Dark Harbor

The War for the New York Waterfront

Nonfiction, History, Americas, United States, 20th Century, Social & Cultural Studies, True Crime
Cover of the book Dark Harbor by Nathan Ward, Farrar, Straus and Giroux
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Author: Nathan Ward ISBN: 9781429933407
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux Publication: June 8, 2010
Imprint: Farrar, Straus and Giroux Language: English
Author: Nathan Ward
ISBN: 9781429933407
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Publication: June 8, 2010
Imprint: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Language: English

What if the world of the old New York waterfront was as violent and mob-controlled as it appears in Hollywood movies? Well, it really was, and the story of its downfall, told here in high style by Nathan Ward, is the original New York mob story.

New York Sun reporter Malcolm "Mike" Johnson was sent to cover the murder of a West Side boss stevedore and discovered a "waterfront jungle, set against a background of New York's magnificent skyscrapers" and providing "rich pickings for criminal gangs." Racketeers ran their territories while doubling as union officers, from the West Side's "Cockeye" Dunn, who'd kill for any amount of dock space, to Jersey City's Charlie Yanowsky, who controlled rackets and hiring until he was ice-picked to death.

Johnson's hard-hitting investigative series won a Pulitzer Prize, inspired a screenplay by Arthur Miller, and prompted Elia Kazan's Oscar-winning film On the Waterfront. And yet J. Edgar Hoover denied the existence of organized crime - even as the government's dramatic hearings into waterfront misdeeds became must-see television.

In Dark Harbor, Nathan Ward tells this archetypal crime story as if for the first time, taking the reader back to a city, and an era, at once more corrupt and more innocent than our own.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

What if the world of the old New York waterfront was as violent and mob-controlled as it appears in Hollywood movies? Well, it really was, and the story of its downfall, told here in high style by Nathan Ward, is the original New York mob story.

New York Sun reporter Malcolm "Mike" Johnson was sent to cover the murder of a West Side boss stevedore and discovered a "waterfront jungle, set against a background of New York's magnificent skyscrapers" and providing "rich pickings for criminal gangs." Racketeers ran their territories while doubling as union officers, from the West Side's "Cockeye" Dunn, who'd kill for any amount of dock space, to Jersey City's Charlie Yanowsky, who controlled rackets and hiring until he was ice-picked to death.

Johnson's hard-hitting investigative series won a Pulitzer Prize, inspired a screenplay by Arthur Miller, and prompted Elia Kazan's Oscar-winning film On the Waterfront. And yet J. Edgar Hoover denied the existence of organized crime - even as the government's dramatic hearings into waterfront misdeeds became must-see television.

In Dark Harbor, Nathan Ward tells this archetypal crime story as if for the first time, taking the reader back to a city, and an era, at once more corrupt and more innocent than our own.

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