The Fleisher Brothers--Harry and Sam: Crime Doesn't Pay (Part 2 of 2)

Harry Fleisher 1920 (seventeen years old)

Harry Fleisher started his professional criminal career in 1920 as a driver and strong-arm man for the Oakland Sugar House Gang. The leaders of the gang and twelve young thugs were rounded up and charged with extortion in the Cleaners and Dyers War in 1928. The young enforcers put the fear of God into their victims and witnesses against them. Key witnesses recanted their original statements to police or simply disappeared. The Sugar House Gang beat the rap but suffered from the public exposure.

Soon, the leaders of the Sugar House Gang were arrested on a Federal charge of violating the Volstead Act (the Prohibition law) by providing brewing supplies and equipment for the illegal manufacture of beer and whiskey, and for running several industrial-sized stills around the city. The gang disbanded with Charles Leiter and Harry Shorr under federal indictment. What hurt the organization more than anything else was the destruction of their equipment and massive supplies of distilled alcohol.

 ***

Joe Burnstein

Joe and Ray Burnstein were now free to form a spin-off gang of trusted neighborhood friends and former Sugar House members who soon became known as the Purple Gang. Harry Fleisher was part of the gang's inner circle; his brothers Louis and Sam became foot soldiers. Louis specialized in hijacking and labor racketeering, and Sam was a truck driver and strong-arm man for the organization.

Ray Burnstein

In a tactical move that threatened the Purple Gang's existence, Ray Burnstein, Harry Keywell, Irving Milberg, and Harry Fleisher laid in wait for several members of the Little Jewish Navy--a group affiliated with the Purples. Izzy Sutker owed Burnstein $1,300 dollars for a liquor purchase he was two weeks late paying back. But there were other issues. Sutker and his boys were interloping Chicago hoods nibbling away at Purple Gang territory by opening several speakeasies on their turf.

Believing the Burnsteins were phasing out of the liquor business and going legit, Izzy Sutker, Hymie Paul, and Joe Lebowitz showed up at an improvised meeting they thought would make them rich men. Burnstein childhood friend Solomon Levine--and business partner of Izzy Sutker--was duped into driving Sutker and his wing men to the Collingwood Manor Apartments on September 16, 1931 to discuss the deal. But the Purples were harboring another grudge which could not be forgiven or go unanswered. One of their men was murdered outside a Purple Gang protected gambling joint on their territory. Word on the street pointed the finger at Sutker as the trigger man.

Levine, Sutker, Paul, and Lebowitz were greeted at the front door of apartment 211 by Ray Burnstein and ushered-in to sit on the living room couch. After a brief conversation, Burnstein left the room sayin he had to make a phone call to the gang's business manager from the corner drugstore. Minutes later, Ray was behind the wheel of his Chrysler sedan honking the horn and revving the engine. That was the signal for his boys to stand up and torpedo the Little Jewish Navy where they sat.

The assassins left with Solly Levine in shock. He had no idea he was driving his associates to their deaths. The gunmen scurried down two flights of stairs, burst out the alley door, and jumped into the waiting car. "I let you live, Solly, because you're my friend," Ray told him before he hit the gas pedal and sped off squealing his tires.

Shortly after they fled, Levine was dropped off a few blocks away and given cab fare to return to his sports book (betting parlor). Detroit homicide detectives recognized the victims and knew where they lived. After questioning several residents of the boarding house, they discovered that Solomon Levine had driven off with the Sutker, Paul, and Lebovitz a couple of hours earlier. The police detectives were quick to arrest Levine, who turned state's evidence. Levine knew he was as good as dead if he didn't.

Burnstein and Keywell were captured later that evening, and Millberg was caught early the next morning while packing his bags in his apartment. Conspicuous by his absence was Harry Fleisher. He had the good sense to go home, hug his wife goodbye, grab his bug-out bag, and leave town immediately. For this, Fleisher earned the underworld nickname "Slick." After a highly publicized three-week trial, Ray Burnstein, Harry Keywell, and Irving Milberg were convicted and given life sentences at Marquette Prison dealing a staggering blow to the gang.

Fleisher remained at large for nine months. While "on the lam," the Detroit press corps missed no opportunity to drop Harry's name in the newspapers or on radio news broadcasts. Because of his alleged involvement in Detroit's "snatch racket" (kidnapping), Fleisher's name was implicated as a possible suspect in the Lindberg baby kidnapping. The FBI charge gave Harry national exposure as his face and description appeared on wanted posters hung in every police station and post office in the nation. Fleisher was being hunted coast-to-coast.

On June 9, 1932, Harry Fleisher surprised Detroit Prosecutor Harry S. Toy by showing up with his lawyer at the prosecutor's fifth-floor office in Detroit Police Headquarters. Fleisher was arrested and held without bond. Despite the prosecutor's best efforts to try Fleisher, Toy's star witness who could link Harry to the Collingwood Massacre was unable to be found. The case against Fleisher was dismissed. Twenty years later, missing witness Sol Levine reappeared in Detroit. Levine told a Detroit Free Press staff reporter that he had shipped out of New York on a tramp steamer to make himself scarce. "I made $135 a month--the first honest money I ever made. It felt good."

***

Harry Fleisher's arrest file was one of the thickest in the history of the Detroit Police Department coming in at 204 pages. He was arrested thirty times for charges ranging from receiving stolen property, grand larceny, violating the prohibition law, armed robbery, assault with intent to kill, kidnapping, possession of an unregistered gun, suspicion of murder, and a traffic violation. Convicted four times but serving no jail time, Fleisher paid fines totaling $715--chump change for him. What he paid in lawyer fees was much higher.

Despite Prohibition ending on December 5, 1933, there was still money to be made in trafficking illegal alcohol. Now that the state and federal governments were in the liquor business, the cost of legal booze with a federal tax stamp was costly. Harry and his youngest brother Sam were operators of a 4,000 gallon unregistered distillery that took up three stories of a warehouse building at 5620 Federal Avenue.

Sam Fleicher 1935 (twenty-four years old)

While under FBI surveillance, Sam drove a semi-truck loaded with 10,500 pounds of brown sugar--purchased from a wholesaler in Cleveland, Ohio--to the Guardian Transit Company warehouse at Sixteenth and Pine Streets in Detroit. The brown sugar was loaded into smaller vans and transported to the Fleisher brothers' distillery. On April 11, 1935, a Federal alcohol tax unit raided the operation and arrested former Purple Gang members Sam Fleisher, Jack Selbin, and Joe Stein. Once again, Harry managed to escape before he was arrested.

Harry Fleisher was named in the original warrant but remained at large until he surrendered himself to Federal authorities on October 29, 1935 when he was indicted, placed under a $2,500 bond, and held over for trial with the other men. All four men were convicted on April 11, 1936 of conspiracy to violate the Internal Revenue Service Act, given eight-year prison sentences and fined $20,000 each. Additionally, the Fleisher brothers had a federal tax lien of $14,028 levied against them for unpaid taxes on 2,275 gallons of alcohol.

The convicted men were transitioned into the federal penitentiary system in Leavenworth, Kansas. After a month of quarantine, they were taken by train to San Francisco, and from there were ferried across the bay to Alcatraz Island where they served four and a half years of their eight-year sentence. They were released early for good behavior. Again, the men were transitioned to Leavenworth before being released on June 28, 1940. In 1941, Harry Fleisher opened a florist shop on Twelfth Street. Sam went to work at his father's junkyard in Jackson, Michigan after his release.

***

Michigan State Senator Warren G. Hooper

Harry and Sam were habitual criminals determined to lead a life of crime. On January 11, 1945, State Senator Warren G. Hooper--while en route to his home in Adrian, Michigan--was shot three times in the head at close range and found next to his burning car on U.S. Highway 99 near Springport in Jackson County. Passing drivers told state police they saw a maroon car blocking Hooper's sedan on the wrong side of the highway. Hooper was slated to be a key witness against Frank D. McKay--former Republican National Committeeman--in a state government race track bribery case.

Chief of the Michigan State Police Detective Harold Mulbar told the press that Senator Hooper had refused police protection. "The Hooper murder was definitely a paid gangster killing," Mulbar said. An intensive search for the killers kicked up several ex-cons who pointed the finger at four men who tried to hire them to assassinate the state senator. Fearing they would violate their paroles and be sent back to prison, the ex-cons turned state's evidence. The corroborated testimony of Henry Luks, Al Kurner, and Sam Abramowitz led to the convictions of Harry Fleisher, Sam Fleisher, Myron "Mikey" Selik, and Pete Mahoney for conspiracy to commit murder. 

The conspiracy was hatched at O'Larry's Bar located at Boston and Dexter Streets in Detroit. First, Henry Luks was asked if he knew how to wire dynamite to a car's ignition. Luks said he did. Several days later, he reconsidered and said he didn't have access to dynamite and refused the $3,000 job. Alfred Kurner was then asked and offered the same amount, but he also refused citing problems with the parole board. Then, Sam Abramowitz agreed, but after making several trips to Adrian in preparation for the hit, he dropped out of the plot when he saw Hopper at home with his wife and kids. Abramowitz didn't have the stomach for it. He returned to Flint, Michigan where he had worked as a barber since his parole from Jackson Prison in 1943. 

On July 31, 1945--after a grand jury trial lasting two weeks--a jury of five women and seven men reached a guilty verdict after only two hours of deliberation. The grand jury was unable to determine who shot Hooper or who financed the $15,000 fund to murder him. The defendants were sentenced to serve four and one-half years in Jackson Prison. Pending an appeal to the Michigan Supreme Court for a new trial, the men were released on $25,000 bonds on July 10, 1946. When their appeal was denied, Harry Fleisher and Mikey Selik jumped bail.

Fleisher dodged arrest for fifteen months. Acting on a phone tip, he was seized by FBI agents in Pompano Beach, Florida--thirty-five miles north of Miami. He and a woman companion Bernice Jackson were registered at a tourist court as Mr. and Mrs. Marvin Goldwyn of Toledo, Ohio. The couple left the cottage and drove to the beach in Fleisher's pickup truck. A squad of four agents dressed in sports shirts and slacks slowly closed in on the couple sunning themselves on the beach. When the agents were noticed fifteen feet away, they rushed on Fleisher and held his face down in the sand while they handcuffed him. Miss Jackson stood quietly with her hands up in the air. When their cottage was searched, a submachine gun was found with 400 rounds of Colt ammunition. Fleisher had $1,200 cash in his possession. He was arrested on a Federal fugitive warrant, and Miss Jackson was jailed as a material witness.

Fleisher was extradited to Michigan arriving at Willow Run Airport aboard a Capital Airlines plane in the custody of two U.S. Marshalls and a Federal guard. He was whisked away to Milan Federal Prison on January 22, 1950. Two days later, the beleaguered fugitive confessed to Detroit Free Press reporter Ralph Nelson that "I'm glad it's over. It hasn't been fun being hunted. I'm looking forward to seeing my wife Harriet. I expect to have a rough time with her. She knows about the other woman, but Hattie knows that a man travels practically unnoticed when he travels with a woman. She'll understand that. I've always tried to keep Hattie from being involved in any of my troubles."

Fleisher pleaded guilty on the Federal fugitive charge on February 1, 1950. On February 24, 1950, Bernice Jackson--a former Detroit prostitute--was sentenced to five months in the Miami City Jail for harboring an escaped criminal.

After Fleisher served his five-year sentence in Milan Prison as a Federal fugitive, he was shuttled back to Jackson State Prison to serve his five-year sentence for conspiracy to murder Senator Hooper. Because of a conviction for the armed robbery of the Aristocratic Club in Pontiac, Michigan in 1945, Fleisher had an additional 25 to 50 years to serve. Once again, Slick jumped bail while out on appeal.When Harry was released from Jackson Prison in the mid-sixties, he took a legitimate job as a warehouse manager for Ewald Steel Company.

Harry Fleisher died in 1978 at the age of seventy-five. He was preceded by Louis, who died in Jackson Prison on April 3, 1964 at the age of fifty-nine and Sam, who died on January 18, 1960 in Miami, Florida at the age of forty-nine. All three brothers succumbed to heart failure.

The Fleisher Brothers (Part 1) 

The Fleisher Brothers--Louis: Unlucky or Stupid? (Part 1 of 2)

Alcatraz--the Rock.

Despite Abe Burnstein disbanding the Purple Gang in 1935, former members Harry and Louis Fleisher were indirectly responsible for keeping the defunct gang's name in the local press from the late 1930s through Harry's death in 1978. Those boys couldn't stay out of trouble. Every time their names appeared in the press--and there are hundreds of citations--the tags "former Purple Gang members," "alleged Purple Gang members," or "Purple Gang leaders" preceded their names.The Fleisher brothers may hold the record for the most family members to do hard time on the Rock--Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary off the coast of San Francisco.

Harry, Louis, and Sammy grew up in the same Paradise Valley neighborhood as the Burnstein brothers and other tough street kids who eventually coalesced into the Purple Gang. They learned their street smarts by preying on handcart operators at the Eastern Market and harassing shop owners on Hastings Street with petty crime and vandalism.

Harry Fleisher began his underworld career as a driver and bodyguard for Oakland Sugar House Gang leader Charles Leiter in the 1920. Harry was a trigger man and shakedown artist of legal and illegal businesses like speakeasies and disorderly houses (brothels). For unknown reasons, Harry interacted as little as possible with younger brother Louis.

Louis began his professional crime career as a trigger man, a labor "organizer," and a hijacker for the Sugar House Gang. When the Sugar House Gang suffered a devastating bust of their leadership in the late 1920s, Louis gravitated to the Purple Gang.

When Louis was only twenty-two years old, he was the first of the three Fleisher brothers to serve hard time. Lou Jr.'s day job was helping his father Lou Sr. run an auto junkyard. Their side-job was retrofitting touring cars with hidden compartments for smuggling illegal liquor or concealing guns.

Louis Fleisher mug shot--1927.

In 1927, Louis and three other men hijacked a semi-truck in Flat Rock, Michigan, loaded with 400 new automobile tires bound for Akron, Ohio. A green Studebaker sedan swept in front of the semi blocking it at a stop sign. Four men jumped out of the car with shotguns and machine guns commanding the drivers to get out of the truck. They were bound and shoved into the back seat of the Studebaker.

Two of the hijackers took the truck and the other two drove off with their captives. The bound men noticed there was some chrome trim damage on the passenger side of the car. One of them took the added precaution of spitting on the rear window to mark the car as the one they were abducted in. The truck drivers were released unharmed twelve hours later. The empty semi-truck was found two days later, and the green Studebaker with the faulty trim was tracked down shortly after that. The car's serial number revealed the owner to be Louis Fleisher.

Louis was located and arrested, but he refused to identify the other hijackers he was working with. After an initial plea of "not guilty," Louis changed his plea to "guilty," reasoning that he was safer in prison than on Detroit's streets. If he took the rap and served his time, he would prove himself to be a stand up guy and survive. If he was released on bail, he would be considered a risk to the gang and sooner than later he would be found dead on a city street someplace. A federal judge sentenced Louis to ten years at Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary. He served a minimum sentence of six years and three months before being paroled for good behavior.

Sam Burnstein

Nine months after being paroled, Louis went into business with former Purple Gang speakeasy operator Sam "Fatty" Burnstein--not blood-related to the Burnstein brothers--reputed leaders of the Purples. Sam and Louis were brothers-in-law; Sam's sister Nellie was Louis's wife. Fleisher and Burnstein opened a scrap metal and auto junkyard in the autumn of 1935 far from Detroit in Albion, Michigan. The business was named Riverside Iron and Metal Company. Both men needed to demonstrate to their parole boards that they had gone "straight" and had a steady source of income.

These guys must have loved crime because their junkyard was a front for a safe cracking operation in central Michigan. The parolees went into a partnership with the Lizard Gang--a Hamtramck burglary ring. A nine-month crime spree ensued.

Louis used his mechanical, fabrication, and body shop skills to convert a 1935 Graham Paige sedan into a rolling fortress.The Graham Paige was stolen from a Dodge dealership in Ferndale, Michigan. This particular car was desirable because it was wider than other makes and was equipped with an eight-cylinder Blue Streak supercharged engine that could reach speeds of 100 mph. The car was bulletproofed, the passenger side doors were retrofitted to open extra wide, and a ramp was welded to the undercarriage which rolled out to load stolen safes quickly.



The Michigan State Police were baffled. Fifty businesses had been burglarized over a vast section of central Lower Michigan. Robberies occurred in Battle Creek, Grand Rapids, Lansing, Jackson, and Ionia. The burglary team stole safes from businesses and either blew their doors off with nitroglycerin or took the safes to the junkyard and burned off the combination locks with an acetylene torch.

On May 11, 1936 at 2:30 a.m., night clerk Jack Kane at the Capital Hotel next door to the Isabell Seed Company in Jackson, Michigan, heard men struggling to load the company's 500 pound safe through the side doors of the Graham Paige sedan. The burglary was reported to the State Police, but troopers were too slow on the scene to make an arrest or give chase. Then on May 30th, a local Albion resident reported to state police that a suspicious Graham Paige sedan was being stored in a barn across from the junkyard in Albion.

Officers from the Michigan State Police and the Adrian Police Department descended upon the barn, broke in, and found the car with its left side strafed with bullets. The police also discovered two sets of stolen license plates, weapons, and burglary tools. Nitroglycerin, blasting caps, and fifteen feet of wire were concealed in the side panels of the car. State Police quickly arrested Fleisher and Burnstein along with their wives. Two junkyard employees were also brought in for questioning but later released for lack of evidence. After a brief investigation, Louis and Sam were indicted and posted bonds of $5,000 apiece. While awaiting trial, Louis jumped bail and remained at large for a year.

On the night of April 8, 1938, Louis Fleisher's car was pulled over by the Highland Park police. His wife Nellie tossed a .38 calibre automatic pistol out the passenger window which police soon found. A clumsy attempt had been made to etch out the gun's serial number. Louis and Nellie were arrested with a twenty-two-year-old man who gave his name as Jack Sherwood but was soon found to be Sid Markham--a first-degree murder fugitive from Brooklyn, New York. Markham was extradited to New York where he was convicted and sent to the electric chair in Sing Sing Correctional Facility on January 18, 1940.

Samples of weapons found in Fleisher apartment.

Louis and Nellie's arrests led to a search of their Highland Park apartment where police found what they described to reporters as "the largest underworld arsenal ever found in the Midwest." The unregistered arsenal was neatly packed in a trunk containing submachine guns, automatic pistols, revolvers with silencers, brass knuckles, tear gas shells, and thousands of rounds of ammunition.

The Fleishers were held in Milan Detention Farm under a $50,000 bond each. On April 7, 1939, Louis Fleisher was sentenced to thirty years in Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary; Nellie received ten years in a Federal detention home. After serving nineteen years of his original sentence, Louis was released for good behavior from Alcatraz at the age of forty-one.

As a moth is drawn to a flame, so was Louis drawn to crime. On midnight Sunday, October 26, 1958, Fleisher and partner in crime Joe Anielak were caught red-handed trying to torch Dorsey's Cleaners on East Seven Mile Road. Anielak climbed on the roof with a length of rope. He threw one end down to Fleisher who attached a five-gallon gas can to the rope and Anielak pulled it up. They did this twice.

Little did the pair know they were under police surveillance on the ground and hidden on the roof tops of adjoining buildings. Anielak drilled several holes in the roof with a brace and bit auger. He inserted a funnel and was about to pour gas through the hole when police scout cars turned their floodlights on the roof. Anielak tried to flee, but when a detective fired a warning shot at him he surrendered. Fleisher was arrested in the alley. Because Fleisher had broken the terms of his parole, he was sent to Leavenworth Penitentiary to serve out the rest of his original thirty-year Federal sentence while awaiting trial on the Michigan charges.

The two men were charged with three counts: conspiracy to place explosives, breaking and entering, and intent to destroy property with explosives. Each of the counts carried a fifteen-year sentence. Detroit defense lawyers Joseph Louisell and Ivan Barris delayed proceedings for two years until they plea bargained for an attempted arson charge which carried a maximum five-year jail term. It was unlikely that a jury would convict the defendants on the original charges because no explosives were found at the crime scene. The prosecutor didn't want these men acquitted. On October 17, 1960, the men pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of attempted arson and were given a three to five year sentence.

Louis Fleisher was transferred from Leavenworth to Milan Federal Prison to serve out his sentence. On April 3, 1964, he died of a heart attack in his jail cell just nine weeks and two days short of serving out his Detroit conviction for arson and leaving prison a free man. He was fifty-nine-years-old.

***

Louis's older brother Harry and his younger brother Sam also had checkered underworld careers which will be the subject of part two of this post.

The Fleisher Brothers (Part 2) 

Early Detroit Tiger History

Charlie Bennett

Prior to 1894, the Detroit Tigers played minor league baseball and were one of the founding members of the West League that played throughout the Great Lakes states. Owner George Vandereck choose the corner of Michigan and Trumbull Boulevards as their home field. Previously, the vacant lot was used as a local hay market for farmers and livestock owners. Vandereck bought the lot and built Bennett Park--named after a popular Tiger catcher Charlie Bennett--who lost his legs in a railway accident in 1894 while walking on a rain-slick train platform and falling onto the tracks. As the train pulled out, Bennett's left foot and his right leg above the knee were severed, ending his baseball career.

Frank "Old Stone Face" Navin

In 1901, the Tigers joined the new American League as one of its eight founding members. Samuel F. Angus bought the Tigers in 1902 and hired lawyer and baseball enthusiast Frank Joseph Navin to run the club for him. As a young man, Navin was a blackjack and poker dealer in an illegal gambling establishment. He loved horse racing and was an avid wagerer at two racetracks in Windsor, Ontario and attended the Kentucky Derby annually. In 1908, Navin parlayed $5,000 of winnings into buying a significant portion of Tiger stock.

In 1908, Navin bought another large block of shares making him controlling owner and new president of the organization. When Navin's silent business partner William Yawkey--lumber fortune heir--died in 1919, Navin bought his stock becoming full owner of the club. Because he was suddenly cash-poor, he sold 25% of the franchise to auto-body manufacturer Walter Briggs Sr. and 25% to wheel maker John Kelsey of Kelsey-Hayes Corporation. When Kelsey died, Briggs bought his interest in the team becoming an equal co-owner with Navin, but Briggs was content to allow Navin to run the team unhampered.

Frank Navin and Ty Cobb

In 1905, Navin signed legendary Tiger center fielder Ty Cobb for $1,500. The talented ballplayer led the Tigers to their first American League pennant win in 1907. Between seasons, Cobb held out for a $5,000 contract. After bitter negotiations, Navin--a tight-fisted owner--met his match. Cobb was wildly popular with the fans and threatened to expose Navin for the conniving cheapskate he was. The penny-pinching owner quickly did the math and caved-in to Cobb's demand. Cobb led the Tigers to two more consecutive American League pennants in 1908 and 1909 turning a nice profit for the team. Navin made Cobb the team's manager as well as him being the team's star player.

Navin Field

Bennett Park consisted of a wooden grandstand and bleachers. It was the smallest ballpark in the league seating 14,000. Owners Navin and Briggs tore down the obsolete wooden Bennett Park between the 1911 and 1912 seasons and built a concrete and steel stadium seating 23,000 fans--renaming it Navin Field. In 1924, Navin built a second deck increasing seating to 30,000.

By 1931, the Great Depression cut Tiger attendance by 30%. To draw fans to the ballpark, Navin tried to sign the most popular player in the game--Babe Ruth--but he wasn't availabe, so Navin bought out Mickey Cochrane's contact from Philadelphia Athletics manager Connie Mack for $100,000 and made him a player-manager. Cochrane was just what the team needed. He helped the Tigers win pennants in 1934 and 1935.

Mickey Cochran with Grace and Frank Navin--1935

Under Navin's stewardship, the Tigers won four American League pennants but did not win a World Series until the 1935 season, giving the Tigers their first series win. But Navin's victory lap was short-lived. Navin and his wife Grace rode horses several times a week at the Detroit Riding and Hunt Club. Six weeks after the Tigers won the series, Navin went for a solo ride on his favorite horse Masquerader and suffered a fatal heart attack, falling to the ground. When his horse returned riderless to the stable, his wife cried out for help, but it was too late. Navin was dead at age sixty-five. He was buried in Holy Sepulchre Cemetery in Southfield, Michigan in a family mausoleum.

Mickey Cochrane and Walter Briggs

After Navin's death, Walter O. Briggs purchased Navin's stock and became sole owner. Because Briggs made a fortune manufacturing automobile bodies for Ford, Chrysler, Packard, Hudson, and Willys-Overland, he did not need an income from the team and promised not to take a salary during his tenure as owner. In 1938, he changed the name of Navin Field to Briggs Stadium and remained the sole owner of the Tigers until his death in 1952. The stadium was renamed Tiger Stadium in 1961 until the franchise moved to Comerica Park in 2000.

For 104 seasons, the Tigers played baseball at Michigan and Trumbull earning them the distinction of being the oldest continuous one name-one city franchise in major league baseball.

1935--Detroit Tigers, Lions, and Red Wings win their championships. 

How Hollywood Movie Posters Evolved

Since the motion picture industry's infancy in the nineteenth century, posters and billboards were the centerpiece of the studios' advertising campaigns. The first movie posters were simple outside placards listing the program being shown inside auditoriums, nickelodeons, and other public venues. The name of the film, the producer, and the director were listed. There were no movie stars yet. These handbills were distributed on the streets and posted outside businesses or wherever there was foot traffic to incite awareness and generate hype to sell movie tickets.

The first movie poster was created in 1890 by French painter and lithographer Jules Cheret for "Projections Artistiques." In early Hollywood, playbills began illustrating a film's scene or an array of overlaid images from several scenes. Ordinarily, they contained a basic image and text with the film title in large lettering, sometimes with a tag line. Soon, actors' names were added to the posters.

The illustrators were most often anonymous and did not sign their work. They were hired as studio staff. Prior to the 1990s, illustrations instead of photographs were far more common. Today's movie posters contain a billing block in small print at the bottom which includes an array of licensing and consumer information.

Today, movie poster images are used on websites, DVD packaging, magazine ads, and movie databases. They can hint at the plot, highlight the stars, or offer an abstract representation of a key moment in the film.

Between 1940 and 1984, film posters were exclusively made and distributed by the National Screen Service. The advertising traveled with the film canisters from one exhibitor to the next. At the end of the film's run, the posters were returned with the film canisters and pretty beat up. Few survive intact. In the 1980s, the American film studios took over the direct production and distribution of their poster advertising and began to license the sale of poster reprints for fans. These have little or no value to collectors.

The first movie poster auction by a major house occurred on December 11, 1999. Today, original artwork and vintage posters command huge prices. The record price paid for a single poster was $690,000 for Fritz Lang's 1927 film Metropolis, far more than the original film cost to make.

Nine decades of movie posters are depicted with a brief explanation of trends for each decade. There are many fan favorites shown.
http://creativeoverflow.net/the-90-year-evolution-of-movie-posters/

Terror In Ypsilanti--House of Mystery/NBC Radio August 15, 2019

Thank you to the House of Mystery for interviewing me (August 15, 2019) about my true crime book Terror In Ypsilanti and Michigan serial killer John Norman Collins.

The interview occurs 20 minutes into the program and runs for about 25 minutes. The Detroit Fox 2 News feature is in three segments--each with its own link.

Terror In Ypsilanti Los Angeles Radio Interview--August 2019 

Detroit Fox 2 News feature about the Washtenaw County Murders--September 2019

Antoine Cadillac--Detroit's First Godfather

Bust of Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac

An expedition financed by the French monarch--King Louis XIV--and promoted by his Minister of Marine--Comte de Pontchartrain--appointed Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac as their agent to establish a fur trading post and fort in New France. In return, Cadillac was granted generous riverfront real estate. He envisioned a permanent French colony controlling the fur trade routes through the upper Great Lakes, with him at the helm.

Commander Antoine Cadillac led a fleet of 25 large canoes--with 50 soldiers, 50 empire builders, 2 Roman Catholic priests, and his 11-year-old son--on a 52 day trip westward from French-controlled Montreal to the western bank of a swift running river that connected Lac Erie with Lac St. Clair.

This site was chosen because it was the narrowest point of the strait--de troit--which is how Detroit earned its name. There was an eroded 40' clay bluff leading up from the river bank to a flat clearing. Once a fort was built on the plain, anything moving up or down the river could be seen and was in easy range of their cannons. This was a defensible position to discourage the British and control the fur trade.

The empire builders arrived on July 23, 1701 and began work on a log fort Cadillac named after his benefactor--French Minister of Marine--Comte de Pontchartrain. Two days later, a mass was said in honor of Ste. Anne--the patron saint of France and mother of the Virgin Mary. After the service, the foundations for the church were laid. Catholicism had come to the wilderness.

Fort Pontchartrain contained a warehouse which doubled as a store. There were also two guard houses, Ste. Anne's Church, and about 15 houses within the fort. Lots could be no larger than 25 square feet and some were smaller.

In a report about Detroit to his superior officers, Cadillac noted, "Especially attractive was the region that lies south of the pear-like lake to which they gave the name of St. Clair, and the country bordering upon that deep, clear river, a quarter of a league broad, known as Le Detroit.

"On both sides of this strait lie fine, open plains where the deer roam in graceful herds, where bear, by no means fierce and exceedingly good to eat, are to be found, as are also the savory poules d'Indies (wild duck) and other varieties of game. The islands are covered with trees; chestnuts, walnuts, apples, and plums abound; and in season, the wild vines are heavy with grapes.

"Le Detroit is the real center of the lake country--the gateway to the West. It is from there that we can best hold the English in check."

French trade with the local Native American tribes went well for the most part. Cadillac encouraged the Ottawa, Huron, Pottawatomie, Miami, and Wyandotte tribes to cluster together in villages near the fort for protection from their mutual enemies--the Iroquois and the British. In total, Cadillac estimated that there were about 2,000 Indians in and around Fort Pontchartrain allied with the French.

In 1702, the first European baby born in Detroit was the daughter of Alphonse de Tonty--Cadillac's second-in-command--and his wife. Not to be outdone--in 1704--the Cadillac's gave birth to Marie Therese, who became the first recorded baptism christened in Ste. Anne's Church registry.

Cadillac wanted the settlement to grow rapidly, but few if any unattached women were available to single men, so he proposed that christened Indian women be allowed to marry French settlers. The Jesuit priest strongly objected on moral and religious grounds, and the plan was soon rejected. This is likely the first official instance of discrimination in Detroit's long history.

In 1707, Cadillac began issuing farm grants--known as ribbon farms--to attract new settlers. These farms ranged from 200' to 1,000' wide and extended from the shoreline for 2 or 3 miles. Each farm had waterfront access. Many of Detroit's current street names derive from the original ribbon farm grant holders--for instance--Beaubien, Campau, Livernois, Riopell, Dequindre, and others. Cadillac plotted out 68 parcels. 

Cadillac acted like a feudal landlord requiring farmers to pay him an annual rent and a percentage of their grain to use the windmill he had built on the waterfront north of the fort. He was the mill's sole proprietor and could charge whatever he wanted. Renters were also required to work on Cadillac's farm for a specified number of days each year.

To engage in any kind of trade, settlers had to pay a licensing fee and annual taxes. Cadillac grew rich by padding the fees and taxes and skimming off the top. When he withheld the allotment of imported brandy behind padlocked warehouse doors, it was discovered--and reported--that he was trading it to the Indians for beaver pelts. He had defied a Royal decree not to provide liquor to the native population.

When complaints about Cadillac reached Montreal and Paris, King's Deputy Francois Clarembault went to survey Detroit area holdings in 1708 and found they did not match Cadillac's reports. After nineteen days in Detroit, Clarembault returned to Canada and sent his findings off to France. In 1709, Count Pontchartrain wrote to Cadillac complaining that he showed "too much greed and little moderation in his dealings with the settlers."

In 1710, Cadillac was called to Quebec to answer charges against him brought by his detractors. He was acquitted of extortion and abuse of power charges but was removed from his post--never to return to Detroit. The following year, Cadillac was promoted to the governorship of the Louisiana Territory.

Fox 2 News Retrospective of Ypsilanti's Co-Ed Murders

John Norman Collins--1970

If you missed Detroit Fox 2 News investigative reporter Rob Wolcheck's retrospective on the fifty years since the Ypsilanti Co-Ed Murders of 1967 through 1969, this feature story is told over three nights.

For your convenience, I've linked the news segments together in this post.




Part one: Fox 2 News--Ypsilanti Co-Ed Murders 1967-1969

Part two: Who is John Norman Collins?

Part three: http://www.fox2detroit.com/news/local-news/close-calls-and-haunting-roads-life-after-a-suspected-serial-killer-is-arrested

Los Angeles NBC radio interview