“The Incorruptibles” book reading with author Dan Slater

Join us in welcoming author Dan Slater for a reading from his book, The Incorruptibles: A True Story of Kingpins, Crime Busters, and the Birth of the American Underworld on March 8th at 7pm.

The event is free. Copies of the book will be for sale and available for signing after a Q&A period.

About the book:

This harrowing tale of early twentieth century New York reveals the true stories of an immigrant underworld, a secret vice squad, and the rise of organized crime.

In the early 1900s, prior to World War I, New York City was a vortex of vice and corruption. On the Lower East Side, then the most crowded ghetto on earth, Eastern European Jews formed a dense web of crime syndicates. Gangs of horse poisoners and casino owners, pimps and prostitutes, thieves and thugs, jockeyed for dominance while their family members and neighbors toiled in the unregulated garment industry.

But when the notorious murder of a gambler attracted global attention, a coterie of affluent German-Jewish uptowners decided to take matters into their own hands. Worried about the anti-immigration lobby and the uncertain future of Jewish Americans, the uptowners marshaled a strictly off-the-books vice squad led by an ambitious young reformer.

The squad, known as the Incorruptibles, took the fight to the heart of crime in the city, waging war on the sin they saw as threatening the future of their community. Their efforts, however, led to unforeseen consequences in the form of a new mobster class who realized, in the country’s burgeoning reform efforts, unprecedented opportunities to amass power.

In this mesmerizing and atmospheric account, drawn from never-before-seen sources and peopled with unforgettable characters, Dan Slater tells an epic and often brutal saga of crime and redemption, exhuming a buried history that shaped our modern world.

About the author
A graduate of Colgate University, New York Film Academy, and Brooklyn Law School, Dan Slater has written for more than a dozen publications, including the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, the Atlantic, GQ, and the New Yorker. The New York Times called his last book, Wolf Boys, “unforgettable,” and the Chicago Public Library named it a best book of the year.

His new book, The Incorruptibles, about the Jewish underworld of the Lower East Side, was published to wide acclaim this past summer. The New York Post called The Incorruptibles “required reading,” and the New York Times called it “unrivaled” and chose it as an editor’s pick. The Wall Street Journal wrote that it’s “a deeply researched and fluidly written corrective to the conventional picture of what life was like on those mean streets.” Raised in Minnesota, Dan lives in New England with his wife and their two sons.

Parking:
1- We have a small lot behind the store accessible from Hiddink Street. Our back door is open.
2- The LIRR lot is one block away- right next to the Gas station across the street on Depot Street. There are over 100 spots.
3- There is limited short-term street parking on Railroad Avenue.