He
survived World War One, but was no match for Boston’s Underworld…
by Don Stradley
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Nate Siegel in his prime, circa 1920
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On August 13, 1934, at approximately 2:00 AM, Nate Siegel
was in the living room of his home on 64 Endicott Ave in Revere. His wife and two
children were sleeping, but he was up late, tending to business. He was looking
at receipts from the Clover Leaf Cafe, a tavern on North Shore Road of which he was part owner.
He’d
been a professional boxer a decade earlier and was a hero in his neighborhood;
being a tavern owner was a natural progression for the former welterweight
champ of New England. In the stillness of the early morning hours, he
ruffled through the day’s receipts. At one point he drew the curtain of the front window; as he
did so an assassin with a shotgun fired at him through the glass.
The horrible
blast woke his wife, Clara. She rushed out to find her husband on the floor,
his face, neck and shoulders torn apart, his café receipts scattered around
him. Siegel had died instantly. Police would find the abandoned getaway car a half-mile away
in East Boston’s Orient Heights neighborhood. They described it as a “cheap
sedan” fitted with orange Maine number plates. Wrapped in brown paper and
jammed under the rear seat was a .12-gauge automatic shotgun. The killer,
though, had vanished like one of those shadowy gunmen in an old-time radio
serial.
Conflicting stories emerged. His wife said Siegel had no
enemies. Yet his friends and the café staff said he’d had run-ins with people
all the time. Some members of his inner circle claimed Siegel had talked about being
marked for death. He’d spoken about a gangland plot to “get” him, yet he’d given
no specific reasons and made no effort to conceal his movements or get out of
Revere.
The café had been in the news a few times that year. A young
man had tried committing suicide in the men’s room. He’d been upset after being
spurned by a girlfriend. On another occasion, a night watchman foiled a
burglary attempt. Later, burglars successfully broke in and robbed a peanut
vending machine. Revere was going through a rash of burglaries at the time.
Desperate young men at the height of the Great Depression were resorting to
petty crimes. Yet despite police questioning everyone connected with the place, the Clover Leaf Café couldn’t be connected to Siegel’s murder.
Police speculated that Siegel had come between rival gangs
of liquor distributors. There was talk of an impending gang war, and local
authorities made a lot of noise about breaking up Revere’s “racket conditions.”
Even the Federal Government took an interest. The case was feared to have broader
ramifications than just the death of a tavern owner, and city authorities felt
the local police were ill equipped to handle the investigation. A city
councilman declared, “The police here are so used to gang conditions and
practices that they have become inoculated to them.” He believed outside aid was needed, “in
cleaning up the city.”
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Police examine the supposed getaway car.
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The automobile with the shotgun in it had been reported stolen many
months earlier. The trail reached all the way to Providence, RI, though both
the car and the weapon were registered to fictitious Maine persons. Both the
car and the gun were clean of fingerprints, suggesting to police that the
job was done by professionals, not punks.
The weapon, an automatic shotgun, lent further credence to
Siegel’s murder being a gangland crime. It was the same type of weapon used in
a pair of recent gang murders in Boston, as well as a botched attack on a store
on Boston’s Washington Street. Police believed a killer, or killers, were being
hired by mobsters for what they called “spot jobs.” The guns were expensive new
models, but the police surmised that if a hit man was being paid a good amount
to kill someone, there was no loss in buying a new gun for the job and
discarding it. Like the piece used to kill Siegel, an abandoned shotgun found after
the failed store shooting was registered to a fictional Mainer.
As more information was gathered, the police only grew frustrated. None of the pieces fit together. In time, investigators
couldn’t settle on whether the murder was gang related, or merely a personal
incident that had escalated into violence. Siegel was, his friends said, a bold man who
didn’t back down from anyone.
It also seemed the area’s boxers were getting whacked on a
regular basis. George Brogna, who fought as “Johnny DeLano,” was a
featherweight with a record of 12-9-5. He’d also been deeply involved in
gangland activity and had allegedly killed a local bootlegger, “Big Mike”
Richardi (who had been suspected of killing another fighter, Johnny Vito, in a
similar hit.). In 1933, Brogna’s body was found in Revere. Beaten about the
head and shot three times, 26-year-old Brogna was dumped three miles from his
East Boston home.
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| George Brogna |
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That same year saw the murder of Joseph Wolf, a petty
criminal with gang ties who fought as “Charley ‘KO’ Elkins.” His ring resume
was 15-9-2, plus 72 arrests and 11 appeals. He was found dead on a South End
sidewalk. It was believed that the owner of a local barroom had killed him. Wolf,
a 34 year-old still living with his mother on Harrison Avenue, had tried to
shake the owner down for “protection” money. Big mistake.
In December of 1937, David “Beano” Breen, a former boxer who
became a big name in the Boston rackets, was fatally shot in the lobby of the
Metropolitan Hotel on Tremont Street. Breen was popular in South Boston,
particularly for his donations to local charities, but he also had a lengthy
criminal record, including four arrests for assaulting police officers. “Breen
was big, belligerent, and used his fists,” reported the Globe. As Breen lay dying at City Hospital, orderlies rifled his
pockets and made out with $15.00. It was also noted by the Globe that an unnamed boxing promoter visited police headquarters
to discuss Breen’s murder, and an ex-pugilist from the North End who had
recently served a term for manslaughter was brought in for questioning and
released.
Brogna. Wolf. Siegel. Vito. Breen. Five area fighters killed
in a short time span. This doesn’t even consider the number of Boston fighters
killed accidentally by guns “they didn’t know were loaded,” or in drunken
street fights that intensified into knife murders. The difference between Nate Siegel
and the others was that he’d been a main event fighter, and a damned good one.
He’d grown up in Boston’s West End, where he was said to
have had “a good many scraps.” Siegel began his professional boxing career in
1916, winning several bouts in Boston before joining the war effort in 1917.
After serving 13 months overseas in the 82nd Division (and
suffering shrapnel wounds in the right arm) he resumed fighting in the ring. By
this time his family had settled into Revere’s Beachmont neighborhood, and
Siegel often stayed at their home on the corner of Shirley Avenue and Nahant
Street. It made him a favorite among the locals. Boxing was soaring in
popularity, and Revere had its very own fighter to admire.
A 21 bout undefeated streak was highlighted by a points win
over a shopworn Ted “Kid” Lewis of Britain, and a decision over Tommy Corcoran
(aka “Young Kloby”) in front of 15,000 at Braves Field. The Globe declared the Siegel-Corcoran bout was,
“one of the best battles ever held in Boston.” It also earned Siegel the
welterweight championship of New England, a minor title that no doubt filled
its winner and his loved ones with pride.
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Siegel, circa 1921
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Siegel was a celebrity, known for speeding around Boston and
Revere in his Cadillac. He was colorful, a capable trash talker. He could also tell entertaining stories about the war. His popularity was at its peak in 1922 when his bout with Dave Shade at the Boston Arena was filmed, making it the first Boston bout captured on celluloid.
He was especially proud of his Jewish heritage, always sticking it to promoters
who had once tried to saddle him with an Irish gimmick. “Why should I change my
name and put on green tights?” Siegel said. “Can’t the Irish do their own
fighting?” The irony was that his tavern had an Irish motif – the cloverleaf –
and most of the clientele was Irish.
If Siegel wasn’t willing to become Irish, he was more than
happy to compete against the area’s many Irish brawlers, particularly Patrick
J. “Paddy” Flynn of Everett. The Siegel - Flynn series had everything – not
only was it a Jewish fighter versus an Irishman (one of boxing’s hot ethnic
rivalries of the period), but their respective hometowns, Revere and Everett,
had always been competitive in amateur tournaments. Moreover, the camps of
Siegel and Flynn had a rather loud rivalry in the press, hurling insults back
and forth. Promoters had a small goldmine in Siegel and Flynn. They fought twice
at the Boston Armory in 1920, and once at the Boston Arena in 1921.
Siegel won the first two bouts on points, but they were
close enough that another meeting was called for. The third bout, which
headlined the first boxing show at the Arena after it had been damaged by a
fire in 1918, turned out to be a dud. Both fighters showed up overweight, and
Flynn was so listless that the referee stopped the fight in the eighth and gave
it to the Revere man. “He had every round,” the Boston Post wrote of Siegel, “but gained little prestige from the fray.”
Siegel’s time at the top was fleeting. He lost several
bouts, including a pair to future Hall of Famer Mickey Walker, the second of
which saw Siegel knocked cold for several minutes. On May 27, 1924, immediately
after a loss to Rocky Smith at Boston’s Grand Opera House, Siegel retired from fighting.
He left the boxing business with a record of 39-16-14 with 17 wins by KO and
two no-decisions.
Siegel settled down with Clara, became a father, and
occasionally offered his services as a boxing trainer. He was a well-liked man
in the Beachmont neighborhood. His café was popular. Life was nice.
His murder at age 38 left the police baffled. State
Detective John F. Stokes wondered aloud for the Globe at Siegel’s carelessness on the night of his death. If, as
his associates claimed, Siegel knew gangsters were after him, why was he so
cavalier about standing in front of his window? Did he think his pursuers had
been called off? Or was Siegel merely acting in what his friends described as his
“courageous and defiant manner?”
Chances are, this fighting man who had been in the ring as
well as the front lines of World War One felt there was nothing to fear.
Siegel’s funeral was a major event. More than 7,000 mourners
gathered along the streets of Revere as a cortege of 165 cars proceeded to a
nearby synagogue.
The Siegel case remained unsolved. There were attempts to
link it to other unsolved Revere killings in the next few years, particularly
for shooting victims involved in the city’s underground gambling racket.
Whether Siegel had been involved in gambling was never established.
Siegel’s old rival Paddy Flynn also came to a
grisly end. Four years after Siegel’s death, an unknown assailant murdered
Flynn at a Malden gaming house. Flynn died as doctors tried to remove a .22
slug from his brain.
What are the chances that Siegel and Flynn, who had battled
each other three times, would both be shot and killed, and both of their
murders would go unsolved? Those who saw them fight at the old Boston Armory thought
it was just another local rivalry. They couldn’t have known they were watching
two doomed men.
***
My book, Slaughter in the Streets, explores a period of time where many Boston area boxers were killed in what appeared to be mob-related ambushes. Most went unsolved. For reasons of length, the section on Nate Siegel was cut. I've always wanted to share it.
If you'd like to read the book, look for it on Amazon. https://rb.gy/2qfxin
