Vanishing Point: The Disappearance of Judge Crater, and the New York He Left Behind
by Richard J. Tofel
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The sudden disappearance of Judge Joseph Crater nearly 75 years ago led to perhaps the most famous missing persons case of the twentieth century. Crater, a justice of New York's state Supreme Court, vanished amid political scandal. Within days, questions arose about Judge Crater's finances and his liaisons with numerous women. A public frenzy about what happened to Crater provided impetus for scrutiny of New York's Tammany Hall political machine--and ultimately for the vanishing of Tammany show more Hall as well. The cast of characters in this book--the first-ever serious look at the Crater case--includes Franklin D. Roosevelt, the governor who named Crater to the bench; Senator Robert Wagner, Crater's mentor, but also the leader with the most to lose from having Crater found; Al Smith, Tammany's ebbing leader and failed presidential candidate; Jimmy Walker, the rogue Mayor of New York City and the darling of Tammany Hall; and Fiorello La Guardia, the crusading reformer who finally came to power on the back of the scandals. Richard J. Tofel's Vanishing Point is a revealing look at New York as the Jazz Age gave way to the Depression, and at one of the most intriguing stories in the annals of urban America. show lessTags
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Vanishing Point is one of only two full-length books about the infamous 1930 disappearance of Joseph Force Crater, the other book being Crater's wife's memoir, The Empty Robe. Studying both books as a unit will reveal much about Crater's disappearance; Mrs. Crater's is more personal, but Tofel's has an objectivity the memoir necessarily lacks. One gets the impression that Tofel really wanted to write about Tammany Hall politics and was just using the Crater mystery as an excuse to do so, as much of his book concerns the life and crimes of various other New York politicians who were only tangentially connected to Crater. But you can easily skip over those parts if they don't interest you.
Tofel's conclusion is that Crater died of natural show more causes while patronizing a well-known house of prostitution, and his body was disposed of to prevent the scandal that would have resulted. I suppose there is much evidence supporting this theory as there is for any of the many others—that is, none. But no matter what supposition you subscribe to, Crater's disappearance remains an engaging mystery. show less
Tofel's conclusion is that Crater died of natural show more causes while patronizing a well-known house of prostitution, and his body was disposed of to prevent the scandal that would have resulted. I suppose there is much evidence supporting this theory as there is for any of the many others—that is, none. But no matter what supposition you subscribe to, Crater's disappearance remains an engaging mystery. show less
A fun little read...a real-life mystery set in pre-WWII New York City.
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216 works; 16 members
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7 Works 121 Members
Richard Tofel is assistant to the publisher of the Wall Street Journal and a vice president of Dow Jones & Company. A graduate of Harvard College, the Harvard Law School, and the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, he frequently reviews baseball for the Journal
Classifications
- Genres
- Nonfiction, History, Politics and Government, General Nonfiction, Biography & Memoir
- DDC/MDS
- 347.747 — Society, government, & culture Law U.S. Supreme Court - Judicial Decisions North America Northeastern U.S.
- LCC
- KF373 .C68 .T64 — Law Law of the United States Law of the United States (Federal) History
- BISAC
Statistics
- Members
- 30
- Popularity
- 929,612
- Reviews
- 2
- Rating
- (3.60)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper
- ISBNs
- 1
