Beth Petta wonders about the potential of starting a "mob museum" to showcase Schenectady's past as an illegal gambling/racketeering hub.
Petta, a Channel 16 public access board member, was surprised when I told her Las Vegas is working on a similar project. Mayor Oscar Goodman, a former nationally known mob lawyer, had the brainstorm.
Of course, Schenectady's racketeering history can't compare with Vegas'. Yet, it has an interesting seamy past.
Hundreds worked under the counter in the city's illegal gambling industry. There were multiple bookmaking joints in every neighborhood. Bookies and their runners were all over the place.
When 40,000 worked at GE, bookies had a captive audience for the daily numbers game. This underground operation flourished for decades before the state decided to become the legalized bookie.
Illegal gambling was rampant in most of the Capital Region, but Schenectady was the center, taking large layoff action from other counties.
GEville's racket bosses didn't resort to violence, unlike Utica and Rochester, where the machine gunning and car bombing of competitors happened.
Schenectady bookies' chief crime was buying politicians and crooked cops. Two police chiefs resigned in the 1950s because they were linked to racketeers.
Anyway, a mob museum would be novel, but bookmakers never had much in the way of job tools. Portraits of the bookies and newspaper story reproductions dealing with corruption might be interesting.
City Councilwoman Barbara Blanchard likes the idea, but believes finding funding would be difficult.
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Brad Littlefield
August 22, 2008, 6:07am
Guest User
They can't be serious. Celebrating criminal activity? Will this form of recognition inspire Schenectady's current criminal element to achieve greater accomplishment and fame?
That's ok Brad. Just think, that in 50+ years, they may propose a "Drug Dealer's Museum".
I am speechless to even think that Councilwoman Barbara Blanchard would even consider celebrating crime. Just when you think you have heard it all. Again, I am speechless!
The Bookies are probably paying for it. Yes, they're still around, and still active, and still taking action from the surrounding counties.
Yes they definitely are still around! They just don't have the control/monopoly anymore since the government decided to join in on the pay load.
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
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