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1920s Manhattan and the Wise Guys Who Ran It

‘Gangsterland: A Tour Through the Dark Heart of the Jazz-Age New York City’ is an entertaining, authoritative, and encyclopedic guide to the city’s colorful decade of crookedness.

Jack Benton/Getty Images
Arnold Rothstein (1883-1928) holds a wall-mounted telephone at his desk, circa 1915. Jack Benton/Getty Images
CARL ROLLYSON
CARL ROLLYSON

‘Gangsterland: A Tour Through the Dark Heart of the Jazz-Age New York City’
By David Pietrusza
Diversion Books, 310 pages

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CARL ROLLYSON
CARL ROLLYSON

Mr. Rollyson is the author of The Life of William Faulkner and The Last Days of Sylvia Plath. He has published fourteen biographies and has written about biography for The Wall Street Journal, The Washington, Post, The San Francisco Chronicle, The New Criterion, and other publications.

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