just need a little more time." "You've already had time," McManus spat back. "Time's up. Come up with the money. Now." And with that, George McManus shot Arnold Rothstein. 

A.R. Murdered: Big George McManus didn't mean to do it. His big drunken Irish temper had erupted. He reached for his gun, pulled the trigger, and accidentally let A. R. have it. Frank and Tom McManus and Gillie Biller knew they hadn't fired any shots. Big George was in trouble. George McManus was the most famous member of his family, an irony because the McManuses were actually a police family. Frank worked in the Children's Court system. Tom had reached the rank of detective before retiring. Another brother, Stephen, remained on the force, holding detective rank. Their father, Detective Sergeant Charles McManus, had been one of Inspector Thomas F. Byrnes' "Forty Immortals," an elite corps of nineteenth-century crime stoppers.

Who had the most to gain in the murder of Arnold Rothstein a mobster Boss? Frank Erickson, Meyer Lansky, Bugsy Siegel and other associates split up Arnold Rothstein's various "enterprises" after his murder in November 1928, but hothead Dutch Schultz got nothing, why? Had Arnold Rothstein not been killed there is no doubt he would have eventually come into conflict with his proteges like Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky. In the early 1920's, at a bar mitzvah, Meyer Lansky met Arnold Rothstein, the flamboyant gambler involved in fixing the 1919 World Series, and Lansky soon became one of Rothstein's protege. During Prohibition they made a fortune in bootlegging while dealing in heroin as well. What part did Dutch Schultz have in orchestrating Arnold Rothstein's murder? Did Rothstein's killer big George McManus get a contract to kill Rothstein from Dutch Schultz?  

Legendary mob kingpins such as dutch Schultz,  Meyer Lansky, Bugsy Seigel, and Charles “Lucky” Luciano have come to dominate gangster lore, but it was Arnold Rothstein who, in the early years of the twentieth century, put the “organization” in organized crime. Rothstein was the first to treat his criminal dealings as “big business,” with attention paid to every detail. Long before his exploits were immortalized in the HBO series Boardwalk Empire, the notorious crime boss served as inspiration for the shady Meyer Wolfsheim in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. Nicknamed “the Brain,” Rothstein was a gambler, racketeer, bootlegger, and drug lord who quickly rose through the ranks of New York’s Jewish mafia, he was a Boss. Only another mobster Boss would have dared to kill or orchestrate the murder of Arnold Rothstein, big George McManus was a pawn, a patsy for Dutch Schultz.

December 5th, 1929, Big George A. McManus not guilty in murder of mobster Arnold Rothstein, freed by the jury in what appears to have been a "kangaroo court", bought and paid for. The New York County District Attorney Joab H. Banton told the press that "our witnesses lied on the stand," "we can't prosecute them for perjury because we do not know the truth in the Rothstein murder"! The murder of Arnold Rothstein became another unsolved mystery with the directed acquittal of George A. McManus. Typical of the Rothstein case was the incident that happened in a Greenwich Village speakeasy a few days after the McManus case opened in court. Juror No 9 one Norris Smith visited this bar (Court approved jurors freedom of the city during proceedings) and Norris Smith talked volubly with Newspapermen about the McManus case, (what the hell?)

They didn't mean to do it, Big George McManus and Rube Allyn: Just like the unsolved murder of Mayor Harry Higel in Siesta Key Fl on Friday Jan 7th, 1921 where the obvious murderer Rube Allyn killed Higel during a pistol whipping with a Colt revolver and was cleared, Arnold Rothstein's killer Big George McManus shot him with a Colt revolver at the Park Central Hotel on Sunday November 4th, 1928 and he too was cleared. Rube Allyn and Big George McManus were cleared of murder due to political connections and a tainted jury. Rube Allyn and Big George McManus both had an Irish Heritage and often drunk. Rube Allyn and Big George McManus were both large powerful men who drank too much with big drunken Irish tempers and became extremely violent when so. The fix was in for killers Rube Allyn and Big George McManus who both had political connections and a license to kill in the 1920's.


Bill Warner Private Investigator Sarasota 941-926-1926 - Cheaters and Child Custody Cases, website https://www.wbipi.com/