[Manuscript/Crime] A. [Aaron] Zwerling. LA VITA QUOTIDIANA AL PRESENTE. [Daily Life at Present.]
[1921-1931]. Zwerling (b. 1882) was a native of Lviv (Lemberg), a cultural center now in western Ukraine, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Zwerling immigrated to the US in 1901 as a 19-year old bookkeeper. He settled in New York City. For some reason he was denied naturalization in 1914. He was the conductor and later an interpreter for the District Magistrates Court on Grand Avenue in the Bronx. This unusual volume discusses crime in the Big Apple during the “Roaring 20’s.” The author records in Italian a mind numbing catalog of robberies, murders, assaults, arsons, suicides, rapes, drug and alcohol-related offenses committed during Prohibition in greater New York City and neighboring New Jersey. From a speakeasy in Greenwich Village to “The Flapper Bandit in an Italian Restaurant,” Zwerling chronicles the criminal parade of the period. While he has a focus on Italian gangsters, he does not neglect the other ethnicities including “Two Gun” Crowley. Kept in “the Standard Daily Reminder: 1921," a volume preprinted with the date at the top of each page carrying a “1921” date, but the text covers events [1921-1931]. 234pp plus blank portions. Minor dampstain. Some internal loosening (nearly unavoidable in a handwritten volume). Sold with all faults.
1.2 Lb.