The Gentleman Bandit

The plight of “The Gentleman Bandit” Gerald Chapman was recounted in the April 18 “Talk of the Town,” pitting the sensibilities of urbane New Yorkers against Connecticut Yankee morality.

The New Yorker noted that many of Gotham’s citizens were sympathetic to Chapman, who during the previous year had murdered a police officer during a crime spree in Connecticut.

The magazine suggested that Chapman—who grew up on the Lower East Side and had a long history of bootlegging and other crimes—had been sentenced to death by a Connecticut judge and jury because they hated all things associated with New York City:

You do not have to go so far as Dubuque to find a definite hatred of New York and things from New York. In Connecticut there is a very lively detestation of the loud and happy neighbor down the Sound. People from New York, to mention only one Connecticut grievance, rush through the tidy little Yankee State in week-end automobile parties, which break the Sabbath and the speed laws. This breeds no great affection.

Chapman was America’s first “celebrity gangster,” and the first to be dubbed “Public Enemy Number One” by the press. He was executed by hanging a year later, on April 6, 1926. A full account of Chapman’s life can be found here.

The magazine continued its habit of William Randolph Hearst-watching, noting that the famed publisher seemed headed for retirement at his San Simeon estate in California:

Mr. Hearst retires to San Simeon and its vast acres, with only the expense accounts of his editors whom he sends for to worry about. He is not a young man,–he is sixty-two,–and he feels that his time to play has arrived…

In other news, invitations to the new Embassy Club (695 Fifth Avenue) of New York were being extended “to a selected list of persons; that is to say, to most persons owning town residences not situated in Brownsville or the Bronx.” It was further observed “when the Embassy Club opens formally, it is believed that Mr. Michael Arlen (subject of my post “The Ordeal of Michael Arlen”) will be invited to attend, if he survives Hollywood.”

Note: The Embassy Club location is now more or less occupied by Bottega Veneta. It’s hard to tell with all of the changes to the facades on the streetscape. It is, however just around the corner from the St. Regis Hotel, which became home to the King Cole Bar and its famous Mayfield Parrish mural in 1932 (See my blog on “A Dry Manhattan” for more about the mural).

The “Profile” featured Alfred Stieglitz, noting the famed photographer’s “ruthless self-direction” in his pursuit of the truth. “His life is a dynamic gesture, as of Life itself, trying to find out what Life is.”

This issue features The New Yorker’s first automobile ad, from the bygone Pierce Arrow automobile company. Pierce Arrow would be a frequent early advertiser, soon to be joined by other car manufacturers in the magazine’s pages. But not just yet. As I’ve noted before, advertising (and editorial content) in these first issues is scant, and so it is no surprise that the magazine is barely limping along during these precarious months.

Many of the advertisements are more of this variety…

And then we have this gem on the inside back cover. Perhaps the only time a church will ever advertise in The New Yorker. Then again, we shall see…