Mobsters, Gangs, Criminals and Crooks – Allie “Tick Tock” Tannenbaum

He was rail-slim (140 lbs . – tops), and strikingly handsome. Nevertheless Allie Tannenbaum, who commenced out as a employee in his father’s Catskill lodge, became one particular of Murder Incorporated’s most attained killers. Tannenbaum also grew to become a rat, who helped set his boss, Louis “Lepke” Buchalter, into the electric powered chair.

Tannenbaum was born on January 17, 1906, in Nanticoke, Pennsylvania. When Tannenbaum was just two decades aged, his father Sam moved the spouse and children to Orchard Street, on the Lessen East Facet of Manhattan. In New York Metropolis, Sam Tannenbaum, as he did in Pennsylvania, ran a general shop. As a teenager, Allie Tannenbaum experienced the habit of generally speaking, speaking, talking. He talked so a great deal, persons reported he sounded like a clock — that’s why, the nickname “Tick Tock.”

Just after Entire world War I, Sam Tannenbaum gathered sufficient dollars to order the Loch Sheldrake Nation Club, in the Catskills, in upstate New York. By the time his father bought the country club, Allie was presently in his third 12 months of large school (he also later attended higher education for a couple of semesters). This was really an accomplishment, since most boys Tannenbaum’s age, on the Decreased East Side, had now dropped out of faculty after the 8th grade, and were operating at positions, some lawful, and some not so authorized. Generating use of his son’s abilities, Sam Tannenbaum used Allie at his resort, both ready on tables, or setting up seaside chairs at the lake. Despite the early grunt do the job he imposed on his son, Sam Tannenbaum was grooming Allie as his eventual substitute. However, that was not to be.

The Loch Sheldrake Nation Club was a ritzy institution, and it housed quite a few prosperous Jewish family members, for their summer time vacations. Jewish gangsters also frequented the nation club. Amongst them had been Harry “Greenie” Greenberg, Louis Lepke, and his associate Jacob “Gurrah” Shapiro. Shapiro was a thick-chested gorilla-of-a-man, who equipped the muscle mass for Lepke’s quite a few unlawful enterprises. Each time Shapiro was angry, and that was normally, his favorite phrase was “Get out of in this article.” But, with his gravelly voice, the phrase sounded like “Gurra dahere.” As a result, his pals gave Shapiro the nickname “Gurrah.”

Allie Tannenbaum became acquainted with numerous of the place golf equipment visitors, which includes Shimmy Salles, who was a bagman for Lepke’s rackets, Curly Holtz, a labor racketeer, and even Lepke himself. As the owner’s son, the Jewish gangsters invited Tannenbaum to all their parties. Tannenbaum, as per his arrangement with his father, did not get compensated a single dime, until finally after the summertime, which fundamentally ended the vacation resort period. When Tannenbaum walked close to his father’s vacation resort useless broke, he seen that all the Jewish gangsters had a great deal of income to spread all-around. This manufactured him a probable suspect to be drawn into their entire world of structured crime.

At the close of the summer season in 1931, Tannenbaum was strolling down Broadway in Manhattan, when he bumped into Significant Harry Schacter, a single of Lepke’s underlings.

Schacter questioned Tannenbaum, “Do you want a occupation?”

“I could use 1, if it pays,” Tannenbaum mentioned.

Schacter smiled. “This 1 is for Lepke. You know what variety of a job it will be.”

Tannenbaum shrugged, and explained he would do regardless of what it took to gain some fancy dollars.

Tannenbaum begun functioning for Lepke, at first for $35 a 7 days. His task incorporated basic assignments like slugging, strikebreaking, and throwing stink bombs wherever they had been needed to be thrown. Tannenbaum later graduated to additional significant responsibilities, like “schlammings,” which meant he “schlammed,”or cracked the heads of union workers, who were being not towing Lepke’s line.

As his operate generation increased, so did Tannenbaum’s shell out. Ultimately Tannenbaum, who by then experienced been associated in 6 murders, and aided dispose of the overall body of a seventh murder victim, was raking in an remarkable $125 a 7 days. Simply because of Tannenbaum’s summer season area in the Catskills, his job primarily integrated murders, and extortions, in upstate New York. Tannenbaum was a valuable asset to Lepke in Sullivan County, due to the fact Tannenbaum was acquainted with the back again highways, and many lakes, wherever bodies could be stashed. Through the winter season, Tannenbaum, and his loved ones, vacationed in Florida, wherever Tannenbaum labored as a solid-arm-gentleman, in quite a few of Lepke’s gambling joints.

Tannenbaum’s biggest strike for Lepke was the 1939 killing of Harry “Major Greenie” Greenberg, who was suspected of conversing to the governing administration about Lepke’s pursuits. Tannenbaum was given the assignment to murder Greenberg by Lepke, by means of just one of Lepke’s intermediaries (to insulate himself from any connection to a murder, Lepke hardly ever gave orders to his killers himself).

Tannenbaum stalked Greenberg, initially to Montréal, then to Detroit, in advance of ultimately cornering Greenberg in Los Angeles. On November 23, 1939, Tannenbaum, along with Bugsy Siegel, stood in wait around outside the house Greenberg’s condominium building. When Greenberg emerged, Tannenbaum and Siegel riddled “Significant Greenie” with bullets. This was regarded as the first “mob killing” in Southern California.

In 1940, Tannenbaum was vacationing in Florida, when he received the news that Lepke experienced been arrested, and that Murder Included killer, Abe “Kid Twist” Reles, was now singing like a canary, about the perform of Murder Incorporated. Tannenbaum right away took a prepare to New York City, and went to the property of Charlie “The Bug” Workman, yet another 1 of Lepke’s prime killers. The motive for Tannenbaum’s check out, was that he sought financing from Workman to go on the lam in Detroit. As luck would have it, as Tannenbaum and Workman ended up sitting down in Workman’s residing area, Detective Abraham Belsky knocked on the door to arrest Workman. Belsky was pleasantly surprised when he found Tannenbaum there as well.

At initially, Tannenbaum refused to squeal. When Tannenbaum was questioned by the police about a three-day interval, he regularly claimed, “I refuse to answer on the grounds of my constitutional rights.”

Nevertheless, District Attorney Deckelman all of a sudden strike Tannenbaum with an indictment, charging Tannenbaum, and “Pittsburgh Phil” Strauss, with the 1936 murder of Irv Ashkenaz, a taxicab owner, who was ratting to the cops about Lepke’s taxi racket in Manhattan. Ashkenaz’s body was discovered near the entrance of a Catskills resort, riddled with sixteen bullets.

“We have received plenty of on you to place you in the chair,” District Attorney Deckelman informed Tannenbaum.

All of a unexpected Tannenbaum, residing up to his nickname of “Tick Tock,” started out chatting nonstop. Tannenbaum advised Deckelman about all the murders he was involved with, and how they have been connected to Lepke.

On the witness stand, in the course of Lepke’s path, Tannenbaum place the last nail in Lepke’s coffin, when he testified about the working day he listened to Lepke purchase the murder of a sweet retailer operator named Joe Rosen. Lepke was normally cool and gathered, and cautious about what he stated in front of any person. In reality, Lepke under no circumstances gave Tannenbaum a immediate purchase to kill. This details was usually relayed to Tannenbaum through an middleman, shut to Lepke.

Nonetheless, in 1936, Tannenbaum was provided the purchase, by Mendy Weiss, to eliminate Irv Ashkenaz. But, Tannenbaum was informed by Weiss to report immediately to Lepke, when the deed was performed. Just after disposing of Ashkenaz, Tannenbaum went to Lepke’s midtown office environment, to convey to Lepke that Ashkenaz was in fact lifeless. When he entered Lepke’s business office, Tannenbaum encountered an irate Lepke, screaming at Max Rubin, just one of Lepke’s closest confidants.

Tannenbaum testified on the witness stand to District Lawyer Burton Turkus, “Lepke was yelling that he gave this Joe Rosen funds to go away, and then he sneaks back into a candy retail outlet, soon after he tells him to stay absent. Lepke was hollering: ‘There is one son of a bitch that will by no means go down to chat to Dewey about me.’ Max (Rubin) was attempting to quiet him down. He was indicating, “get it easy choose it straightforward Louis. I am going to cope with Joe Rosen he is all right.'”

“What did Lepke say to that?” Turkus requested Tannenbaum.

Tannenbaum replied, “He says, ‘You advised me that before.’ He says ‘This is the finish of it. I am fed up with that son of a bitch.’ He states, ‘and I’ll get treatment of him.”

Tannenbaum testified that two times immediately after his come across with Lepke and Rubin, in Lepke’s business, he browse in the newspapers that Joe Rosen experienced been shot 16 periods, as he was opening up his sweet store in Brownsville, Brooklyn.

Tannenbaum’s testimony, relating to the Rosen murder, corroborated the testimony of Abe Reles, and was a deadly blow to Lepke. It took the jury only four several hours to convict Lepke of to start with-diploma murder, which landed Lepke in the electrical chair 4 decades later. For his testimony against Lepke, Tannenbaum was offered a limited jail sentence, a gentle slap on the wrist for a guy, who had fully commited at least six murders.

Very little is known about what Tannenbaum did for the rest of his daily life. He seemed to have disappeared from the encounter of the earth, other than for the situations when he reappeared, to testify against his old murderous pals. In the e-book “Challenging Jews” by Wealthy Cohen, Cohen says, in the 1950’s, Tannenbaum labored in Atlanta for a even though, as a lampshade salesmen.

In 1950, Tannenbaum came out of the woodwork, and testified at the murder demo of Jack Parisi, an additional Murder Included hit-male, who experienced been on the lam for 10 yrs. Even with Tannenbaum’s testimony, a choose discovered Parisi not guilty.

In 1976, not like most of his contemporaries, Tannenbaum died of purely natural will cause, on an unnamed island off the coastline of Florida. He was 70 yrs old.